Why DRM is bad for you

You may not have heard of it, but there's a type of badware called DRM and if you've ever downloaded music it's probably already on your computer. No, it's not a virus you got from downloading songs from Limewire - it's a set of restrictions placed on music, videos, and games that you've paid for! Worse still: every time you buy a .99 cent song from iTunes you're also paying to have your right to backup, transfer, and do what you want with your content nullified.Have you ever wondered why you can't buy music from iTunes and transfer them to your Zune? DRM (an abbreviation for Digital Rights Management), is the reason. Even if you don't own an MP3 player, think about what would happen if tomorrow you got the feared UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME Windows error. All your music would be gone.

DRM can be problematic even if you are given a method to backup files by your provider, too! Look at what happened to MSN Music and Yahoo! Music customers: both companies have gone out of the music business and are shutting down their key servers. Music will still play, but customers will be unable to reauthenticate, meaning that if they ever need to reinstall their computer, music which they bought legally will no longer play!

The problem does not lie with Apple, Microsoft, Napster, or any other music provider, however. The root of the problem is with the media conglomerates who apply principals which worked fine 20 years ago (in the infancy of personal computing and before the advent of the World Wide Web) to today. It just doesn't work.

So, here's the reasons DRM is bad for you:

1. You can't make normal backups of your DRM files - they won't play.
2. Want to do something trivial, like cut out a 30 second snippet of a song? Can't do that with DRM!
3. In some cases you can't even play music on more than one device! That means buying a separate collection of music for when you're at your job and when you're at home.
4. DRM can harm your computer. When Sony was found to be installing a DRM-related rootkit (virus) on user's PCs every time a CD was played on a computer, it was hours before crackers exploited all of the security holes it left.
5. DRM is no better for artists. If people want music for free, they're getting it for free - DRM or not. Limewire and Bittorrent provide free (read: illegal) copies of music - DRM free.
6. The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America are power-crazy.

So next time you're going to download a song do yourself a favor and get it from somewhere which serves DRM-free music (Amazon is one of them) and show the RIAA you don't support DRM