Sony sez: Guilty until proven innocent

Those rat bastards at Sony BMG now have owned up to the astounding crappiness of their anti-piracy software, XCP, which not only makes your legally obtained music hard to deal with but also opens up little doors to viruses on your computer. They haven't owned up, of course, to the moral fallacy of assuming that every music buyer is a criminal (for chrissakes, if I was into downloading music, why the hell would I be buying an $18 CD in the first place???), but I guess that's too much to expect.

Anyway, Sony BMG, which originally refused to release a list of affected CDs and claimed there were only 20 or so titles affected, now has posted the full list -- more than 50 CDs, some of which may well have been purchased by hickorywind.org readers. So look here to see if you're affected by the badness, and to save you time here are some alt-countryish things I saw on there:

Neil Diamond - 12 Songs
Patty Loveless - Dreaming my Dreams
Jon Randall - Walking Among the Living
Flatt & Scruggs - Foggy Mountain Jamboree
Earl Scruggs - I Saw The Light With Some Help From My Friends
Trey Anastasio - Shine
Roseanne Cash (reissues) - Interiors, King's Record Shop, Seven Year Ache

If you have any of the affected CDs, the soulless sumbitches at Sony BMG have kindly offered a program wherein you can ship them free ... but only from a UPS Store or via UPS pickup. Which means you may be shit out of luck if, say, you live in a rural area or are an American living overseas (ahem). If you're based overseas with the U.S. military, you can return your evil discs to your AAFES store for a refund (not sure if you had to have bought the CD there) or exchange for a non-XCP'd version of the same title. Not sure whether the Navy exchanges are running a similar policy. I'm also not sure whether XCP crap-nology was used on CDs sold outside the U.S. Anyone know?

I just hope this serves as a cautionary tale for other music companies planning to add copy-protection software to their CDs. The moral of the tale? If you can't find a way to protect from illegal sharing that won't treat your customers like criminals, you're not ready to launch it. I'm no technology expert, nor am I a business strategist, but I don't think any method that in any way punishes or insults your money-spending customers is very smart. You want to keep those folks on your side, I'd think. I'm against copying music and I never do it, but when I buy a CD that fucks up my computer and assumes I'm pirating music, well, I find myself tempted to earn my punishment. Free copy of Black Rebel Motorcycle's "Howl," anyone?