Stupid Copy Protection Causes Problems With Velvet Revolver CD

I recently bought Velvet Revolver's new CD, Contraband. The other day I ripped it into iTunes so I could play it on my iPod.

Today I tried to listen to some of that music and it sounded garbled in a rather odd way. Every track from the disc sounded that way, too. I quickly remembered seeing some sticker on the packaging saying something about a copy protection scheme. Some searching quickly found an answer to the problem. In summary, all they did was make the disc minorly difficult to copy and made me realize I'll have to look more closely at the label when I buy a CD--and maybe not buy it. I'll be e-mailing BMG Media Max Customer Care to express my feelings, too.

Thanks to the above-linked article I've re-ripped the CD and it sounds good. It's worth noting that another way to work around this form of copy protection is to simply insert the CD before Windows starts up.

I have nothing against copyright and DRM--in fact, I'm in favor of them. I think the artist/owner should be able to keep a grasp of their product as well as get paid for it. It's their hard work; they deserve the profit from sales of it. Stealing music from the web or copying movies takes away from the value of the owners product. Blah, blah blah, so on and so forth. Since I legally own this CD, though, and the right to make copies of it for my own personal use, I expect to be able to do just that.