Sunday, November 20, 2005

Eh, I feel like ranting.

If I buy the Foo Fighters and My Morning Jacket's new albums (which I'd like to), I'm definitely downloading them straight from one of the pay-per-album/track sites I go to. I'm really unhappy with what Sony is doing. Not only are they treating me like a criminal (me, who's spent hundreds of dollars at Musicmatch.com), but they're altering my computer in such a way as to leave me open to damaging viruses. I was originally just mad that I had to jump through hoops to burn my own cd onto my own blank disc or mp3 player. That's reason enough for me to boycott--but now it allows "rootkits" to be placed on my computer? Yeesh! I'm not even sure I want to download these songs. Sorry Dave Grolsch--I love ya and ya band, but it's not worth my privacy. Here's another article on the subject.

This blog was mentioned in the DRM article, and it seems like a good resource. Also, Annoyances is definitely a good name for a Windows users website. I will definitely consider moving to Mac when my current machine fizzles. Apparently it's oblivious to copyright protection prompts.

I originally started with an article in a Cleveland newspaper first posted by hunterxtc on Livejournal.

Here's another article, this one from a poor guy who actually said yes to the software of death. According to this article, though, the software on the Foo Fighters cd is from Sunncomm, which isn't the same software company that the New York Times and DRM Watch article is about. Still, I certainly don't trust it and I don't like the idea that you can't completely delete it from your system, no matter how many hoops you jump through. And let's be honest--I'm lucky I know basic html. I would be lost trying to do all that stuff this guy has to do. I'd be roadkill on Sony's highway. I'd be screwed, basically. I really am afraid to even download the songs from musicmatch.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you are on top of all the major sources.

I went through my cD collection over the weekend, and the only SONY discs I have are pre DRM, so I'm pretty sure I'm clean.

Gknee said...

they are recalling all their CDs that have that "protection" on it.
Here is yet another article about it.

Unknown said...

Thanks both of you. I got really upset about it. That's why I've been putting off buying the Foo Fighters new cd (which I really, really want) because I wanted to see what all this was about.

I don't know if they're going to make any available without the protection. I certainly don't want that crap on my computer--I wouldn't even want it if it didn't leave me open to viruses. I just don't like the principle :/

I'm going to see if downloading a song or two from either them or My Morning Jacket from musicmatch.com will be problematic.

Gknee said...

I'm also a huge fan of iTunes now. I like that I can browse the songs and just download them. face it..I'm lazy.

Unknown said...

I have Itunes, too...they save into a file that won't play on my mp3 player (unless there's a trick I don't know).
I like the way it looks, though--and it's easy to use. I pretty much just use musicmatch--it downloads into a windows media file (if I remember correctly), and that's playable on my my player, plus if I absolutely want it as an mp3 I can burn it to a cd and re-upload it to musicmatch. That's a pain, though :)

Gknee said...

What I do is burn them to CD and then rip the cd into Mp3 to get them to my mp3 player.

Unknown said...

I have to rip the cd back onto my computer using Musicmatch--that's the only program I have that encodes music into mp3s. Windows Media does into a windows media file, Real Player uses Real format, etc. Musicmatch is the only one I've found that uses plain old mp3 format.

it's annoying having to burn the songs to a cd, then re-rip them onto my computer, but I do what I have to do to get it onto my mp3 player :)

By the by---are you having problems with myspace? It hasn't worked for me all day. I mean--what do I pay it for? *G*