A Frustrating David Tao CD
First of all - I'd like to emphasize that the title of today's article is "A Frustrating David Tao 'CD'", not "A Frustrating David Tao 'Album'". There IS a difference between them - I would explain it below.

Last Saturday I bought the new album of David Tao which he had spent over two years producing it (In case anybody outside Asia doesn't know, in the asian market, a singer releases an album twice or more a year usually). I've not really listened to any of the songs in it yet before buying but in the reputation of DT, I've made no reservation when finding a price tag of HK$75 (less than US$10) at store on display.

Then the nightmare began. When I look at the backcover on the way back home, there's a couple of small words about "Copy Control CD" at the bottom which an normal person wouldn't notice that when shopping a CD in the "conventional Hong Kong Mini-Shop Arcade" environment (anybody doesn't have any clue please come to visit HK for the ultimate experience). Let me stress here it is not a pirated copy - it is bought in a very small (probably the size of an ATM service corner with 3 machines) shop in Wanchai. People usually just go right into the cashier counter (after visiting HMV for preview) and tell the keeper the name of the CD/DVD they wanna buy then pay & leave with the products wrapped in a small plastic bag from the keeper in less than 3 seconds.

When I put the CD into my PC (a very very normal practice in the year 2005 when Hi-Fi is already out in everyday life except the theatre experience in watching DVD or you are taking a day-off sitting at home doing nth), a window pop-up telling me that I must allow sth to be installed in my PC before I could listen to it. That I knew I was cheated by the music industry. OK - fine, I press "ok" in such "no-choice" situation unless you give up listening to it. Then a totally stranger CD player interface popped-up and play the songs. I have no way to transfer the songs into my mp3 player as you could expected.

Fair enough I could only admitted to myself that it IS¡@my own fault that I have not read the small words before paying. So I decided to bring the CD back to office for listening after office hours in overtime. You got it right - more to come! Since I'm not the administrator of the office network I have no right to allow the CD to install anything in my office workstation, thus making my efforts of bringing the CD back totaly useless!

Can you believe that somebody who paid real $ to support the music industry would result in no right to listen it in their mp3 & office pc? Now I understand why people download mp3 all the time. If somebody from or near the industry reads this, please can they be more active in making their products accessible and usable in future.
- posted by 7rev @ 01:51