Don't Tell Me How to Use My CDs

There's a couple of reasons I don't buy cds from major labels (or in general). One of those reasons is that I work for an online music magazine, Decoy Music, and receive promotional copies of many of the cds from labels for review purposes since I am in charge of the reviews department at Decoy. For the most part, I get mailed to me most of the music I would want to listen to (as well as a crap-ton of junk from bands that suck more than they know). Sometimes, though, I don't get promos of bands or cds that I really want. It's at this time that I am stuck wondering what to do.

I mostly listen to my music on my work PC, my home PC (it serves as my home stereo), and my portable MP3 player (for when I'm anywhere other than home or work). I like to avoid buying cds from major labels mostly because they just don't get what consumers want. With the whole Sony rootkit fiasco I'm even less inclined to buy cds, especially since I was infected by their rootkit since I bought the Masters of Horror cd.

Now you have Virgin Records dictating to you how you can use their cds. Seriously, this is enough. I rarely buy cds as it is, but with tactics such as this I am now really really rarely going to buy a cd, and if I do it'll probably be from an upstart band just trying to make a few dollars to keep writing music.

Where can I listen to cds if they won't work on a PC and can't be ripped to MP3? Well, my car stereo is about it. So I can listen to a Virgin Records release for the 8 minutes to work and from work and then on the weekends I travel or when I have to make business trips to Iowa. Well, during those times I don't want to because I'm listening to audiobooks.

This is ludicrous and I really hope that people start to examine the cds they buy and put back anything that comes from Sony/BMG or Virgin or any other label that basically says "Screw you!" to their customers. They've lost any future sales they had from me. And they wonder why sales are slumping. It almost makes me feel dirty to simply work in the music sector at all.