DRM and Dead Musicians

First published here.

I was out shopping last weekend and I ran into the most pathetic excuse for a sales pitch I've heard in a long time.

Being a fan of old jazz, blues and the big band sounds of the 1930s and 40s, I'm one of those people with a huge collection of bargain bin CDs. P2P is great but sometimes I just can't be bothered searching for the old obscure stuff which, for some reason, seems to only be popular with people on very unreliable 56k connections.

Having 40 or 50 half completed mp3s in my download queue for months is a real pain, so every now and then I just go out and buy the cheap compilation CDs. I figure five bucks for 30 odd tracks is pretty good for the amount of time and effort I save (hmm...wonder what would happen to the pirate hoards if all CDs were $5?)

So I walked into the local record shop, heading for the Jazz/Big Band section where I found a CD with a nice mix of old sounds. I took the five dollars out of my wallet, looked at the CD case again and what did I see written in very small print on the back?

"This disc contains Copy Control technology. Problems may be enountered on some playback devices."

This was just stupid. All the musicians featured on the CD have been dead several decades, for a start. We're talking about the Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller kind of era, here. Normally, I refuse to buy any CD with DRM crapware, but I really wanted this one. Maybe I'd be lucky. Maybe it would play alright on my laptop.

I decided to ask the sales guy.

"Hey man, this says the CD might not play properly on some playback devices. What does that mean?" I asked him.

"Does it? Let me see", he looked at the small print, comfortingly entitled "WARNING". "Yeah that just means you can't copy it", was the answer.

"Yeah, but it says the CD might not play", I reminded him.

"Yeah, you might get that in car CD players", was the response.

"What about on a PC?"

"Yeah, you might get issues on a PC CD player too".

"Like what?"

"I don't know".

"Does it depend on the program I use to play it?"

"Yeah, maybe".

"Like, would I get problems on Windows Media Player".

"Maybe".

"Or WinAmp?"

"Dude, I don't know".

Now the situation was moving past stupid into the realms of ridiculous.

"Would it be related to the drive brand?", I asked. "Would a Teac DW-224E be okay?"

"Mate, I really don't know."

"Well, can I return it if it doesn't play on my laptop?"

"I don't think so. I'll have to check with the manager".

"Has nobody ever asked this before?'

"No. You're the first." He gave me a dirty look while saying that.

"Look mate", I said, (yes, we Aussies really do speak like that) "This CD has the little Compact Disc logo on it, so it should play in any CD player that also has the logo."

"Man, it's only $5. It's no big deal", was his reply.

Aha! The truth comes out. It doesn't have to be a good product. It doesn't even have to be a functioning product. Apparently, consumers (sorry, customers) are just going to keep handing over money for physical CDs, regardless of whether they can play the music contained on them and without thought for whatever software may be automatically installed on any device the DRM makers can get it to work on.

I have some suggestions for the retail sector on this:

1) To EMI ('cause it was their frickin' DRM) - Send out some kind of information pack to the poor schmuck behind the sales desk for when annoying customers (sorry, consumers) like me ask what the hell they're actually buying.

2) To the poor schmuck behind the sales desk - Don't be surprised if you get those kind of questions in the future. Not everyone is prepared to take a punt on whether the thing they fork out their cash for will actually work.

3) To the poor schmuck's manager - Get a "DRM returns" policy. CDs that can't be played on devices with the little Compact Disc logo aren't technically Compact Discs because they don't follow the Compact Disc standard (called the Red Book), so don't try to hock off those pieces of plastic on an unsuspecting public. Oh, and read up on some some basic consumer law (or should that be customer law?) because I'm pretty sure you'll find something about not being allowed to sell products that don't fit their marketed description. Selling non-CDs in a CD shop could put you in a sticky legal situation.

As you can imagine, I didn't end up buying the big band compilation CD, which was a pity. Luckily I had a stack of CDs and 8 gigabytes worth of old tunes at home to soothe my frustation.

But seriously now - is John Coltrane going to be pissed at me for downloading Blue Train? I'd hate to show disrespect for the dead.