As you can see in my previous post, I have a new PC in the office. This involves logging back in to all my accounts and setting things up just the way I like them, which can take a significant amount of time if you happen to be particular about it, which I am.

One of the things I did was copy my music library over to the second hard drive so i can have access to it here. I don’t use it all that much, I tend to rely on YouTube more often (although I’m not sure why when I have local copies), but that’s how it is.

Anyway, I decided to fire up Groove, a service I have never used before as that is what Windows 10 wanted my music player to be, and as I was scrolling through my list I found the late, great John Denver’s hit “Country Roads, Take Me Home.”

That sounded good, so I fired it up. Except I couldn’t play the song, and Bam! I was hit in the face with why I don’t like digital distribution and have gone so far as to set up my own personal Netflix. To explain what happened, have a look at this picture:

What?

I’ll ask the same question I asked in my keyboard post – notice anything? It says the track can’t be played as it has been removed at the request of the copyright holder. However, if you look off to the right, you will also see that it says “Purchased.”

That’s right. I *bought* it, and they were still able to take away my ability to play it, but it also illustrates what the big problem is; when you buy digital content, you aren’t buying it – you’re leasing it. They can remove your access to it at any time.

Some will even go so far as to say it promotes piracy. I hate to say it, but my solution was to tell them to go to hell, then go to YouTube, extract and download the song from the official video using an online service, which Groove then played no problem. Of course, it indicates I’m being limited to ‘Local Only’ play, but I have the file! I can put it anywhere I want and listen to it anywhere I want.

Problem solved

Seems their plan backfired. I don’t condone piracy, but I also don’t condone simply jerking the rug out from legitimate purchasers. I wonder if I can just send $1.29 to John Denver’s estate – he deserves it, he gave us all a lot of great music.

To continue to build on the futility of this whole thing (for Microsoft and whoever else wants to limit my access to my own purchased goods, anyway), I’ll just embed the video here as well. It really is a great song that everyone should know, so listen to your heart’s content!