I returned some (so-called) CDs today. Here is a copy of the letter I just sent EMI Canada via the feedback form on their web site:
I recently purchased a copy of the CD entitled Chinatown by The Be Good Tanyas. The faulty CD would not play in my car, in my computer, nor in one of my home CD players. I exchanged the CD for another copy, and encountered the same difficulties. I subsequently discovered the CD was produced faulty on purpose by EMI Canada—it breaks the Red Book standard with copy control technology. In fact, I suppose therefore it is not technically a “CD” at all.
Needless to say, I returned the disc for a refund. I thought it prudent to let EMI Canada know that this sale was lost solely due to your decision to break from the Red Book standard.
Previously, I have purchased many scores of CDs by EMI artists, including Andrew Hill, Kathy Mattea, John Mayall, Gob, Beastie Boys, Juliana Theory, Etta James, and many others. I shall check for the EMI Canada logo in future and refrain from purchasing music you publish under the assumption that all EMI Canada discs are faulty by intent. When I returned The Be Good Tanyas' disc I also returned my still unopened copies of the latest (so-called) CDs by If We Were Us and Alexisonfire, assuming them to be faulty as well since they carried the EMI Canada logo.
The mind boggling thing is that the persons at EMI Canada who decided to break the Red Book standard with a crippling technology that wastes your customers' time and creates barriers to sales, not to mention inducing antipathy toward the label, have probably been wondering just why it is so many people opt to download music instead of purchasing CDs.
Clearly, the “Keep Music Coming” campaign is a big waste of time when a label itself is so actively encouraging us to do otherwise.
I await their response, if any, which will probably be some missive about how the (non-)CD is labeled as such, and how (so-called) piracy is the reason audio CD sales are down (instead of the fact that fewer CDs are published, or the fact that the boom of replacing records with CDs is over, or the fact that the public knows fully well the material cost of blank CD media compared to music CD retail prices, or the fact that the general public couldn't give a toss about big music labels and doesn't see the few pennies the artist would have received as sufficient incentive to purchase a $25 disc, and on and on.) Whatever. EMI Canada lost my business today.
If we don't support record labels, some day there won't be any.
