I do not doubt that Steve Jobs had ulterior motives when he released his blog-style opinion of DRM. The legal issues Apple is facing in Europe no doubt played a part. But the important thing to consider, in all of this, is the real problem with DRM and the music industry.

For you regular readers/conversationalists, you no doubt know that I hold no positive feeling for the RIAA, the MPAA, and DRM in general. Acronyms aside, I basically loathe the Big Business Knows What Poor Starving Artist Needs idea that permeates our entertainment society today.  Even Courtney Love took five minutes from her busy life to pen an anti-RIAA piece (those who have seen the Roast of Pamela Anderson should be laughing hard about Courtney Love right now). Granted, her thoughts are from several years ago, but they still stand. The industry people make a significant majority of the money earned off of CDs and downloads (which, by the way, the RIAA believes should cost significantly more).

The real point, I think, is simply this: the industries are adverse to the idea of change. They want the consumer to continue to purchase their products in the same way as they have in the past. For a long time, the music industry itself was opposed to the downloading of singles, despite the obvious signs of consumer demand for that. They (the industry) prefer you, the listener, to buy an album worth of songs at the same time, often times giving you one or two radio singles with several average tracks to fill out the album. What does this mean? Instead of selling those two singles ($1.98 on iTunes), the industry just sold ten or twelve songs for $13.99 - $17.98, or even more, depending on your shopping preferences (BestBuy vs. Borders vs. your local record store, for example). If you were Big Business, which model would you choose? Clearly, you'd choose the most profitable one. But when your customers flock to a different medium, will you stay behind the curve, or ahead?

The RIAA is, frankly, staying as far behind the curve as they can. Apple's current DRM technology means that users must go through the process of licensing each device they wish to transfer their music too, restricting their ability to license devices to a certain, small number (I don't recall what it is). Well, that works alright now when users have one computer and one iPod, but what happens when someone, like me, doesn't want to use an iPod? What happens when the user accumulates multiple computers, devices, etc. to the point of not being able to put the music on all of them? Does it seem fair that I can't put the music I purchased on my second device, when I am perfectly capable of playing my CD on every single CD player known to man?

DRM is a bad thing. It doesn't benefit the cosumer at all, and it really doesn't benefit the artist either. Ask them. It only serves to aid those raking in the billions off of us, the consumer. Perhaps we should cause more of a stink then we already do. But I bet we still keep buying crappy music for its overpriced rates, even though we really don't like it.

Twenty-first century technology is not always the worst development in the world. It does not always mean that Big Brother's ability to watch everyone is stronger, that the anti-Christ is getting closer, or that MySpace has created an environment that helps dumb kids run off with crazy adults.

Mozart's music available for free on the internet, you say? What an advancement! I believe that this will help aspiring and veteran musicians both young and old have access to a library of music that previously required a certain amount of work to get. Imagine a 10-year old musician being able to go to the family desktop and download Mozart's compositions to practice on. I know when I was playing piano, all of my music came via my instructor. She had to order it via certain distributors and it could take several weeks.

Hopefully this will open up many new opportunities for young musicians and instructors, especially those in schools where music programs are underfunded and considered for budget cuts. Oh, and to those in the RIAA, I think Mozart (he's been dead for 250 years, alright?) will understand. Please don't try to sue to get copyrights for his descendants.

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Here is a legal question for everyone out there.

Everyone knows about the RIAA and its attempts to crack down on illegal music downloading and the like. While most everyone understand the argument in legal principle, some must admit to the age of the songs being downloaded. My question is this: at what point do you think music copyrights should expire? For example, the Rolling Stones hit their high point in the 60s and 70s, well before I was born (they formed in 1962!). Do you believe it is fair that they are selling a 2-disc cd of greatest hits for $25 when they have been making money off of the songs since the 1960s? Should they hold the copyrights forever? Do you think they should become public domain as far as using them and downloading them?

And whatever your answer is, please explain. I'm really curious to hear some intelligent answers.

I'm getting closer to that Free Ipod. If those of you who have put in your e-mail but haven't complete an offer wouldn't mind helping me out that would rock! And anyone else who wants to get in on the fun can jump in too. Here is my referral link (you have to use it for me to get credit)