Playlist just screwed me over April 3, 2009

I logged into Playlist today and had a red message up that read, “Due to licensing restrictions, some tracks are currently unavailable for playing in your country.” I clicked on my favorite playlist, one I have spent hours getting just right. Just the right mix of angry, complicated rock and fun, peppy pop. Deep male voices and angelic female vocals. Dark, rageful and lighthearted fun. And of the 31 tracks, a whopping 8 are available to me.

WHAT THE HELL?

Is there a way to copy songs from playlist that I don’t know about? Exactly how does me listening to songs in Germany vs listening in the U.S. violate licensing? I am so incredibly pissed off. And you know what? This doesn’t make me want to go out and buy any of the music which is now unavailable to me. It makes me want to learn how to pirate music and then mail the artists some money directly since they are the talent I wish to support, not the fat, bloated, record company executive ass-clowns who make the really big money. I would like to send Dolly Parton a couple of bucks and a nice letter that say, “Hey, I illegally copied some of your songs. I want you to continue to make music and I want to support you in that so here’s some money. I’m sending it to you instead of buying your CD’s because I think the record companies are a bunch of life sucking, greedy bastards.

But alas, that’s not what I’m going to do. Instead, I’m going to rant and rave about it. I’m going to support open source projects like Ubuntu and Wikipedia and do my little part to screw people who do not believe in freedom of information. And I’m not going to buy any CD’s. Screw ‘em. Screw ‘em all.