More DRM Avoidance
When you hear DRM think “lockin.” So, when you buy music off of Napster or Apple’s iTunes, you’re locked into the DRM systems that those applications decided on. Really you are choosing between two competing lockin schemes. – Robert Scoble
I personally can’t imagine why anyone would want a restricted copy of my songs and I can’t imagine buying stuff with DRM on it and not busting it wide open just for the security. I wouldn’t buy a CD that could only play in one or two CD players so I don’t know why I’d buy media that behaves the same way. – Brad Turcotte
We have a world today where we can buy CDs, we can download DRM-music, we can download non-DRM music from legit services, we can download “pirate” music from various services, and we can sometimes defeat DRM using off-the-shelf apps for Linux (which has a CD recovery tool that handily defeats CD DRM), the Mac (with tools like AudioHijack that make it easy to convert DRM music to MP3s or other open formats) and Windows (I assume, since I don’t use Windows, but as Scoble points out, there’s lots of Windows software out there.). In this world where we have consumer choices to make, Scoble argues that our best buy is to pick the lock-in company that will have the largest number of licensees. That’s just about the worst choice you can make. – Cory Doctorow
Though, to be perfectly honest, after reading this we came away feeling more and more convinced that the best move would be to simply stay away from online music stores (and their restrictions) altogether and just stick to MP3. – Gizmodo
I have spent the last few days at home looking for my Quake III Arena CD Key. Eventually the CD turned up but there is no telling where the rest of the packaging has gotten to. I have enough trouble keeping track of the physical things I own without worrying about virtual licensing schemes.
