I was thinking about donating my Christmas socks to "Barefoot Bobbie" Johnson and upgrading my ancient portable MiniDisc player to a new Hi-MD version. I use MD for recording things, such as interviews, so I have exactly zero music tracks on MiniDisc -- nothing from CD, nothing from the radio, no downloads, nothing. Under the circumstances, you might think I would have no worries about DRM etc. Not so. Reading reviews of the Sony MZ-RH10 Hi-MD Walkman at Amazon.co.uk, I find this little snip from susieh157:
When uploading from your MD to the PC (only possible with analogue recordings, like live recordings or voice recordings) you can only upload once and if you try again, the original gets deleted from your MD. That could mean you lose an important original recording really easily.
I've nothing against Sony in general, and own more Sony products than I can remember, from micro/cassette recorders via several consoles to a wide-screen TV, but this kind of brain-dead stupidity is just infuriating. It has probably cost Sony millions of sales, and when the whole MiniDisc industry continues on its current trajectory towards an ignominious and painful death, no one need be a bit surprised.
