Advertisment
Advertisment
Promo

Tech that's just wrong

By Rich Trenholm on 03 March 2008, 8:23am

DRM: Don't Ruin Music
There are three words that strike terror into the hearts and ears of any self-respecting audiophile: Spice Girls comeback? Pop Idol winner? Happy hardcore compilation? Worse: digital rights management.

Digital rights management is, for our purposes, code that is buried in files to prevent them from being played where the seller doesn't want to be. With the music industry floundering in the wake of the digital revolution like an oil tanker being overtaken by a fleet of tiny speedboats, DRM was a desperate attempt to plug the leaks below decks. The problem is, when we buy a song, we want to own that song.

We want to listen to it whenever and wherever we want, whether it's in our house, on our laptop or on the bus. What we don't want is to pay for a song only to discover that we can only listen to it on certain types of MP3 players, between the hours of 4.31am and 9.17am every other day, before it installs a rootkit on our computer and then deletes itself.

You Might Like These

Anonymous User Avatar

To get an avatar and username, log in or register

Anonymous User

Your email address must be entered but will not be displayed

Copy the letters and numbers to prove you're a human being. If you can't read this image, get another one. If you don't want to do this each time, register.

Random characters

All submitted content becomes the sole property of CBS Interactive and may be used, edited or rejected at CBS Interactive's sole discretion. You acknowledge that you, not CBS Interactive, are responsible for the contents of your submission. -- see Terms of Use

Advertisment