DRM Demystified

What? I'm not the shadiest?

Welcome to the wonderfully shady world of digital rights management (DRM). We've been told that it's illegal to share music, so we'll have purchase it legally from the online music stores.

But do you know what you're really getting when you pay that S$1.99 or US$0.99 for a mp3? They may say you can "choose your music, choose your device, know it's going to work", but how can you be sure? Take a look at this lowdown on purchasing from widely known portals like iTunes and Napster, as well as on Microsoft's WMA DRM.

And how about our local Soundbuzz? I quote from their End User Agreement (emphasis mine):

Permitted Use:

Licenses - You are only allowed to store each Digital Download on 1 PC of your choice (1 "License"). However, as part of our customer support policy, Soundbuzz may, at its sole discretion, allow you up to two 2 times re-installation (i.e. 2 additional Licenses) within a 1 year period from the initial download of a Digital Download, in the event that you upgrade your operating system or suffer any hard drive crashes. Please contact our customer support at support@soundbuzz.com in the event that you wish to request for additional Licenses.

The number of "Burns" and "Ports" (defined below) permitted are in respect of each License granted per Digital Download.

Burns (i.e. CD burning) - You may "burn" each Digital Download up to 3 times only onto CD-R and/or CD-RW in order to create an audio compact disc in "Compact Disc - Digital Audio" Red Book format which is playable on an audio compact disc compatible player (3 "Burns").

Ports - You may export or transfer each Digital Download to such portable media player devices or portable storage devices connected via your PC's USB port a total of 3 times only; and provided that at such point in time the Digital Rights Management license utilised is able to bind to the Digital Download, to the device and to an identified account registered by you ("registered device"), each Digital Download will be exportable an unlimited number of times to each such registered device. For the avoidance of doubt, all transfers to portable devices are only enabled for a one-way transfer to each such device and are not transferable from such device to other devices, PCs or other digital media. (3 "Ports")

Sounds like a lot of trouble just to listen to the music we want, huh? Imagine that if you change your computer after a year, you'll have to repurchase everything!

You know, sometimes it's not that we don't want to pay for our music. It's just that after paying for it, we'll like to do whatever we deem fit with it, and play it wherever, whenever and however we want.

Oh, and about this whole music-sharing = piracy shite, I'll talk about it one day when I can muster the time and strength to write.