Although my title is from a Depeche Mode album, the content of this article is a bit different.

I was watching some videos on YouTube today, because I wanted to find some good songs for my mother to buy from i-tunes for the i-phone. One of them was Bjork’s Army of me. Now, I could see the video but I could not hear anything and I noticed this message below the video: NOTICE This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled.

I have to clarify that I have quite many cds and two collectible dvds with her best video clips, because I really like her. But I rarely use them to watch videos or listen to music on my pc. So, I use YouTube, to watch a video and then do whatever it was I was doing in the first place. So what is really the purpose of this “restriction”? You might tell me okay, you have those cds and stuff, but not everyone else does.

But how am I supposed to convince my mother, who lives in another country, and therefore I cannot give her my cds, that Bjork is really worth her money? I mean sharing music makes artists become known, does it not?

It is 7:00 in the evening. You just came home from work, tired but with the feeling that you still have time to enjoy yourself, or maybe not, but you are willing to try. You take a shower and then prepare something to eat, something nice, it’s been a really hard day, you lost a client and your boss is pissed off.

So you are feeling a bit fresher and you decide to empty your mind and enjoy your dinner. You are feeling a bit lonely, so you switch on the dumb-box, to watch something light, like an episode of that old series you used to watch some years ago. You eat your first bite, you just began to feel a bit better, to hell with the boss, you tell yourself, you deserve some happiness.

Just when you let yourself relax, the ads start. First an insurance company, then a super market, and the third is a bank, all trying to prove you they have the best service, for the right price, nothing to worry about, they care for you, and now, with the financial crisis, they all have special deals, to show you how much they love you, really.