One thing is for sure. You will see this ramp up considerably over the upcoming months and possibly years. The fact that the recording industry is considering the DRM too costly is about right but should they decide to change it, they will themselves be embroiled with the RIAA. The reason is simple. Money.

Here’s why.

Should they scrap DRM and sell the tracks, people will inevitably buy more tracks and spur market growth. However a threshold will be reached when your populous finishes buying out your track. Under this model, your finished making money on a particular song. Under the RIAA’s model, you will keep DRM thereby having a virtually unlimited number of sales of the same track and guaranteeing you money income almost forever.

Think about it.

Having been a legal user of Windows from 3.1 all the way up to XP, I am NOT going to pay Microsoft another cent of my money. I will not upgrade to Windows Vista on my PC, and I will not buy Microsoft Office anymore. With this Software Craptection Platform, as you said, who knows what will happen? A problem in this crap could cause it to say you are using a pirated version of Vista, and you will be locked out of the computer if you do not pay for another license. Simply ridiculuous.

On my PC I use a Corporate version of Windows XP, so at least I do not have to worry about this crap suddenly striking me.

I bought a Macbook recently, and I use my now unused copies of Windows 2000 (and also Corporate XP) under Parallels. Works fine. No craptivation of any sort. And if I need to pass through Genuine Crapvantage, then I use these Windows 2000 VMs to get through. I say, stop paying Microsoft and search for other alternatives if possible.

By the way, I am most happy to see that Vista scales are lacking.:mrgreen:

In the end maybe this will serve as an example of why conspiring against your customers hurts your stock value. Probably not, they should let their coders and technologists make their business decisions as well for them.