“Neither Apple nor Microsoft is hurt by music piracy. Instead, they use it as a marketing ploy to force people to use their products. It doesn’t have to be this way. The companies could agree on one standard that allows people to play the music they lawfully purchase on whichever player they choose. The music industry is supposed to sell music, not the medium it comes in, right?” – Digital Rights Mismanagement, a Slate article by Adam Penenberg.
The TeleRead take: Consumers and publishers, beware. There’s increasing talk in e-bookdom of a common format, but the DRM gotchas could do it in. For archival purposes and many others, the most graceful solution would be a common format and a common DRM. Publishers will lose the goodwill of consumers, and sales, if they play format games–either directly or through misused DRM.
