Can't buy the new Neil Diamond album

[Jyqm]

You can tell I'm pissed when I actually put an emoticon in the tag of my post. But one look at the Amazon customer reviews of Neil Diamond's new album should tell you why:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...music&n=507846

Unfortunately, Sony is using Neil Diamond as one of its accomplices in its attempt to hijack and infect consumers' computers and not allow consumers fair use of their own music.

Can anyone confirm if this is true? Will 12 Songs not allow itself to be imported into iTunes?

If that's the case, I simply can't justify buying this album. Even putting righteous indignation aside, it would just be a waste of money for me. Yes, I have a CD player, but I listen to my music on my iPod. Whether I'm sitting at my desk or walking around town, that's where all of my music is, and that's how I want to listen to it.

Sony doesn't agree. This is partly a dinosaur tactic to discourage copying of the CD (although one really has to wonder, of all the artists on Son't roster, is Neil Diamond really one that they think is at high-risk of being copied and downloaded illegally?), and partly a dig at Apple for not agreeing to the demands of Sony and other record labels to alter some of the features of iTunes. But of course this corporate feuding only hurts the consumer (and the artist) and makes Sony look like a bunch of assholes.

So I just can't justify buying this album, as excited as I am to hear it. So I suffer and Neil suffers, because Sony is a despicable company. Anybody else want to start boycotting their products and writing letters until they give up these kinds of games?

Neil might not even know about it; I should write an e-mail to his website or something.