Warning: Non-technical rant ahead.

I have to admit that I didn't care too much about RIAA, copyright protection act, DRM, and so on for a simple reason: I tend to actually buy my stuff. Oh, yes, I downloaded songs from Napster several years ago: exactly 13 tracks from a wonderful CD by The Cranberries which I bought but which unfortunately didn't survive a party at a friend's house. That was it. No more Napster for me. Ever.

So why should I care about RIAA, copyright protection acts, DRMs, and such? It certainly doesn't affect my way of listening, right?

Well. Things changed the day before I went to my recent trip to the US. I once again visited my favorite record store and came back with about ten or fifteen new CDs to listen to while on the upcoming 25 hours on planes and airports before hitting the desert in California. I was in a great mood as I found a number of nice artists which I didn't listen to before. Now, you have to know that I travel quite a bit, hitting roughly 120,000 airmiles this year. I somehow can't take hundreds of CDs with me during these trips, right? Instead, the first thing I do with my CDs is to copy them to my harddrive by the virtues of Windows Media Player - a thing I've been doing for quite some time now with all the CDs I ever bought.

Not so this time: Insert the first CD. "Copy to Disk". Media Player hangs. Hmmmhh. Try it in regular audio CD player. Works. OK, well. Try the next one. Same result. Hmmm. Examine the cover more closely. Ohhh ... There it is. Sized approximately 0.25x0.25 inches, a small symbol: This CD only works in regular CD players, not with computers. Examined the other CDs: more than half of my newly bought CDs sported similar signs.

The CDs also displayed the URL to a web page explaining the publisher's policy - including the possiblity to give feedback on it. That's what I did, explaining - in very calm and reasonable words - that there might actually be some customers who don't want to screw them by digitizing the music which they bought but who travel a lot and simply want to take their hundreds of bought CDs with them in digital format. And that they might lose some of their business if they continue with policies like this. (Well, at least I am not going to buy any copy protected CD as they are absolutely worthless for me if I can't listen to them while on the road.)

I definitely felt better afterwards. At least for the next five seconds before the confirmation email reached my inbox, similar to "Thanks, we appreciate your feedback. The reason for this copy protection is that we lose 5 billions of sales each year by criminals who rip and distribute our music. And by the way, did you know that using any means to circumvent this copy protection is illegal and we will sue you for it if we ever find out." Very nice response, indeed. If I were an artist or author, I would be ashamed of my publisher representing me this way.

So I gave in to my fate. No new music for me on this trip. But hey, I still have my newly acquired first season of 24 on DVD. That's what I wanted to watch right now. I inserted it into my laptop's DVD player only to read the following notice: " ... exporting this DVD out of the European Union is only allowed with written notice from Twentieths Century Fox Home Entertainment ..." [1]

I'm still thinking of whether or not I might dare to ignore the DVD's warning and - filthy criminal that I am - watch my bought copy of this DVD right now, outside of the European Union. But let me propose an offer: If you are a representative from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, please send me an email so that I can give you my home address to send your indictment to. If you are really, really quick I might even give you my hotel address to catch me red-handed while I'm still watching it.

You know what? I'm an author. I also earn royalties. I pay for my stuff. I don't screw artists. I'm not an open source/GNU/FSF zealot. I don't support "all software has to be free" or "copyright should be abandoned" attitudes. I buy my music. I buy my software. All of them. I just don't like it if companies treat me as a criminal first and as a customer second. But I guess I'm just too naive, expecting that I might actually be allowed to listen to music which I bought or watch DVDs which I bought.

This world is in a really sorry state.

[1] Interestingly enough, this notice is not printed anywhere on the DVD or the package. If you've never watched the DVD before, then you'll only see it after you've already illegally exported it and inserted it into your DVD player.