I’m not going to say too much about Sony BMG’s unbelievably stupid new business model—I’ll just leave it to Whatever’s excellent fictional focus group. Nuff said.

[Update 1/9]

Just a thought: If record companies are so obsessed with being in the selling-plastic-things business and DRM, why not defer to the USB album? The user doesn’t have to worry about ripping it and making sure all the tracks get named right, there’s ample room for varying album sizes, it’s re-useable, and you can have the music files in a DRM format like Apple’s fairplay AAC that attaches to a particular computer or user account. Maybe this kind of solution is too obvious for Sony. Some music groups have tried it, the White Stripes and the Fratellis among them, though I can’t figure out with what success.