I now know why music sales tumbled and kids are downloading music instead of buying legitimate music.   Actually, I knew a long time ago, but this week, I experienced first hand why I should not be buying (some) CDs anymore.   I recently purchase a CD.   A group called Switchfoot.  My kid liked the music and there were a few songs off it that I like.   I will admit that I download the odd piece of music.  But for the most part, MP3's are lower quality than playing off a CD.   If I decide to keep the music, I usually go out and buy the CD.  So I bought Switchfoot's CD, Nothing is Sound.   I should have clued in as soon as I saw the labelling on the back.   It said Windows XP compatible, Apple OSX compatible etc.   Like some other CDs I have from the past, I thought it had a video included for playback on a computer.

I put the CD on my CD player and it sounded great.  I put it in my Mac and up popped iTunes, it didn't sound as good, but listenable.  Okay for putting on my iPod, but definately less fidelity than the CD itself.   So I went to my other room and popped the CD on my Windows PC.   I was only going to play the thing, but up popped my virus scanner screaming there was a virus in a program called DRM.exe.  It didn't even ask if I what I wanted to do with the CD (play it or read it as a data CD or open it with one of my various music players).  So this CD loads its own music player.   It does allow you to rip the music to disk.   It does not allow you to make a copy of the CD (for backup purposes), but allows you to rip the music.   But it does install its own driver and you can only rip the music with the program on the CD...at noticeable lower fidelity for backup or onto your iPod/MP3 player.   Making a copy of the CD using Nero renders a CD that plays screeching noises on your CD player, but unplayable in a computer.

I'm returning the CD and Switchfoot along with any other music on their label has lost music sales and a fan.