Totally reasonable position, Norm.

Unfortunately some publishers feel that they can lock up their media with DRM without informing the consumer. I feel this is a consumer rights issue and that if we're going to have DRM it should at least be disclosed up-front.

Such disclosure, if in the form of warning labels like the "parental advisory" one, would have a pleasing catalyst effect on the consumer revolt against DRM, too.

I buy CDs of music. Not as many as I used to, but I still buy them. I haven't bought any online music because the current storage and proof of ownership all seems too ephemeral.

Last year sometime I bought a CD and took it home, the copyright owner (not the artist) had decided to include some gunk to stop me playing it on a PC. Problem was it wouldn't play on three of the four CD players I own. CD went back to the shop. No more CDs from that artist for me.

What drove software theft down was the drop in prices. When you feel like you're getting value for your money the incentive to steal drops. Music hasn't reached that price point because (AIUI) there are a lot of middlemen who skim profits between the customer and the artist.

Software also has gone to a flexible pricing model like airlines. If I'm a graphic desginer, popping out a thousand dollars on a suite of products from Adobe is no big hardship. If I'm a casual user and like to dabble every couple of months, I'm not going to shell out that kind of money. I will look for a student discount, a discontinued version, maybe even eBay. I have to be disciplined not to simply borrow a copy from someone. I don't know how to translate this into the music biz, but I'm expecting someone will before too long...

(Of course, this ignores "activation" which could be viewed as simply a user-friendly form of copy protection made possible by a connected world...)

I solved the ethical dilemma (I consider the use of locked-down over-restricted stuff to be unethical) by running Linux with almost exclusively open-source stuff. (It helps that I'm a hardcore geek)

I do make an exception for games, but the newest game I play is probably the Golden Sun GBA ROM that I downloaded and I do own the cartridge for it. Most of my games are legally owned DOS or SNES stuff inside emulators.

As for music, I'm lucky; I don't like most of the crap that's out there. I get a lot of my music from sites like OCRemix and The Mod Archive.

I just wish that they'd hurry up and finish the open-source 3D-Accelerated NVidia GeForce driver, GPLFlash, and the GCJ Java Plugin so I can dump the three biggest stains on my system's record. (The BIOS doesn't count since open-source BIOSes are still rather experimental)

I absolutely hate the whole DRM scheme. I have absolutely nothing against the labels, programmers or hollywood for wanting to keep what they own theirs and making money off of it. Thats their job. But to instantly think that every single pc user out there is a copy right infringer, that upsets the living daylights out of me. Ive copied music, yeah for myself. For example, one cd for the den, the other for the car. Not only that, I like making backups (of all of my media) so that I can store my originals so they last the longest.

I personally believe this DRM thing is gonna hit the fan. If not sooner then later. Not only that, I also believe that the DRM will be easy to crack once you've spent some time with it. (I hate you DRM and M$ with ure b$)

I dont want to rip off anything, and go sell it to some noob, I just want to be able to practice fair use. I want to be able to hear my music in my car AND my den w-out having to carry the cd with me.

the whole DRM thing isnt really solving anything anyway.. moreover, it used to be that i'd buy a cd and use it in my car and home stereo and everything.. now i can download files but i cant use in my car's mp3 player because of the drm thing.. which i should be able to do when im paying $10 for an album.. u get a cd for $12 so why not buy the cd itslef..