:: What the....? ::

I've been a Sarah McLachlan fan for years, not rabid or anything, but I've seen her live about a dozen times and have all her albums.

It's been six years since she's released anything new. So it isn't surprising that I would have pre-ordered her new album, "Afterglow" [ flash required to view well ]

It came in the mail today from Indigo and I promptly opened it up, popped it into my PC (I've never bothered to buy a stereo for my office, since I have a high-quality sound card and speakers attached to my computer). I waited for the autorun to activate and for that sweet and haunting voice to emerge.

It didn't happen.

Instead, I was greeted with a screen from something called "Bandlink" that looked like a popup ad. Now, at first, I thought it was because I'd been browsing eBay and Canada.com and had both of these still open in browser windows. I thought perhaps that a popup had made it through my Google toolbar popup suppressor.

Nope. The popup was from Sarah's CD.

Hmmm...

I double-clicked on the E: drive and find it called "Bandlink". No other files apparent on the CD other than this Bandlink.exe thing. Even the CD icon showing for the E: drive is a Bandlink icon, not an icon from Sarah or Nettwerk, her production company, or anything else recognizably Sarah-related.

After 10 minutes of fiddling, I gave up. I could not access Sarah's music if I didn't install this software thingie.

With a big sigh of disgust and resignation, I gave in. I have no other choice -- as I said, I have no stereo up here.

I read the privacy statement and usage agreement for this bandlink thingie, as best I could given the highly jargoned legal language used. I watched the CD "install the software, though in reality it looks like it was downloading the music?!?!

2 minutes later, ahhhhhhh there she was.

But I'm still nonplussed.

What did I just buy? I was under the impression I was buying a CD full of music. I've got to assume there is music on the CD, or else how will I be able to play it in my car on my way to class later?

If so though, why are the music files "invisible" to my PC? Is this Nettwerk's way of circumventing digital appropriation?

The Bandlink site says this of their software. But read the small print at the bottom...i.e.:

By uniting the existing CD media distribution model with online media and new software technology, Bandlink offers the full power of the Internet without the loss of revenue and piracy issues common to many Internet Music services.

So...

Bemused and somewhat unsettled, I sit here, listening to Sarah's sublime voice slide out of my PC's speakers, wondering.

Have I just been greeted with the next one-up strategy of corporate control over culture and popular tactics, with the strategy now disguised as a copyright protection gadget and forced on me against my will?

Sarah isn't sounding quite as sweet today.