Quote:
Originally Posted by Moontan13  For a person who only has few CDs, paying $20/mo for unlimited access is more cost effective than buying CDs one at a time.
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That is true. The subscription services fill a definite need. If you don't currently have a large CD collection and want access to a large library then the subscription services can make sense. And subscription style services can't work without DRM. The DRM is there to enforce the conditions of the rental. When the rental period is over or when you cancel the subscription the DRM disables the files you have. That's a completely acceptable use of DRM in my view. I don't consider DRM for that use to be evil at all.
DRM used on media that you purchase, however, is evil. If you purchase the media, rather than rent it or subscribe to it, then DRM of any sort is evil and will cause you grief or complete loss of use of the file at some time in the future.
And remember that the "rights" in DRM (Digital Rights Management) refers to the rights of the content publishers. They have no interest in protecting or enabling any of your legitimate rights to the use of the content (fair use rights, doctrine of first sale, etc. etc.).
