This is the usual empty talk.

This is all about money and power.

This shows what "democracy" is in reality: an illusion of the humanists, who, with blind eyes, lead the blind into the abyss, just to be able to rip them off in any way they are able to.

The best way to do this is to criminalize everybody. That way they can put away everybody who is inconvenient - and make money anyway.

All those talking about their RIGHTS always forget about their DUTIES and OBLIGATIONS.

Sick and tired of this BULL . . .

lmao...

Tighten that tinfoil hat, tipsyboy. There might still be some blood making it to your brain.

Yes, you have a God-given right to DRM-free music.

Please.

However, DRM does not only act as a policeman through technical protection measures, it also enables content companies to offer the consumer unprecedented choice in terms of how they consume content, and the corresponding price they wish to pay.”

Of course. They can consume iTunes songs only on iPod players. Really giving users lots of choice...

...And PS3 players can't play Nintendo games! That must be unfair DRM as well. And my Windows PC won't run AIX. DRM! And my cassette player won't play CDs. Such unfair restrictions! ;-)

And if you intend to play music of another format, it is each consumer's responsibility to perform their due dilligence to find a player most suited to playing what they desire to use. It is not Apple's responsibility to provide for that. Although you might make a case that it is not an enlightened strategic marketing strategy. But then all of the folks who subsequently decide that it doesn't suit their needs would decide that.

The real irony is that DRM, like locks on a house, really isn't that effective.

Both primarily keep honest people 'honest'. But those who really want to break in, can. And thus it serves its purpose.

But as is pointed out, DRM provides for many delivery models ranging from pay per view, to numbered playings, to timed playings, to almost any model the distributor wants to provide or not to provide.

And I am wondering where all of the open source proponents, that hate DRM so much, are in the music realm? And where are their games? And where are their killer apps? And where is the music?

It seems to me that for so much support, either this camp is rather limited in their abilities as evidenced by the lack of product, or they are simply upset that they are having difficulties circumventing the prescribed use agreements to which they agreed when they bought the prescribed rights of use to a product.

Gee, even the Grateful Dead have restricted the unlimited downloading of their archival material!

I just wish all of the anti-DRM folks would put more energy into acting on their ideas rather than simply whining. Start an alternative DRM free distribution company and sign many anti-DRM artists to supply material. I would expect it to be a grand ... well it would be fascinating.

But that would come dangerously close to matching a need with a source.

You can try to fight DRM all you want, but eventually, a standard-DRM method will be implemented for much of the intellectual property out there with very fine-grain control for BOTH producers and consumers.

So, for example, as a consumer, while browsing through songs (or hearing music on net radio), you'll be able to filter out (never hear) all songs costing more than 25c (the fair price, according TO ME - you pick your own price) or which restrict you to play that song on less than 3 machines or less than 5 years.

There's enough GOOD music in the world to give my financial support to the non-greedy bas****s.

Anyway, point is, as mobile CPUs become stronger to support complex licensing with super-strong encryption backbone and also as memory prices drop, DRM will be every-f'ing-where. You'd have it in every single portable player costing more than $15 in year 2017 FOR SURE.

And those who cry about paying for same content again and again in vinyl then cassette then cd then aac format - well there will be a vault with all your licenses at some online content seller, and if you pay 50c for the same song I said is worth 25c, you'll enjoy the benefit of keeping rights to that song in all future formats... And of course if someone steals your media player, you submit a police report, and get your "modified" license to load your music to a new player...

I remember, years and years ago, when musicians had to "perform" for a living. Now they enjoy home studios buried deep within their MTV crib homes surrounded by brigades of Escalades and Hummers. *sigh* Pardon me if I don't cry over hearing about DRM hacks and cracks. Maybe they can gas up those Hummers and go back on the road. I haven't seen a good concert come around locally in a long time.

That's a very unfair complaint. They are allowed to charge what ever they want for their product (whether it's the musician or the label producing the album) and you can decide whether to buy it or not.

If you find the price too high, don't buy it, purchase a cheaper album, buy it used or just listen to it on the radio. But NO ONE makes you buy the album.

This is called "supply and demand" economics and they have the supply and you are creating the demand. The same goes for sports games, etc. Some of these atheletes get HUGE salaries and they jack up the prices of the tickets. People buy the tickets, thereby justifying the cost of them. If they didn't buy them, things would go down (just check the price on non-performing teams) accordingly.

Movies are the same way. When I was in high school, tickets were $2 for a movie. Now they're almost $10. Why - because they have to pay "the star" millions of dollars for doing something that should be outsourced to a computer (ha ha ha - hey maybe someday programmers will get these huge salaries because we're making the "stars" for the movies - kaching!). So the price of the tickets go up. I don't like paying that much for a movie so I go to the matinee, I go to the budget theatre, I rent. It's my way of saying - enough is enough.

If you don't like the price of the CDs, then STOP BUYING THEM! If enough people stopped buying their overpriced music, we'd see the price drop rapidly.

It's a vicious circle and we are all feeding the monster. Sometimes you just have to step out of the box to see what's happening inside.

My God...

If you have a problem with the amount of money these folks make...

STOP GIVING IT TO THEM!

Duh?

Don't buy their albums. It's really that simple. The Music Industry isn't creating their wealth, the consumer is. RIAA isn't forcing everyone to put up with DRM, the consumer is BUYING it.

Music is still sold without DRM. Music is still available at decent prices, both at brick-n-mortars and online. Music is still created by folks who don't drive hummers.

If these are your criteria for support, then support those who fit and we'll see the market change.

All the whining in the world won't do it. Put your money where your mouth is.

True. I stopped buying entire CD's of trash with one good song, and instead by specific songs that I like. That's about the best (legal) option I can find at the moment.

The whining I see is from RIAA, not the artists. The only speaking out from artists I've seen is that RIAA is taking the majority of their revenue.

Geez. I understand supply and demand. You're overreacting to my comment. The problem is public perception. Most kids don't feel any empathy whatsoever for musicians because of what they see on MTV. MTV cribs has shot themselves in the foot in some respects. My comment was really about how few live concerts seem to come around places outside of major metro areas compared to the 1980's and 1990's. The number of venues has increased by 5x since 1990 in our area, but the number of big-name performers touring around has fallen 3x since then. Buying a CD/DVD is nice, but seeing them live was nicer (usually). I guess you guys don't care about live performances, but I do. I guess I'm an old fart.

thats very slowly becoming obsolete though, with the internet and all the relevent advances in technology, people can start to put out their own records for themselves, without a label, and there are more and more small record labels poping up all over the place that are fair to their consumers and fair to their artists.

The only speaking out from artists I've seen is that RIAA is taking the majority of their revenue.

Yeah, like complaining about your income isn't a national pastime in this country...no matter what you make.

...thought I covered that with,

"Music is still created by folks who don't drive hummers." :p

"An electronic petition..."

That's the problem right there. Absolutely no one will pay any sort of meaningful attention to an online petition, simply because there's no way to verify that each individual signature is from a separate person. In addition, an electronic petition has no physical presence or meaning. There's nothing substantial for the poor bureaucrat who has to put up with someone's whining to bother with.

Note to all who wish to petition anyone for anything: use good old-fashioned paper and pen. Also, use the telephone. A flood of individually-written letters and a continually-full phone message system will get the point across far more meaningfully than a "drm sux u f**z" line written by some 12 year old in between WoW raids.

Online petitions don't do anything in the real world when it comes to Governments and big businesses. End of story.

Super Bowl 91? WTF?

DRM = More money for big corporations.

...and who do you think pays lobbyists lots of money to keep their "special interests" safe.

Nonsense!

It simply means that the owners of digital material can control the distribution and terms of use of THEIR material.

And where do you get that all creators of content are "big corporations"?

Big talk from a parasitic consumer who produces nothing but assumes some inherent right to what others produce!

Big talk from a parasitic consumer who produces nothing but claims the rights to what others produce!

You don't seem to have a grasp of free market Darwinism (i.e. capitalism). It is the "consumer"'s job to be "parasitic".

You also seem not to have read about copyright's first conception, and its purpose, either. Nor do you seem to have read the US constitution (said country being the champion of stringent copyright law, and your comment being general rather than specific to the UK).

While copyright was used as a temporary monopoly by an elite cartel of publishers in Britain (read: publishers, not producers), and kept for the purpose of government censorship (in 1557 it was made public law), in the United States it was kept, and I quote: "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".

Contrary to some naive beliefs, people do not produce entirely original knowledge. They build upon prior knowledge ("Knowledge" here referring to both informational and art works). I fail to see, therefore, how one can argue for the excessive copyrights in any way other than for the sole gain of the "parasitic" producers, at the expense of the "promot[ion of] the Progress of Science and useful Arts", thereby making the granting of it unconstitutional.

Yes, I realise this is about the UK, but your comment didn't seem UK specific; The champions of DRM are mainly from the US and there is recent precedent for applying US law to US companies and citizens operating in other countries, anyway.

It's free market specific!

You have no inherent right to other's product.
You agree to the terms or you are free to go elsewhere and either purchase someone else's product, or to establish an legitimate alternative.

Whether you like DRM or not is a moot point. It simply doesn't matter!

The consumer's choice is whether they agree to the terms and subsequently agree to purchase it.

And you have a choice! To buy or not to buy. It really very simple!

The problem that you have is that instead of recognizing abd exercising this very simple choice, is that you seem to assume some right to the material that is being unfairly restricted by the terms the owners of the material have established.

Which brings us back to the previous very simple choice.

The concept is very simple, and it doesn't matter if we are in the US, UK or on Mars.

well said. thank you

"Contrary to some naive beliefs, people do not produce entirely original knowledge. They build upon prior knowledge. "Knowledge" here referring to both informational and art works)."

Hahaha! ROFLMAO!!

OK, so you have now attempted to establish that all music is derived from 'first principles' and as such, I guess, it is actually community property, as are literary works as they are utilizing a shared language, and so on and so forth.

Complete BS!

Then sue them in court for copyright infringement!

But please spare us this absurdest rant that the owner's of the material cannot market the material in any manner they chose. You are free to choose to purchase it according to their terms or not.

You do not have any inherent right to said material. Period.

Ironic that you would mention free market amongst your ill formed 'socialist/communist'(sic) stance alleging inherent rights to others' material.

Ironic that you would mention free market amongst your ill formed 'socialist/communist'(sic) stance alleging inherent rights to others' material.

Two fallacies here:
1) You're asserting that I have a stance which I did not express, and I merely quoted the United States Constitution (is the United States really founded upon Socialism rather than libertarianism? That's news to me ...). and
2) You're implying that my disposition somehow invalidates my argument. Nevermind that I quoted anything which may effect the neutrality of my analysis.

Both of these also amount to an argument through means of emotion.

And wait, there's a third. You're responding to a criticism by re-hashing the same arguments as your prior comment.

You my friend, would make a fine politician.

It's not quite so simple. Consumer protection is in place to prevent the overreaching protectionism that exist in much DRM and content "protection". Effectively, you can't throw down a blanket contract that says you don't own what you own. Clearly much DRM'd media and software fall under the lease model. You lease the code or content. However there's a difference, as the derivative works of software are yours. No one says, "you wrote that document with Word, so Microsoft is the rightful owner."

In the case of media, a consumer should be allowed to purchase media in a non-encumbering way. Reasonable precautions to a media company may not be reasonable to consumers. The only thing that really has changed is that consumers have the unprecedented ability to become a pirate.

But to say that it's free-market specific is just not intellectually honest. In many, many different industries, consumer protection has intervened. You can scream free market all you want, but a critical component of a free market is the legal use of products post-purchase. That's not caveat emptor; that's simply maintaining appropriate boundaries on what sellers can and cannot impose on customers.

A final example... Labels were caught price-fixing a few years ago. The rules of a free market ended this. If it's a totally lawless market, you'd see this abuse much more. CDs would probably still be the same as they were when they came out, adjusted for inflation, at roughly $25-30 each. Market competition has worked in favor of all -- and it's why crappy cassettes aren't around much.

Nice retort, Tene. Nailed it.

The ENTIRE anti-DRM rant is an old whine. This SAME rant is repeated ad nauseum on this site and elsewhere.

And your statement that since all art is derivative that no one can claim exclusive rights to it is absurd. But I appreciate the laugh.

If artwork is derivative, courts provide ample precedent and opportunity to debate and settle that. So you wonderful point is moot. And you have lost in court.

Repeat such a simple premise? Ordinarily it wouldn't be necessary. But unfortunately the same group keep s repeating the same tired anti-DRM rant. And whether you like it or not, both the courts and the free market give you a choice.

If you don't like the terms either fight it in court challenging it on the basis of you idealistic premise that all art is derivative (let us know when you anticipate doing this, it should be a hoot!), or you are free Not to buy it!

Ya Ya Ya...

So you maintain you have such legal standing, then here's a novel suggestion:
Since there is so much legal precedent, go to court and have it overturned!

Oh....

The silence is deafening.

The silence is deafening.

That's the benefit (or negative consequence, depending on your end) of spluttering out fallacy after fallacy, irrelevancy after irrelevancy.

The points have been made, whether you incorporate the beneficial parts of those points is up to you. Whether you take a centrist stance on it and analyse without bias (essentially never coming to a completely firm conclusion), or you decide to reject what is "unagreeable" and twist arguments to your political end is your choice.

Do some reading:
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

If you want to be a tool, and keep barking the same thing, don't expect a rational discussion. Saying the same crap over and over has been done, and lately. (See: Iraq, Bush)

What a troll. He never established that he had the right to media because it's not "copyrightable". He said, and rather clearly, that much art is a prior work to some extent.

What has been said time and again is that consumers deserve fair use of the products they purchase.

For an analogy, would you have all car manufacturers install speed governors on new cars for 65mph, or whatever your state speed limit is? No, of course not. But the reality is if you speed, you break the law. It is the responsibility of the consumer to operate the car. In this case, they're selling the governor, and it's illegal to take it off after you buy it. We can all live in a world of golf carts and hockey helmets, but most people don't want that.

Now put your helmet back on, clean off the drool, and stop making it worse on yourself, kid.

"Then sue them in court for copyright infringement!"

And to think American's are known for over-reacting.

I think it's about time you learnt where the entire Techno/Jungle music scene of the 90s came from:

http://nkhstudio.com/pages/amen_mp4.html

It's very well said, and informative. I think even you might find it interesting.

It came from bands *not* suing over every little thing.

yup the little guys are always screwed, why do you think the gap between richer and poor is so significant?

Wow. I typically don't agree with your posted comments, nor with pro-DRM views, but I have to say that sans emotional baggage, it's hard to disagree with this and remain rational.

I think, stepping back a few feet from the whole subject matter, that the debate itself really stems from how badly the current DRM schemes "fit" with our habits and experiences embedded from years of LPs, CD's and video tapes. It's just a bad fit. I think if they could somehow craft a DRM scheme that didn't impose such cumbersome issues, people would be less inclined to fight it. They're just not "there" yet.

So since we've gotten used to being able to usurp the content owner's rights regarding copying, distribution, and such, their current methods to retain those rights should still let us do those things?

Kind of makes the whole thing pointless in my opinion.

Foxy may think I'm an idiot, which is fine by me, but we are actually in agreement regarding DRM and the content creators rights to restrict their content however they see fit.

Would we have the car manufacturers do it?

No, of course not.

Is it well within their rights to do so if they so choose?

Definitely.

Would it hurt their sales? Most likely.

It would be within their rights to do it, but it would be within our rights as consumers to remove it. That is unless the state mandates that you can't circumvent it.

I'm not saying we should expect to continue on with our past behavior. I'm only saying that the scheme, the mechanisms and processes they're trying to implement now, are too much of a culture shift for most people that have been used to CD's and tapes. IP protection is always going to be in our face, it's only a matter of how they get it working.

...and the current laws mandate we cannot remove DRM.

That's where the car analogy fails, as they always do. Cars are physical property. Music and software are not, thus different laws and definitions exist on what constitutes things like theft, and owner rights vs. consumer rights.

Most folks fail to grasp the difference between the "car" and the "CD", and thus miss that distinction.

The Amen Break. Awesome short. Gotta love the ZeroG. =)

ROFLMAO!

Yep, I haven't trotted out any 1557 English law that has not been upheld in either the British nor American courts (being that it is SOOOO fundamental to our legal system!)

Yep all of the money and lawyers have yet to win with either that or the copyright statutes which you say are in your favor!

My only position is that the owners of the material can choose to market it any way they choose. Be that with an absurdly complex DRM system or, for that matter, to do a complete 180 and not release it for sale at all.

I may not like or I may think its great. Either way it really doesn't matter what I think. As I have no right to tell them what to do with their material.

But I do have the right to determine if whatever schema they choose suits me. If it does, I may buy it. If it does not, I won't.

Either way, it is a free market and I have the freedom of choice as well.

Likewise, if there is a market sufficient to support it, and if so many disagree with the existing methods, I could start a distribution company and enlist all of the artists who are sooooo opposed to their material being controlled in such a heinous manner and offer an alternative. ...Especially as the overhead for establishing a direct market online download service is much easier compared to managing a distribution network of hardware.

The irony is that this option has always been available. And thus far all of you wonderfully creative folks who cite superfluous 1557 English tenets have failed to do this.

And all you anti-DRM folks do is whine as you tell other's how they must deal with their material over which you have no inherent rights.

Instead of getting off of your collectivist @sses, you choose instead to simply whine and tell us all how you are entitled to others' materials.

If you actually believe in a free market, then get off you butts and start a company and become fabulously wealthy - or not - by offering an alternative.

ah ah ...you mean actually DO something other than complain? ah ah...

Amen.

ROFLMAO![/i]
You've just proven my point of your invalid arguments. Any post that begins with capitalised emotional abbreviations stinks of an argument from emotion. Not to mention your attempt at "ridiculing" me.

If it hasn't been upheld, then there is no copyright. Strange, that. (Read: It's part of the UK's unwritten constitution). I quoted it to give a brief history of copyright, fyi.

And again, you're pulling straw man, after straw man, after straw man fallacy "against" me. You're responding to arguments I haven't implied, let alone stated. You even went so far as to include (sic) in an earlier "quote" from me ("'socialist/communist'(sic)").

I'm a libertarian-leaning centrist, so your anti-collectivist arguments against me are directed toward a choirman. This doesn't make a difference however, since you're not in any way ad hominem, of course.

[i]ah ah ...you mean actually DO something other than complain? ah ah...
I didn't complain.

Unless you have something that has some vague validity in the realm of logical rationalism (no, that doesn't include argumentum ad ignorantiam), then please don't bother replying again.

Last point: You're (unwittingly?) arguing for a form of collectivism: Statism. On the 3D political spectrum, market protectionism (economic statism) would fall opposite free market libertarianism. And before you pull another strawman, or make a hasty generalisation with misleading vividness, I didn't say one cannot apply the principles of free market Darwinism to a protectionist market.

Edit:
As for your fallacious association (It must be irrelevant since it's so old), you do realise that Magna Carta (you know, that "irrelevant" 13th century bill) is the basis of human rights laws, and the 5th Amendment copies it almost word for word?

...and the current laws mandate we cannot remove DRM.

... In the USA. This happens to be a UK petition.

The only point you have made is the one on the top of your head!

You keep interpreting my comments as only being focused on you.
Sorry, but they are aimed at many of the comments made on the site. But I do love your mentioning 500 year old concepts that while interesting, if they have legal standing would make this entire issue moot, as you would simply go to court and win - game over!

And the bottom line is that they have failed!

And you and others haven't complained. Right! This site is filled with the anti-DRM rant ad nauseum.

You can argue your abstract nonsense whereby you tell others how they should deal with their material, but its mot. Its not your material. Tuff!

There are plenty of alternatives, and others that might involve your getting of your duff and creating an alternative that you agree with.

And you think I am collectivist? Numbnuts, that is the rant of the anti-DRM concept that consumers have a fundamental and necessary right to the material. It should all be free. The artists are greedy rich folks and all corporations are evil. Read other posts. They are there! I am for the freedom of each vested party to make whatever decision is in their own vested interest while remaining cognizant of the rights of others.

If you have a better alternative to DRM, institute it yourself! And don't waste our time discussing a system that imposes your ideas on others and their material.

As I said, I don't like allot of the restrictions of DRM, so I am free not to buy it.

I wish I cared only about what You write, but I Don't. This isn't all about you, except in your little mind! I may mention some wacko tidbit you mentioned, but I also refer to what others have said.

But I did get a kick out of your "everything is derivative" argument. And the logical extension of this over time by definition is collectivism, as nothing is original. Yawn.

And the Magna Carta! Hahaha!

I get it now. You must have Western Civ this semester! History is fascinating isn't it!

And you are stupid enough to think that I like DRM. I don't! And I avoid most DRM material by choice. But it doesn't matter if I like it or not!

DRM is not required, nor should it be forbidden. It is choice of every vendor and creator of material.

What is amazing to me is that if SO many hate it, why haven't they started a company and enlisted artists to distribute their work via your portal without DRM? Hmmmmmmmm???????????

It should be a great success.

That is, unless you simply prefer to cite tenets >500 years old that have failed to overturn the rights of material owners to employ DRM in either the US or the UK.

Magna Carta indeed! Fine, so you discovered that entrepreneurs chose to exercise their option and their market power of the purse to tell the king that they would not be beholden to his whims.

That'll scare 'em! I can just see the opposing lawyers as you enter the court room Oh no! He remembered the Magna Carta! We're sunk! LOL!

What, no mention of Scott v Sandberg? or of Brandenburg v. Ohio, nor of Torcaso v. Watkins? So many legal precedents! I'm sure you can find something else!

Magana Carta ....hahahahahaha!

Oh, and the Magna Carta was not the basis for any 'human rights' law. The bill signed under force...those rights... was not the first, nor was it particularly effective in limiting the power of the king, although it did establish a precedent in writing, so that folks like you can cite it out of context and somehow gerrymander it into a document relative to a merchant's option to use DRM to control his product for a defined use.

well i would agree with that if it was amended just a bit to: However they see fit, as long as they make us aware of it before purchase. (as in rootkits and restrictions on burning x amount of times to cd, etc.

Sounds good to me.

It's a petition. They haven't actually changed anything yet, and I highly doubt they will.

I wonder how much it cost the music industry to buy APIG. Seriously, I am all for people protecting their property, intellectual or otherwise; but saying DRM provides choice and likening "independant's" opposition to DRM to the film industry's opposition to VCRs is just plain ridiculous. Sure DRM provides choice, if you count making a consumer choose and pay for more than one option the same as providing a choice.

"if you count making a consumer choose and pay for more than one option the same as providing a choice."

That's exactly what the music industry calls it, but it's "providing a choice" of revenue streams for them.

Here is a revelation. The owners of content can set any terms of use they desire, be it enlightened or simply asinine.

Now hang in there, 'cause here comes the hard part...

You have a choice as to whether you agree to the terms or not, and whether you want to buy it.

If those terms are so incredibly heinous, then You Don't have to buy it!

Such a radical concept!!

But whatever you think about it or subsequently chose to do, it does not give you the rights to other's material (other then the terms they establish).

Oh gee, the slight glimmer of intelligent activity that flickered for just a second in the tired anti-DRM 'what's yours is mine' mindset has dimmed.

This is in fact one of the key issues that is a problem - we don't always have a choice. Quite a lot of content has been sold with no labelling that copy protection is used. I for one can't play several copy protected CDs in my car CD player. Those CDs were not labeled as copy protected so I had no ability to make a choice. At the very least copy protection should be indicated on the packaging (preferably the type of copy protection as well).

Similar issue arise if you purchase CDs and wish to transcode so they can be put onto a media player. Up until recently Australians couldn't even transcode (no distribution, no piracy, no theft - just transcoding) without technically breaking the law and being potentially liable for tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

And those are technical issues relating to the ability to use content you purchased. Nevermind the issue of whether content should be "free for all".

The frustrating thing about DRM is the labels could provide alternate licensing models using it - like play once content being cheaper, time expiring content being cheaper, etc. The simple truth though is we are not seeing that happening. All we are seeing is an attempt to lock down the content so it can't be copied or transcoded, or if it can then the quality is degraded.

I agree with skrybe's view that we actually have no choice, but my experience is a bit different.

I have bought a CD which did have copy protection labeling on it, which did indicate that it may not play in some devices. I tried to use it in my car CD player and it wouldn't work properly. I tried it in my computer and it didn't work properly. I tried it in my DVD player and it didn't work at all. Oops, now I've run out of devices and I still can't play the CD I purchased! WTF? Now what?

I'll tell you what - I was forced to "illegally" rip the music from the CD on the computer and write my own CD for use in my car.

I had no choice of whether I could buy a version of this album with no copy protection (whether it be for a difference price or not) since there is only that version in any of the shops. Now I'm weary to buy ANY CD with copy protection labelling on it because I'm afraid I won't be able to use it legitimately and will have to go to extra effort to use it at all (i.e. rip it properly).

I have no problem ripping the contents of a CD I bought for making a CD copy for use in my car (I'd rather use a copy in case the CDs are stolen or get sun-damaged or what-not) and for encoding to play on my MP3 player since I actually bought the CD. Wouldn't you say that's fair use? This is the sort of thing that the anti-DRM crowd are afraid they will not be able to do anymore with the content they PURCHASED. Sure, sure, you don't OWN the content but you bought the write to listen to the content. I think there's something wrong with the system when you are FORCED to break the terms of the licence (by ripping the music) in order to use it AT ALL. I know the CD "copy protection" isn't directly DRM (as referred to in the article), but it came from the same camps that are designing and pushing DRM now.

I'm not very well-informed about the whole DRM issue anyway, but as such I would fall into the anti-DRM camp simply because I perceive it to be too limiting. Maybe this is a case of having heard only enough about it to form an "uninformed opinion", but what of the Joe Bloggs who doesn't have a computer and doesn't know anything about these things? How is he going to feel when he tries to just buy an album and either winds up not being able to use it or has to navigate a mine-field to find a version that will work on whatever equipment he has?

I think the only way to make DRM widely accepted and used is to make it non-proprietary (or "free" to implement) for the producers of playback equipment so that we get to a point where everything just works.

But that is EXACTLY what the big players in the content industry DON'T WANT. Why? Because such a simple "open" system would likely be subject to easy circumvention and we'd be back at square one.

So I guess there has to be a compromise somewhere. It's pointless saying "ban DRM" because that won't happen, but it IS important to voice opposition so that the consumer isn't railroaded into a situation where they are forced to pay more or get no value from their purchase because no-one was looking out for them and just let the companies do what they wanted (which in a capitalist society such as the USA will be driven ONLY BY PROFIT).

Don't take that comment to be irrelevant to the UK/Europe though - even if the sentiment in the UK and Europe is less cut-throat capitalist than in the US, the technologies and the big players involved are mostly in the US and the rest of the world winds up playing 2nd fiddle, unless they take a stand. As it turns out Europe is probably the only place that seems to have enough clout to legislate things that might have any impact on how US companies do things.

So what CAN one do? I don't agree with the viewpoint of some expressed here that it's the companies' right to sell content with whatever terms they want (the consumer be damned) because the consumer can fight it in court. Rubbish - the consumer doesn't have the means to fight it in court for the most part. And how long do you think it would take to come to a verdict? By that time the investment made in whatever technologies are being challenged would be so great that the companies would have to stand their ground and the consumers fighting it out in court (or whomever they got to bank-roll it) would run out of money. Things need to be sorted out BEFORE the technologies get too entrenched.

I don't have the answers. I just hope people remain sane about it and don't let the DRM proponents railroad the consumer, but I don't know who would be able to be the consumer's champion either.

(Please excuse my rambling and potentially-unfinished points/arguments - I was never on a debate team in school)