We Gotta Fight, For Our Rights, To Digital Media

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a consumer rip-off. The only right it protects is the right of the content creator to sell you the stuff you already bought, several times over. This is because DRM is overly restrictive, ignoring widely recognized rights such as fair use and time-or-place-shifting.Bye-bye, MSN Music died. If you drive your browser to MSN Music you'll come up dry, because that online store closed in 2006. But Aug. 31, 2008, is officially the day the music dies. As of then, you won't be able to re-authorize the music you bought through MSN Music. If your computer breaks or you have to re-install the operating system, you'll lose access to the music because you can no longer transfer your "license" to a new or reformatted computer. Before that happens, Microsoft helpfully recommends that you crawl through the cumbersome "burn an Audio CD" escape hatch they've provided. Apple's iTunes DRM -- and any other DRM -- is just as much of a pain.

Do you remember Rick Astley? He had a big fat hit, it was ghastly. He said "I'm never gonna give you up, or let you down." You may be thinking that Rick's a clown for making a promise like that, because "never" is a long commitment. At the moment, software companies often protect the products of Rick Astley, Britney Spears, or Hannah Montana more than even their own software. I can still activate my Windows XP license over the Internet or by phone. But several years from now, will Microsoft break an Astley-esque promise and "give you up" by turning off the XP activation servers?

Thanks to DRM, you may find yourself losing paid-for music, movies, and even software. You may say to yourself, "What have they done?" And you may ask yourself, "How did we get here?" I can't tell you how many CDs and DVDs that I have bought over the years that were lost to a molten-hot car interior or scratched beyond repair. Digital content should be more secure from loss, since it can be saved to several different places if need be. Yet DRM proponents seem intent on making it easier to lose the content, to the benefit of everyone but the consumer.