Ripped off?

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's ''Howl" is one of my favorite CDs released this year, yet I don't listen to it nearly as much as I'd like to.

That's because, like millions of others these days, I usually listen to music on an iPod -- in the car, at work, or walking to the grocery store -- and ''Howl" is one of those exasperating CDs you can't download to the wildly popular digital music player.

In an attempt to strong-arm Apple, makers of the iPod, and get the company to acquiesce to various demands, Sony BMG and EMI Music are releasing copy-protected CDs whose contents can't be easily ripped, or copied, to a computer, then transferred to an iPod. (Oh, it can be done, but it's a protracted process that may vex those who aren't blessed with the patience of Job. More on that later.)

So, the latest CDs by Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters, Alicia Keys, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club -- all on Sony subsidiaries -- can't be played on an iPod if you buy them at a record store, but can be played if you download them on iTunes. What's going on?

Sony and EMI want Apple to increase the cost to consumers for downloading songs through its iTunes service. Currently, the price is 99 cents per song, but the labels maintain that amount should be higher for top-selling songs -- say $1.49 each. Under that approach, downloading older songs would cost 99 cents or less.

Apple chief Steve Jobs's offer of 99 cent downloads sounded like a great idea when it was introduced in 2001 and the record industry was eager to stave off illegal downloading. But with the runaway popularity of iPods and iTunes, the industry is angling for a better deal.

Of course it can be argued that Apple started the battle by bigfooting other services, and forcing iPod owners to patronize only iTunes. Apple's FairPlay copy-protection system makes non-Apple technologies, such as the now-legal Napster and Microsoft's Media Player, incompatible with iPods. This means if you download songs using those services, they won't play on an iPod.

Certainly, music executives must understand that 99 cents is an important psychological barrier for a lot of customers. Hey, just getting people to move beyond those free -- and decidedly illegal -- all-you-can-eat file-sharing buffets was a huge step, and Jobs knew it. Hence, while 99 cents sounds like pocket change, anything that's $1 or more ka-chings like real money. Increasing the price will likely, at least for a while, decrease users.

Yet specifically designing CDs to snub iPod owners alienates music lovers, some of whom have voiced their displeasure on various bands' websites.

In fact, many of the bands involved haven't endorsed the content-protection policy. On his band's official website, Switchfoot bassist Tim Foreman posted his discontent with fans' inability to put the band's latest album, ''Nothing Is Sound" on their iPods. ''It is heartbreaking," he wrote, ''to see our blood, sweat and tears over the past two years blurred by the confusion and frustration surrounding this new technology."

Aware of the rancor, labels are willing to help irritated consumers. Official websites for Foo Fighters and the Dave Matthews Band tell fans how to work around the content-protections, and on those sites, there's a link to a form that customers can fill out to get e-mail instructions from parent company Sony BMG that provide ''an indirect way for customers to move content into these environments," meaning iTunes and iPods. A Sony spokesman said yesterday this is meant as a courtesy to customers, and to ensure that ''consumers have a good experience with their music. Consumer satisfaction is our goal."

This may come off as contradictory. It's like locking the door but telling anyone who asks how to find the key. Meanwhile, the recording industry is wary about reinforcing a public image severely battered by still-high CD prices and lawsuits filed against some downloaders who used unsanctioned services.

In essence, Sony is trying to send a message to Apple, while making sure it doesn't come off as the heavy with music lovers. Label officials recognize that no technology is foolproof, and as fast as protections are created, someone is hard at work trying to subvert them.

Still, the BMG support site derides Apple's unwillingness to ''cooperate with our protection vendors to make ripping to iTunes, and to the iPod a simple experience." And there's a link on that site to Apple's feedback forum where customers can badger the company into compliance.

So far, Sony BMG maintains it has received a minimal number of customer comments about content-protected CDs. ''Of 15 million protected discs released so far, just three-tenths of 1 percent of consumers have contacted us with some kind of query," said the Sony spokesman, who asked not to be named. ''And every single person who has contacted us about iPod compatibility has gotten the work-around" to bypass the content protections, he added.

As always, consumers are keeping a close watch on how this all plays out, and how they will be affected. All this recalls the back-in-the-day appeal of Napster and similar services. Beyond the fact that they were free, fans, through peer-to-peer services, could access music without the whims and wants of multimillion-dollar corporations -- and that means Apple as much as Sony and EMI -- that are concerned only with their bottom line.

Renee Graham's Life in the Pop Lane column appears on Tuesdays. She can be reached at graham@globe.com