Why I Hate DRM

Why I hate Digital Rights Management...

I bought the CD of Scarlett Johansson's album. Great album - a Tom Waits tribute album with David Sitek on TV On The Radio producing with guests from TV On The Radio, Celebration, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, backing vocals from David Bowie. Scarlett even has one original song on the CD, which fits in perfectly. Plus, 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell selected the song order, bravely placing an intrumental (Fawn) as track number one.

There are two iTunes-only bonus tracks, Yesterday Is Here (the B-side of her 7"-only single Falling Down) and I'll Shoot The Moon. But - you can't buy the two songs separate so I bought the "full album" option, the only iTunes option. I then discovered this version is DRM. DAMN! I can live with it but circumventing the DRM is a pain I should not have to deal with in the first place.

So, next, I decide I want her song Summertime, which she recorded for the compilation Unexpected Dreams: Songs From The Stars. I just want the song file, not the full album or CD format. I avoided iTunes this time. Amazon has it! So I'm virtually done buying it at the checkout when it says "sorry, US only customers allowed to buy MP3s at Amazon". DAMN! So I try those semi-legal Russian MP3 sites. Not there yet.

Solution? I simply typed "Scarlett Johansson + Summertime MP3" into Google and the first result was someone's blog with a non-DRM 192 kbps MP3 ready for download.

In the end, no one got paid. Screw 'em (not Scarlett though, I doubt she knows what DRM is even). I wonder if Rhino (ScarJo's label) is aware DRM stopped a sale from happening. Rhino is completely messed up - selling only Windows Media Audio files. WMA?!? Won't work in an iPod. Great marketing decision!

I strongly advise you to avoid all forms of DRM and write the affected label in question that you're not happy with DRM.

That is why I hate DRM...

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