iPod Nano & Soundbuzz promo by SingNet don't mix

In the Straits Times today, there's a broadband promotion by SingNet that is offering up a free iPod Nano with their broadband plans. In one of the package, they're also offering 8 MP3 songs download from Soundbuzz.

Does anyone notice something that's not quite right here? They are offering free music downloads for a digital music player that can't play those tunes! Need more clarification? Well, what it means simply is that if you've downloaded those free tunes from Soundbuzz thinking that you can listen to them in your free Nano, well, YOU CAN'T. Why? Because Soundbuzz offers music in WMA format with DRM as it has stated clearly on their website:

Before transferring music to a portable digital audio player, insure (sic) that it support the WMA format and DRM (Digital Rights Management) secured music standards. Players must have security settings at the 1000 level.

Of course, Apple's iPods can't play these files. So what's the point of offering up these free downloads? Won't it confuse any Joe consumer?

Of course, there's a way around this, if you're tech-savvy enough. You can burn the tunes you download to a CD as audio, then rip that CD to iTunes and transfer to your Nano. But strictly speaking, won't that be "illegal" as ripping in this sense is not right in Singapore?

Once again, this whole issue of music download DRM vs consumer fair use is making things rather complicated for us. What are we to do? The follies of DRM... sigh.

Update: I posted this originally on 8 Oct. On today's paper, SingTel has amended their ad and it doesn't say "8 MP3 Song Downloads from Soundbuzz" anymore. It now says "8 Songs Downloads from MusicVibes SingNet powered by Soundbuzz".