With one hand they sell “enhanced-CDs” with additional video or promotional material which can only be seen by using a computer. With the other they spank you for using your PC to play a regular CD.

I just got the CD “Songs for the Deaf” by “Queens of the Stone Age” and put it in my PC. It froze the computer. I went through the normal CTRL-ALT-DEL fix-it steps, trying to shut things down and recover, and it crashed the system. Then it wouldn’t fully reboot. It also wouldn’t eject the CD. I finally removed the CD while rebooting for the third time by hitting the eject button before Windows started. And then the PC recovered.

This CD has no warnings on it about not using it in a computer or being copy protected. I checked the web, and sure enough, it is listed as one of the CDs that uses especially severe copy protection.

I’m listening to in on the stereo that’s in the other room as I write this and it’s playing fine. When it’s done, although I like the CD, I’m returning it. I expect a fight because they’ll want to give me the same disc. We’ll see what their policy is, but those are the rumors.

For now I’ll just warn others that the warnings I’ve been hearing are real.