Clay Aiken wants my PC for Christmas

So my wife bought a Christmas CD - she likes Clay Aiken.

Aw heck, I should admit I like Clay Aiken. The "geek turned good" from American Idol, poster-boy for special-education causes, and, well, the boy can sing.

But this time, he's gone too far - he wants to own my PC.

Say wha?

Yes, you heard me, he wants my PC for Christmas. Apprently, it's not good enough that I buy his music and play it, he wants to make sure that I run some piece of software designed to prevent me from playing his CD in any normal media player.

Here's the proof:

Oh, my word - an "appropriately configured computer"? What they mean is "a computer set to auto-run anything you slam in the drive, and with you logged on as administrator, so that it'll run our software and take over your machine before you get a chance to listen to the golden-throated, toussle-haired nerd-boy whom you paid ten good bucks to listen to".

But these guys can be trusted right? How about I follow the link and see what they have to tell me to reassure me that they are acceptable custodians of my computer. What do I see?

"It has come to our attention that a security vulnerability may exist with regard to Version 5 of SunnComm's MediaMax content protection software."

Later, these hypocrites even have the nerve to tell me how bad it is that Apple won't make it easy to move their tunes from their copyright protected CDs to the iPod.

So, as you guys know by now, if you've been reading my blog, I really dislike DRM for home use - so I'm returning Clay's CD.

Clay doesn't need to own another PC, and he certainly isn't getting mine - has he got yours?

Published Sat, Dec 2 2006 21:54 by Alun Jones
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Comments

# re: Clay Aiken wants my PC for Christmas

Clay will never own my computer - nor will any of these other <insert country here> Idol "winners".

I like steak.  I'm not so much a fan of mince.  I like real meat.  Same with music - I like real music, not the pre-softened, sliced and diced and (supposedly) easy to digest rubbish that is being put out by <insert country here> Idol participants.  There's no way that any of their crappy anti-piracy (like ANYONE would want to copy that crap anyway) junk will infect or otherwise degrade the performance of my computer.

Nor my ears!

Regards,

HiltonT

(hiltont.blogspot.com)

Wednesday, December 06, 2006 3:12 AM by HiltonT

# re: Clay Aiken wants my PC for Christmas

It's not about whether or not you like the content - you're going to see this on a lot of music CDs, whether it's commercial tat or something more to your liking (let me guess - you're a country music fan?).

So, you have to decide if you're going to use your PC to play CDs, and if you are, how you're going to protect your systems from untrusted and unknown content that arrives on them through DRM that you weren't paying attention to.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006 4:41 PM by Alun Jones

# re: Clay Aiken wants my PC for Christmas

http://www.sonybmgcdtechsettlement.com/Faq.htm

Please read about the Sony BMG lawsuit, which had nothing to do with Clay Aiken and everything to do with corporate bungling.  

Clay Aiken's excellent Christmas cd is available without this software and you are entitled to a copy.  You'll be glad you took the trouble to acquire it.  It's a very nice album.  His mini-release this Christmas, "All is Well" was a Walmart exclusive and sold out immediately.

His latest album "A Thousand Different Ways" is terrific.  It wasn't Clay's idea to do mostly covers for his sophomore album, but he brought a new sound and his personal style to them and the original songs on the album (one of which he co-wrote) are great. If you purchase a copy of the album through iTunes, you will be able to hear "Lover All Alone", for which he wrote the lyrics.  

All the latest Clay Aiken news is here:

http://www.claynationnews.com/

Cheers!

Monday, January 22, 2007 12:44 AM by DawnC

# re: Clay Aiken wants my PC for Christmas

Thanks for the links - although I have to note the irony of suggesting first that I get a DRM-free version of the CD, and then that I should download from iTunes.

However, I think you and I both managed to leave out the most important of Clay's links - http://www.thebubelaikenfoundation.org/ - linking to Clay's foundation supporting children of different abilities engaging in inclusive activities.

When I was growing up, disabled kids were never seen out in "the real world", which is practically criminal. Inclusion is often a positive influence on both the disabled and the more-able kids.

As the parent of a child on the autistic spectrum, I have nothing but appreciation for Clay's work in the area of inclusion.

Monday, January 22, 2007 8:31 AM by Alun Jones

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