You mean : 'Doesn't use it YET'. I agree it will be extremely difficult to force it upon the users at this stage but that will imho not stop them from trying. One can not deny that the music (and other likewise) industry is trying to force such mechanisms onto the people.

Er, no, I mean the MPEG1 layer 3 format itself has no provisions for DRM and as long as current MP3 encoding tools exist, there will be no way to force people to use DRM with any sort of "new mp3" standard. That is exactly why the industry is taking bold and risky moves in the effort to copy-protect CD's. Consumer reaction has been harsh because the CD's then don't even PLAY in your computer's CD-ROM drive.

As for DRM I give it a defenite NO. In all forms and shapes.

Well... I agree with everything you say in that all they care about is maximizing profit, and early DRM experiemnts with limited uses, etc. have been horrible. But they've also blown up in the faces of those who've tried. Nobody will buy E-books that you can only "read" a limited number of times. Nobody will buy digital music with similar restrictions.

However, I don't believe in interfering with a company's right to make money on their intellectual property. If I could download my favorite tracks from a music publisher for a REASONABLE price (say $1 a track or less depending on how much I like it) I would do so. I would then expect to be free to copy that track onto CD, onto my Empeg, or whatever. That is what I would consider legitimate use of DRM. Right now for a CD I like two songs from, I would need to spend $6 per song ($12 for the entire CD) and get a bunch of tunes I just skip over. In reality, what most people are doing is going to MusicCity or Gnutella and leeching the song illegitimately. Of course I've done this too. But for a buck a song or less, I'd just pay for it and be ensured I'm getting a high quality "rip" direct from the source. Anything wrong with that? I'm NEVER one to side with the record companies, but I'd like to see artists make a buck every once in awhile. I'd actually like the artists to circumvent record companies entirely and just offer their digital tracks online by themselves, but that will never happen with contracts written the way they are.

Fun stuff to think about, though.

-Tony
MkII #554