I can't understand how so many people are readily willing to subscribe to drm and stick their rights up some corporations a**, trusting they will come out smelling like roses.
Harmoney is EXACTLLY the reason people fear/ed DRM.
Look Microsoft, AOL and others tried in the mid 90's to create garden internet's, areas of the web that were only accessible to their own subscribers, if you wanted to visit an aol hosted sites you need to be on aol, if you had another ISP you would pay a "discounted" fee to access aol's content,mail,im networks. By the controlling the content they figured they could control the users, who cried foul and demanded providers allowed unfettered access across all networks.
DRM is the evolution of the cd, yet unlike the move from vinyl -> 8 track -> cassette-> cd this time record companies have figured out a way to turn your songs into little police men, telling you when, how and what you can play them on. This is a very fundemental shift, that puts our freedoms into the hands of corporations who do not have YOUR best interests at heart. We stop telling computers what to do, they tell us what we're allowed to do.
The realplayer scenerio is one example of where this is going. The recording studios have demanded that all online vendors sell copy protected songs. Consumers buy into the right restriction for the sake of convience, not realizing or not caring that drm rights are never going to get less restrictive and could well hinder new innovation after new innovation for generations to come.
By including drm in content, competitor's devices can suddenly differentiate between eachother's conetn and "police" themselves. Disney content won't play on sony players, panasonic headphones can't be used with apple ipods. All the time it is argued, the Artist the Artist, they aren't making their 1%.
DRM is an effort by a billion dollar industry to save itself in a world where it's become obsolute. One day a kid woke up and said, i can do better, and he did, and its p2p and to a lesser extent the internet and stores like iTunes. The fundemental purpose of the recording industry is to get songs from artists to listeners. They are a distributer, behind all the fancy cover art, store fronts, and hollywood parties is a warehouse of cds going from here to there. P2P changed the rules and showed the world there was a much more efficient way to get music from artist to listener. Artists become more popular, they sell more concert tickets they make more money. Smart artists promote sharing, they know if they have good content their music will spread they will book more openings and make far more money then cd sales would allow them. At the same time you cut out an entire industry, music become incrediablly cheap and everyone wins, (expect britney but she's pretty much set for life, don't cry for britney).
K i'm tired, so in conculsion f**k all your drm sucking a**holes and your supporting of a dead industry to the detriment of the rest of us.
Let the revolution continue
Keith
(grammer is for chumps)
