The companies that are currently putting copy protection on CDROMs have no clue about consumer reactions and paradigm shift. If they did, they would think twice before trying anything as lame as CDROM "copy protection".
Case history - I purchase music all the time. Over the years, I've accumulated over 500 Vinyl albums, 15 or so pre-vinyl (78's - very brittle) albums, and over 200 CDs. I buy mostly new. If I can find what I want used, fine. I have eclectic tastes, and have everything from classical to rock, new age jazz, to big band, to traditional jazz, to industrial to punk, to old country and bluegrass. I even have 1 k-tel disco album <ick!>. I have Mozart to Motorhead, from Brubeck to Barnes & Barnes, from New Bomb Turks to Old and In The Way, Black Oak Arkansas to The White Stripes. Let's face it, I like music!
My buying habits may change though.
I use a Gnutella client called Limewire and I run Kazaa as well (both available for free from CNet's Download.com). I have for quite a while. They give me samples of great stuff that I might never have otherwise known about. Shared samples of a diverse range of music thanks to freely available software and peer to peer networking is the paradigm shift that I was referring to above. Music companies must not appreciate just how much good is being done for their record sales by these clients. I hear a song or 2 that I download from peer to peer, and I say to myself, "Wow! That's great stuff!". Then I go seek out the CD by that group, bring it home, and play it on one of my computers while I'm working. The only time I use a portable player is when I'm on the road or out walking. Otherwise, computer CD or computer DVD drives are what I use to play them. No point wasting AA batteries when there's a perfectly good computer or 2 around!
Recently, I bought a CD by the Dropkick Murphys, called "The Gang's All Here" (on the Hellcat Records label, Lot number on the CD is 171389-4W1-9040-A *80413-2*). On my portable CD player it played just fine. When I put the CD into my i-Mac, it spit the CD out. So I tried it on the P4. No such luck, it just made nasty squealing noises. So I tried another CD- that's when I discovered that the other CD that used to play on the PC and Mac (Squeeze - A Round and A Bout) NO LONGER FUNCTIONED! After a reboot, the Mac got back to being able to play CDs again, but the P4 WMPlayer app didn't do anything, even after a re-install. I finally got it to play CDs, but the Media Player Visualizer graphics are now dead when I play CDs. Visualizer still works when playing MP3s.
I should point out that there was no standard CD/Compact Disk trademark label on the CD. There was also NO WARNING saying it would hose computer equipment. There was in in the liner notes the phrase "GET OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND GET A LIFE!", but I wouldn't exactly call that a warning on a punk/metal CD.
There was also no way I could have known about any of this crippling of functionality before I bought the CD, as I purchased it at Tower Records as a special order. No Returns on opened special orders. By the way, a lot of stores, including Target, Wal-Mart, and Fry's Electronics, won't take back an opened CD. Let the buyer beware!
SO - A CDROM KILLED MY ABILITY TO FULLY ENJOY CDROMS IN MY P4! How much sense does that make? MP3s still play just fine. Quite a sales gimmick- "we'll make it so the consumer won't be as anxious to buy CD's because they may damage his equipment, and they won't play properly on half of what he owns". Yea, that'll work.
I've since learned that some of the new CDs are even worse than that!
Celine Dion CD Crashes Computers, causes iMacs to Lockup and not even be able to boot, without taking it in to a dealer for repairs.
Because the industry seems to be heading in that direction, what can I, as a consumer, do? I'm not about to give up music, but I'm definitely going to change the way I think about purchasing it! Do I want to pay $15.00 for a piece of plastic physically worth under a dollar, knowing that it might be crippled, and might cripple my machine in the process of trying to play it?
Or will I be more likely to just be satisfied with the MP3s, and wish I could trust a label to not do such things. I purchase for the artwork in the CD as well, but it's just not worth it to me if the new CDs won't yield the performance I expect from them.
Hi. I just wanted you to know that I enjoy what you do. Listening to music is one of my life's great joys.
I would appreciate it if you read the case above and think about your fans. Please consider that the 'net has changed everything about the way people interact with each other, and the way they spend money. I would be the first to acknowledge that you should be paid for your work. I would also like you to know that the current record label practices make me skittish about purchasing music from companies that seem to have no respect for my rather expensive equipment.
I would encourage you to think about new distribution channels- Sell your MP3s directly in a premium quality, high signal to noise ratio, wide frequency response format. Eliminate the middleman (middleperson?). I don't mind paying for the music, I've done that all my life. I just want to get my music in a form that won't put my equipment at risk.
Thanks for your time.
Update,7-16-2002: Don't just take my work for it. Here's a similar, yet more detailed, view on the subject from recording artist Janis Ian.