I agree… I feel that based on Steve Jobs recent announcement, plus what I have read in the past about the birth of the iTunes Music Store, that the current DRM scheme is actually much more relaxed than what the record companies wanted. And I know I have read how the record companies think that when their contracts with Apple come up, they can renegotiate even stricter terms and “premium pricing” and the lot.

I honestly think that Jobs is sincere when he says that he’d prefer to sell without DRM, and that the RIAA are the ones driving the requirement.

I was too busy to comment when I read this, but, since I work Monday through Thursday, my “weekend” has begun. To me, Apple’s Digital Rights Management protocol is another example of the copyright pendulum swinging too far in the direction of copyright holders. And what’s even worse to someone like me (a kneejerk liberal), it seems like these copyright protections are assisting corporations that market stuff much more than people who create stuff. A good summary of the pitfalls of the overextension of copyright protection can be found in an article by Robert S. Boynton that appeared in the New York Times on January 25, 2004: “The Tyranny of Copyright?”)
http://econ.gsia.cmu.edu/ecommerce/The%20Tyranny%20of%20Copyright.htm

Apple’s Digital Rights Management protocol strikes me as another version of what happened to me years ago when I took my American DVD player to Japan. I purchased some DVDs in Japan, but they wouldn’t play on my machine. Then, after a little bit of research, I learned that the only reason I couldn’t watch them was the fact that they lacked the right imprimatur (i.e., regional code) to be viewed on my machine. I had legally purchased everything, but I couldn’t watch anything, and this led me to something that pissed me off even more.

It seems as though these built-in digital protections only affect stupid, honest people like me. It seems as though I could find a way crack or work around these protections if I only knew enough about computers because hackers seem to do be able to do it with ease. Or, many people have told me how stupid I was to actually buy software (or “digital entertainment” — e.g., music, videos, games) when I could just download them from site X on the internet.

This puts me in mind of loyalty oaths that government employees — including me, as memory serves — are required to sign: a promise that you won’t subvert the rules and/or values of the government; the irony, of course, being that someone who really hoped to subvert either would have no problem signing, while someone who hoped to do neither but didn’t want to sign away protections that should be enshrined in both would.
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=teacher+loyalty+oath&btnG=Search

To make a long story a cliché, the people in power are cutting off their nose to spite their face. I think that one of the morals of iTunes is that people, generally, do want to be good. They would rather pay a reasonable fee and do everything above board than be dishonest and get things for free. The history of government (and corporate?) prohibitions seem to suggest that monitored use is better than unmonitored abuse.

Love,
Mr. Monkey