Feds to audiophiles: You're all pirates now

As far as "new-and-improved" DRM goes for downloads...I wouldn't count on that. As soon as a new rights management is released it starts getting cracked by an entire community of people who are just as smart as the guys who created it, which is why nothing has stuck so far. There has been some interesting talk about using digital watermarks to at least trace the digital path that an illegally downloaded song takes and identify it on someone's computer, but that only improves the Label's ability to prosecute, which I don't think has been too much of a problem so far.

The debate about the morality of listening to a sound you haven't paid for might be interesting, but that's not the problem that needs to be solved. The information has been freed from the medium, and there's no cramming it back in, no matter how much you might hate it!

-Dusty

Well Dusty, I'm not sure we're on the same wavelength.
I don't think listening is the problem; it's the illegal downloading and sharing-which bypasses the creator of the art-that's the problem.
The fundamental issue is no different now than it was in the past;something "must" be done to protect personal property and identify thieves-that's why livestock is branded and we put locks on our doors.
Your point is interesting though. If the information has or continues to be "freed" from the medium--then artists will have to demand and enforce a change to the medium ; or; the artists will have to demand & enforce changes by which the medium is accessed. This will happen.
The world is a "pay as you play" place, I think that is something everyone out of their teens should be well aware of; we pay for movies,restaurents,gas,tune ups,"electricity",use of rec facilities,museums--why should music be different?
The only reason music is subject to such blatant theft is that society hasn't yet adapted to this new abuse of technology. Robbing a bank used to be easy as well; now we are robbing artists. Electrical theft has become rampant so new technology is developing quickly to counteract it.
I hope the same for our musical artists.

"the morality of listening to a sound...."
"The information as been freed from the medium..."
Dusty, wise words from a man who appears to get it.
Music is after all just a sound and once that sound is freed from the composer it belongs to all of us and at the same time, none of us. It's a fairly easy concept to grasp.

Pascalini, as to the artists demanding and enforcing the way the medium is accessed, the problem is that the medium is now 1's and 0's, and the access point is almost anything electronic. After a sound (with sound being inherently analog) is converted to a digital form, it can be forwarded, copied, and pasted just like a line of text. All the information you see or hear from a computer is essentially the same stuff.

Look at it this way: you can build some little sand castles near the shoreline, and then build a nice big robust sand castle next to those ones, with a nice big sand wall and moat surrounding it. The little sand castles will wash away soonest, and the big one will take a little longer because it has all the extra stuff, but it will all wash away because it's all sand! That's what we're dealing with in the digital world as well. Everything is 1's and 0's, including the security and rights management software that protects the song which is also encoded in 1's and 0's.

With the information being freed from the medium, the only way to control the access of the music would be to control access to computers (or in my analogy above, the access to the beach.)

The point is this: Pandora's box has been opened. If you're familiar with that Greek myth you'll know that there was no way to get the evil back into the box, but there was hope contained in the box as well. The digital demon has escaped, but if the Labels could just recognize that this has also released an opportunity for amazing profits that can also make their consumers happy and their artists rich, then we would all be happier listeners!

-Dusty

Amazing what Ganja does to the thinking process....
If I ride my bike to the corner grocery store, put the kickstand down, go inside to buy an ice cream pop and talk to the shopkeeper for a bit -

The Bicycle has been Freed from it's Rider!

Hallelujah!

Someone may take my liberated bike, but I'm sure next time they'll come into the store and buy a bike from me since they liked the last one so much - I should probably buy lots of bikes and leave them outside stores - I'll be rich!!!.