[rant]
Just got back from a "technology luncheon" with Lamar Smith where they disccused legalites and such with regards to technology. One of the issues was P2P, digital rights etc. I ended up talking to the special guest of our CEO and lamenting DRM, how it provides me (the consumer) with no rights at all, and how frustrating it is to have to re-rip music I buy so I can put it on my player. He told me matter of factly that I was the problem and I simply needed to upgrade my player to something that is more compatible with my listening needs. I almost blew a gasket, but managed to remain in control and be polite. I've never downloaded anything illegaly in my life and it's frustrating to be treated like a criminal simply because I want to freedom to use the music I've legally purchased however I wish. I told him as much, and that I don't want to lose my invenstiment in my player in order to downgrade my listening experience. He just kept repeating it was "my choice then" and I shouldn't be complaining.

I realize that not everyone has the DRM problem that we empeggers do, but that doesn't make me feel any better about my digital "rights" being restricted.
[/rant]

Fortunately, the "you need to upgrade your player" argument doesn't work for consumer CD players. The CD format will be around for a while yet, and people who make music will still be distributing on that media. For the forseeable future, we're still going to have an unencrypted, unprotected, non-lossy source for music. Sure you can't do a direct-purchase-and-download of that media, but the physical media purchase is part of the beauty of it.

Treating corporations as individuals with rights is one of the signs of the apocalypse, IMO.

One of the things Lamar Smith was vocal about was getting people politically invovled. So I just dropped him a note about DRM and the RIAA. (I actually rode in the elevator with him to/from the luncheon, but it probably wasn't the appropriate time for such a discussion). Yeah, so my email is probably already lost in the abyss, but at least I've spoken out!

Anyway, one interesting thing he said was that the prosecuting of P2P offenders should be limited to those making profit off of other people's intellectual property or those grossly abusing by downloading thousands of songs a day. His said (I'm just about quoting here) that the college student who downloads 2 or 3 songs a day should not be targeted. I'm not sure the RIAA would agree with him there . . .

In principle, I am very against the current implementations and ideas for DRM as regards music and its distribution. I don't download music - I buy on CD. If the CD has protection, I either get around it or return it. I want no-one to be able to tell me how I can use something that is my property. I am happy that I'm not going to make a thousand copies to sell - copyright does have its reasons, but if I want to have mp3's on my empeg while I keep the CDs in the attic, that is up to me.

I am glad the empeg never got forced into any DRM issues. Reminds me of how we tried to get Kenwood to build something like this (way back, before I had heard of Hugo's little project) and they were against it because they didn't have a solid enough DRM model. It was only the empeg and similar products, and the huge uptake in mp3s that forced them into the market.

Thats why I like allofmp3.com I just log on find my albums select the type of audio file i want it in and it encodes it automaticly from the original cd quality file. Plus they have great download speeds too..

Yeah but I doubt if allofmp3.com is any more legal in the USA than just using Kazaa.