DRM & Fair Use

Dave — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 22:39:34 +0000

Digital Rights Management has long been a thorn in my side. Although the laws here in the frozen north are different than in the sunny south , we Canadians feel the effects of the RIAA and DRM. I have never liked DRM and looked for ways around it, after all, I purchased the music I want to be able to play it where I want. Currently the one sure fire way to un-DRM your purchased music was to burn it to a CD/DVD and re-rip it, which is a time consuming process. Then some interesting news came out…

Last week an application came out that strips out the DRM in Windows Media 10 & 11, that actually allows you to have fair use of your music files. FairUse4WM has gotten a lot of press since it was released and now it seems MS is close to patching the loophole. The folks over at Engadet.com have written an open letter to MS, asking them to not fix the loophole.

Users of Rhapsody (not available in Canada). Napster , and Yahoo Unlimited Music would be able, with FairUse4WM, to un-DRM their files and play them on all portable music players, not just the MS labeled "PlaysforSure". There would be some who would join for a month, un-DRM the "rented" files and then leave, yet most users would just enjoy the flexibility of their Fair Use files. Music that is easily transferred to all my devices, without restriction, would be the ideal format for me. Lets see if MS caves to RIAA or lets this hole stay open.

Dave Hildebrand.com » fairuse4wm

DRM & Fair Use