Wait till they start doing it to CDs with good music

Although one may view it as karmic punishment for encouraging Celine Dion to keep recording more audio diarrhea, it’s still bad news: there are reports that the copy-prevention (or copy-protection, as the Techniban like to call it) on Celine Dion’s latest waste of polycarbonate screws up Macs. The CD won’t eject, it messes with the way the computer subsequently boots up, and may even mess up the drive’s firmware.

The ironic thing is that a Mac was very likely used in the recording of her latest album.

For those of you who are in Canada and shop at HMV (or if there’s a CD shop in your city with a return-for-exchange, no-questions-asked policy like HMV’s), I suggest you buy a copy-protected CD and then exchange it. At HMV, when you exchange a CD this way, they make a note of the reason for the return. Say it’s because you don’t approve of the copy protection; you have the right to play CDs on the computer, and fair use laws allow you to make personal MP3 copies and mixed tapes and CDs. The record companies might not care much for their customers, but they do listen to their retailers.

Thanks to Cory at BoingBoing for the heads-up.