Virgin Megastore ripoff.. Afterdark: San Francisco 'CD' defective by design. Official response to DRM complaint/return attempt = "piss off"

Segue for a personal tale... Buried among the many discs purchased at SF's Virgin Megastore on Market St. this week was an anticipated little gem, Afterdark: San Francisco. Unfortunately, the wizards at the label decided to wrap the whole thing in Suncomm DRM, which of course rendered it useless in a standard PC CD player.

On boot, the disc (I can't bring myself to call it a CD, since it deviates from Redbook Spec set out by Phillips, the creator of the audio CD standard) tries to launch software with a EULA and so on, giving the 'yes/no' agreement button. On hitting 'no', the program closes, and the disc ejects. Fine. No problem. Re-insert with the 'shift' key held down. Fine. MMJB recognizes the disc, pulls up the appropriate album art and song titles, and promptly shuts down midway through ripping the first track. Hmm. Not useful.

To make a long story short, the DRM successfully prevented me from listening to or enjoying the music I'd paid for on the industry standard CD player of my choice.

I'm sure it's a very good record, and the DJs and artists involved probably had no input into the decision to intentionally ship a defective product - but I wouldn't know, since I'm unable to listen to it or play to my iPod. I thought I'd just take it back for a store credit, and pickup something I could listen to.

Unfortunately, I was informed by the (dubiously named) 'customer service' representative that store policy was that it could only be exchanged for the same disc if defective. Which it is. Unfortunately, it is defective by design, and a replacement would not result in a fair exchange of value for my $15.

I asked to speak to the manager, who smugly pointed out that store policy gave her no latitude, and that the disc would play in a non-pc cd player, which is "it's intended purpose"...

In fact, the intended purpose is to allow me to enjoy $15 worth of value from my purchase. (it failed). Locking it to a specific type of CD player isn't meaningful, as I use a PC cd player (although not on this disc, since it's not actually a CD), I am unable to participate in the experience or return it - so I'm stuck.

The disc was not labeled as being locked to a 'type of cd player', and the store policy was not conveyed beyond the back of the receipt, which is fairly cheesy, since I'd already purchased it at that point.

By giving zero latitude (and lots of attitude), Virgin has lost a customer (and a measly few thousand dollars per year of revenue), and I have two rather attractive, if overpriced, coasters.

Fine if this is their policy -- but they need to very clearly label defective discs which are locked to certain types of hardware - otherwise, they are falsely implying that this disc is a CD when it is not.

Deceptive practices abound - and I as an honest consumer, have been ripped off.

Don't buy this record.
Don't shop at Virgin Megastore without reading the fine print.

We're going to be filing a complaint with Virgin corporate and the record label (we'll keep you posted here), and if we do not receive fair value, will explore other options. Stay tuned...