Unlocked

My opinion about digital music is that it's a solved problem. People make music, they post a bunch of MP3s on their web site, and people download them. Then everyone has lunch. The problem with this little process is that basically destroys the music industry as it exists at the moment, and there are an awful lot of people who don't want that to happen, and they have a lot of money and power. Thus, we get twisted, bizarre crap like digital rights management (DRM) systems, where the music files that people bought are locked up and restricted in all sorts of fabulous ways. Personally, I won't ever buy DRMed music. If I want to pay money for music, I'll buy it on CD, which I can copy, and transcode to my heart's content. I can even sell the CD at a market for five bucks later on, when I'm bored with it.

The other problem with DRM systems is that they get broken. The other day, a tool called FairUse4WM was released, which strips the DRM out of Windows Media DRM 10 and 11. This is the security crap used by Napster and Yahoo, so it was a fairly big deal. Microsoft had a fix ready in about three days, which is significantly faster than most of their usual browser exploit patches, almost certainly because their DRM licencees were screaming bloody murder. The story continues though, with FairUse4WM version 1.2 released to beat the Microsoft patch, and extend its unlocking power to further Windows Media formats.

It's all a silly game, and one that I wish people just wouldn't play. Stick to MP3s kids, and your life will be shinier, more fun and less fattening. You won't get caught up in any of these stupid arms races that somehow end up making the customer's life more complex, painful and expensive.