I despair of Sony ever deciding to do anything to make their customers life simpler. Sony-BMG have announced they are facing up to reality and releasing music without DRM. In typical style for the current Sony management, they cannot even do the right thing right. Rather than just release their catalog to one of the existing online distributers like iTunes or Amazon in unprotected form, they are releaseing only 37 albums and they are available only from Sony’s Musicpass store. The details of the albums they are releaseing are in their press release.
And just to turn a bad idea into a completely stupid one, they have created a long and complicated process to buy an album online.
1 – Go to a store, that’s right an actual physical trip to a store like BestBuy or Target where you could also buy the physical CD while you are there.
2 – Buy a “Platinum MusicPass” gift card for $12.99
3 – Scratch said card for a code number to validate an album purchase
4 – Go back home and log into MusicPass
5 – Use your code to buy an album from the extensive selection of 37 available.
6 – Wonder why you have no option to buy an individual song
7 – Step into the room of mirrors and have a good long look at yourself, trying in vain to rationalise that what you have done to purchase some music is superior in any way to any other method of getting music.
8 – Resolve to never buy anything Sony sells ever again for fear that their stupidity might somehow rub off on you.
A similarly incredulous blogger on Dvorak Uncensored posts an amusing comparison to a potential new pizza puchasing system.
[It was unbelievably hard to write this post expletive free!]