Cory Doctorow takes Robert Scoble to task. Scoble argues that, because Windows has more licenses for its DRM’d audio format, it’s preferable to the iPod. Cory’s point (which I wholeheartedly agree with) is that DRM is lousy, regardless of the flavour. Whether you get your music at MSN.com or the iTunes store, you just getting a different flavour of lock-in:
Microsoft can pursue the bone-stupid strategy of kowtowing to the music labels instead of delivering the tools its customers want, but it’s a dead end. When Sony invented the VCR, it did so after the movie companies had already decreed that they would only license their movies for use on the “Discovision,” a hunk of shit best forgotten on the trashheap of history (much like the products that Sony later delivered instead of MP3 walkmen). With the VCR, though, Sony delivered what its customers wanted, and the movie companies got rich off of it, dragged kicking and screaming to the money-tree again.
Until there’s a reliable, reasonably-priced, DRM-free subscription service, I’m never going to pay to download digital music. Once that’s available, I’ll be all over it like a drunk salesman at a Christmas party.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
So many people in the industry seem convinced that DRM is necessary and the key.
And most every consumer thinks otherwise.
No wonder the consumers feel disenchanted and ripped off.
I have no problem paying for DRM free music, preferably in Ogg Vorbis format. But I’ll be damned if I fork over money for tunes that have been all crufted up with DRM.
Besides, it’s not like any of the current offerings work on my Linux boxen, anyhow.
does anyone pay for any music they download anyway? I sure don’t. I’m so disenchanted with the industry and their idiocy that I don’t even buy CDs anymore.
DRM is a type of unending arms race between the industry and hackers willing to give fair use back to consumers. DRM is worthless, as it will always be broken, and it places restrictions on users that make having music on your computer counterproductive. Intellectual property is impossible to enforce when you have a global whirlpool of terabytes of data. As soon as you clog one source of piracy, ten more spring up. It’s sad organizations like the RIAA have resorted to poisoning the Internet pool with bogus data (fake p2p files). Digital Rights management is nothing but a major annoyance to end-users.
ThE_ShAdOw [DarkDespair5]
http://xbladegaming.com/BeyondTheNet