On the DRM side of things I was at my local JB Hi-Fi on Saturday morning and thought I would check out what was being sold. I spoke with a sales assistant and asked about what 'DRM' CD's they could think of from the top of their head. Ended up looking at Santana's MediaMax'd CD which was a special import. Then to the 'Copy-Controlled' discs with info here and here.
I was surprised to see that the 'Copy-Controlled' discs were all from the EMI group and thought the worst, then changed my mind. This is on Coldplay, Norah Jones, Beastie Boys and The Rolling Stones. I decided now was a good time to go home and play my Norah Jones "Come Away With Me" disc and see how my listening pleasure would sound if I saw a 'rootkit'. So in with the CD which has the 'Copy-Control' logo on the back of the disc with no mention anywhere of the term "Compact Disc Audio" logo and looking at another disc I have from Universal it doesn't have the logo either.
The disc played as soon as I opened Windows Media Player and told it what to play. I ripped the disc into my media library which copied over the current *.wma files that were on the hard drive. I played the file no problems. I then tried to rip the disc with Windows Media Player MP3 format. It appeared to rip fine, it was not until I tried to play the tracks that Media Player highlighted the mp3 track orange and said I cannot play this file. I opened up Nero and checked the format of the Disc and it had no 'Data' track and just a single Audio Track on the disc. So there was no form of software on the audio-formatted disc. It appears to be a nice clean MP3 block with what I would say is a digital algorithm that is encoded within the digital signature of the audio-track on the disc, as soon as the MP3 player tries to play a track with that digital signature on it is unable to or some other way. There will be plenty of stuff around on the net to have a look at. There are a few stories at 'Theage.com.au" from the first half of 2003 on some of the problems and issues found with a case of two referred to the ACCC to look into.
So I can see a problem in the future as EMI have stated that the Microsoft DRM side of things is coming along and conflicting reports about iPod compatability. In the near uiture if I want to listen to my music on the Media Centre PC and my Desktop I am going to be juggling DRM inside my house like there is no tomorow. And after a re-install of my Operating System I will have to re-acquire all of my Digital Rights stuff from online and go through the same activation process I have to do with my Windows Install each time only now I have to do it for every musician's disc.
And as I think more and more about this I wasn't too pissed off because I could copy the audio to my PC in WMA format. If I couldn't have done it in either I would not be very impressed. I gave up juggling discs years ago and insert a disc once in my PC and put stow it away after that. I even do it for data discs and store ISO's on the hard drives.

How this will change my buying habits I do not know, most likely when I see my favorite artist performing I will slip him a $20 and he can slip me a 'Compact Disc'

An opinion over on CNet Forums here

The Age story and links to other articles on the subject

http://www.ifpi.com
http://www.ifpi.com/site-content/legal/copy-control.html
http://www.bmgcopycontrol.com/uk-ireland/index.html
http://www.sonopress.com

Hmmm... The blog swallowed my post preview... I seem to be getting signed-out of the typekey servcie and the above post is rather messy as cut and pasting was happening at the time. Formatting here with movable type can be rather frustrating with a preview that won't reveal page breaks.

Feel free to re-post, Stephen, and I can then delete the 1st two comments for you.

As far as I am concerned once you buy it, it's yours. The music companies aren't up front about any of the extra special rights they want to reserve for themselves, and morally they haven't got a leg to stand on. I recommend that anyone who puts a cd into their computer has progams like "any DVD" and "DVD43 Free" running, which will quickly dispose of the outrageous "copy protection" the sleazebag music industry wants to impose. You bought the cd you own it. If the music industry (aka rip off merchants and boredom central) wants to claim you don't really own it let them be upfront about it and take on an honest discussion.

Paying record companies for music over and over again does not benefit to any substantial degree the artists, and the sooner this myth is put to bed the better.

I had actually been considering spending up big and getting myself a MP3 player with 128meg on it just as a quick way to grab the podcast I was listening to before jumping in the car. Now I will not as it is a waste of money.

It does not matter what the budget I had for a device $50 or $500, legally I cannot copy the Norah Jones (EMI) media disc into MP3 format. The disc and license do not allow for this. The copy protection used stops me from using standard desktop tools within a Microsoft Windows environment. I would need to download some software to rip the music illegally to be able to listen where I chose.

“Microsoft DRM, Apple iTunes DRM, Sony ATRAC, Copy-Control, or the wide range of variances out in the market including recent public enemies XCP and MediaMax technologies provided on some SonyBMG media discs. Each of these has a license fee payable for every disc made and every device that can support it. None of this benefits the artist or the consumer.”

“By purchasing music today, we are supporting the growth of this ideology and after some once said, “Build it and they will come”. They are building it and we are following like sheep, both the artist and the consumer.”

“Freedom of speech and ‘Police States’ are long stones to throw in this day and age. Are we actually agreeing with the corporations that anything that is recorded will have a license fee associated with our choice of listening device or location?”

“My car stereo has more trademark logo’s on the front panel than there are Dolby signatures… This is not, nor ever will be ‘k3WL’”

“The only winners here are the big corporations who have been given a free ticket to create a new monopoly”

“The artist’ return from the studio diminishes as they are now having to pay the license fee’s associated with producing a media disc with these licenses”

“We are following these organisations like sheep and increasing the cost to artists and ourselves as consumers while we line the pockets of copyright holders even deeper.”

“If I chose to have my device only with some or all of these ‘features’, the product unit price will go though the roof with no consumer or artist benefit.”

“The cost to the consumer will also rise as these costs are always passed on to the consumer”

“If I want to listen to it on my ‘Hi-Fi’ in my living room I will be fine, as soon as I leave this room it is useless”

“May I please purchase a device to let me hear stuff while I travel? ‘Yes, I would like a EMI, Microsoft & iTunes license for that as I want to listen to Norah Jones’”

“This media player powered by… ‘Insert your 24 logo’s here’”

“This media disc is only supported on devices that carry the ‘OUR COMPANY’ logo. In order to listen to the content contained please go to our website and choose another ‘pair of ears’ license”

“The artists I have spoke with on this all agree that I should not have to purchase the music with 5 licenses”

“If there are going to be ‘royalty fee’s’, I want these to go to the artist and not to the corporation’s”

“Geo-Location music listening, tracking how fast you drive whilst listening and driving ‘The Dirty Boulevard’”

“Will we see the time when you need to subscribe to a DRM license to be able to listen to any of the ‘Top 10’ music titles this week?”

“I will continue to purchase my music directly from the artist, in the best format they choose for my listening pleasure that I am able to support.”

“The best music I have in my collection is not from ‘studio’ albums, it is from ‘live’ recordings. This is still second best when compared to seeing an artist ‘live’ on stage. Nine times out of ten, this disc will be from within the band on sale from their internet site or at their ‘gigs’. The artist really gets this kind of money. I want to be stimulated by the artist and their performance.”

Mel Gibson... "FREEDom....."

It appears that Mark Russinovich is not happy with Sony and a few others and he has laid down his thoughts on this in quite plain terms.

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/premature-victory-declaration.html