Talk Like A Pirate, Be A Pirate

Today was talk like a pirate day, and I didn't even get in a single "Yarrr." Oh well.

Speaking of pirates, here's a suggestion for why piracy exists: because the legal way of doing things is such a huge pain in the ass. Case in point: I decided to redeem a couple of iTunes gift cards tonight. I had one for $15 and one for a "free song."

So I open up iTunes and go to the store. The directions on the back of the card say to:
1: Open iTunes and click Music Store.
2. Click Prepaid Cards.
3. Enter the code shown when requested.
4. Download your songs. Enjoy.

Ok, open iTunes, got it. Click Music Store...um, no Music Store. There's iTunes Store, that's close enough. Prepaid Cards, Prepaid Cards...there is no Prepaid Cards. Ok, I'll just put my music in the cart and go from there.

I've got 16 bucks to spend, so I'll buy a whole album and some singles. The first thing I spot is Black Sabbath - The Dio Years. $11.99 for the album of 17 songs. Sweet action. Then I see The Donnas have a new album out, so I grab the title track Bitchin'. Next up is some classic Foo Fighters, Learn to Fly and My Hero. Finally, I grab the new Nickelback single, Rockstar.

That's my 16 bucks, so I go to my cart to check out. My total is $15.95 plus applicable sales tax. I click "Buy Now" and am presented with a pop-up window that says, "Your credit card will be charged for your purchase." Whoa, whoa, whoa, where do I enter my gift code? What the fuck, man?

I back out, and go back to the home page to look around some more. Aha, there we go. "Redeem." Fantastic. I enter my codes, and I'm good to go. My account now shows I have a "1 Song + $15.00" credit. I hit the Buy Now button again. It says my account will be debited, I click Ok. Then it pops up again, and says "Your available credit is not sufficient to cover the cost of your purchase. You will be charged for the remainder." Uh, what? Where exactly did you take math, iTunes? The back of a Cracker Jack box? Whatever, I click Ok. It starts downloading my songs. My account now shows I have a credit of $0.04. Awesome, I can totally do something with $0.04.

Once my songs are downloaded, I double click on the first one to play it. Instead of playing, it pops up a window. This one says, "This computer is not authorized to play this song. Do you want to authorize it?" No, I don't. I want to sit and stare at it. Of course I want to fucking authorize it, I just fucking paid for it and downloaded it, didn't I? Jesus Christ. I click Ok, and it pops up another window. It wants me to log in to my iTunes account. I do, and it pops up yet another window, and says, "This is authorization number 2. You can authorize up to 5 PCs to play this song."

Wait. Back up. Hold on. What? Authorization number 2? What happened to number 1? And what happens when I have to reformat my hard drive? What happens if my computer crashes? What happens when I get a new computer? I eventually lose the music that I paid for, because of your authorization bullshit? Are you fucking kidding me?

And these assholes wonder why sales are falling. They wonder why piracy is running rampant. They can't figure out why people don't want to pay them their hard earned dollars to be treated like fucking criminals. They can't understand why someone would want to download a song off the internet without all the goddamned copy protection and authorization and unlocking bullshit just to listen to some fucking music.

So here's what I say: In honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day, every day from now on, I declare Be A Pirate Day. Show these RIAA fucks where to stick it.