The modern record label's approach to the consumer in a nutshell: yesterday I was shopping at Virgin and there were two editions of Brian Eno's Music For Airports, one for $17.99 and one for $22.99. The $22.99 edition had the evil evil copy protection system more and more releases seem to be sporting. Now I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this (I think a bunch of Eno's stuff is being remastered and re-released) but the message seems to be clear: please pay more so you can do less. Although seeing as the copy protection schemes so far devised are easily bypassed, the message is to please pay more so you can be slightly inconvenienced when you attempt to rip this CD, but that's not quite so pithy.
Posted by Bill Stilwell at February 06, 2005 10:16 PM