DRM is a swear word to many consumers these days, their first meeting with this anti competitive consumer unfriendly software is when they wish to transfer music from one portable system to another, and as time goes by even this aspect is becoming harder and harder to do to fuel a cycle of corporate greed.
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71240-0.html?tw=wn_index_2Buy music from iTunes and your only portable playback option is the iPod. Buy it from Napster, and it'll only play on certain Microsoft-approved devices. Although you can circumvent these restrictions by burning and re-ripping audio CD-Rs, it's a poor substitute for real music interoperability.
DRM sucks. Let's just get that out of the way right now. A company called Navio has made lots of waves with its plan to make DRM suck a little bit less, giving content owners the ability to sell the right to play media directly to consumers using any popular DRM scheme. If you're a record label, the main attraction here is probably the prospect of selling secure songs directly to iPod owners without forking over a percentage of each sale to the iTunes Music Store.
One company already offers a very large catalog that can be played on as many devices as Navio plans to enable: Real.
Every song it offers as an a la carte download from the RealPlayer Music Store (including Harmony-compatible songs) can be transferred to an iPod using a similar method, according to Matt Graves, Real's senior PR manager of music. When a user tries to transfer a secure AAC purchased from Real to an iPod, the RealPlayer client removes Real's Helix protection and adds Apple's FairPlay protection. When a user wants to transfer a purchased song to an MP3 player that supports secure WMA, the RealPlayer client removes the Helix protection, transcodes the AAC to WMA, and adds Microsoft's DRM.
Most P2P users are not shackled by the anti consumer operations of the over-zealous copyright Cartels and I personally think If a company sells you a product its your to own and use as you see fit for your own personal use , DRM restrictive licensing is another way of trying to sell you hot air, at no point do you ever have anything physical to fall back on.
Much as the service offered in the article is a step forward in providing cross platform compatibility, its no different than ofering a condemned prisoner a choice of different ropes to be hung with.
