Nora Jones new CD -- Copy Protection -- YIKES

I agree with Budrew's sentiments, "punishing" the good consumers like those of us posting on A-Gon, is not a wise marketing decision.

I have payed for 100% of the music that I own, and I've spent hours ripping my favorite tracks onto my 120 Gig hard drive. In fact, I bought a 200 Gig drive to back-up the 120, so my effort wouldn’t be lost.

If I can't continue to rip, and make copies for my own use, I will NOT purchase the software, no matter the performer!

If music sales are down, screwing with the folks that are religious buyers, is a monumental marketing mistake.

All future Blue Note purchases, copy protected or not, will not be considered if any of their releases are copy protected.

Whether they give a rat's &%$$ or not we should at least speak up. I don't mean we should rant and be rude about, but email them and inform them of how we listen to our music these days. Without customer feedback how are they to know what's really going on.

It is incorrect to assume that any business can ingore lost income. Every penny of sales matters. Lost profits expose poor decisions. A small but vocal groups can often generate enough noise to change policies.

I had already sent an email and now I will follow it up with a phone call.

I have paid for all the music in my collection (over 1000 records and 2300 disks). I do make some CD copies. I have copied for use in the car and on my second system. I do make compliations for personal use. I have never made a copy a friend.

The point is that I will only purchase a high quality product from a company that is up front with their customers.

Businesses do care about angry customers. Angry customers are more likely to influence others to avoid purchases.

I have 23 years experience coaching businessmen. None of them want negative feelings about their products.

Before posting above, I expressed my sentiments to Blue Note, and as others have suggested, the more that do, the better.

I spent too many years making compilations the hard way -- via reel-to-reel and cassettes. I don't intend going backwards.

We should make our voice known to the music purveyors by communicating same -- phone, e-mail, and by not opening our wallets for any of their products, if one is copy protected....

Depending on what type of "protection" the cd has..it is crackable. On copy protected discs this outer track is corrupted, which prevents copying, or even playback, by PCs but is ignored (at least in theory) by regular CD players. Covering up the outer track via a magic marker disables the protection, allowing a disc to be played as normal in a PC or Mac.

The technique may sound risky, but I did it to the latest "A Perfect Circle" release with success.

In the end, record companies are killing themselves and it is great. I will NOT buy the Norah cd but will pick it up on vinyl in March. I usually buy both as I did with the latest Radio Head but I refuse this time. My system set-up only consists of my Rega 25 and my iPod for digital use so ripping failure is not an option. More and more people are getting outraged by the actions of greedy record companies and are NOT buying the material which they previously would buy. I love it. Its just sad that some music might get lost in this "war"