I suppose you can say that I've bought into this digital music thing. I spent a good amount of time at the late 90s Napster trough. I've had a couple of iPods over the last 4 years. I've ripped and sold all my CDs. And I've legally purchased many albums through iTunes. So all is well.
Well, maybe all is not so well. My daughter Zoe has a new mobile phone. It's a Sony Ericsson phone that plays music. She has the simple desire to play the music that she has purchased through iTunes on her phone. And that's the problem.
So I had THE TALK with my daughter. Not the Birds & the Bees (B+B), but the Digital Rights Management (DRM) talk. Much like the B+B conversation, our DRM chat consisted of me explaining the way society thinks it should work. That these preventions and impediments are for our own protection. Be careful ... mutual consent ... viruses ... morality -- all that.
But because my superpower is the ability to see both sides of any issue (little known fact), I also explained why DRM is evil. Placing the profits of companies over the rights of the individuals. Making normal people break the law just to be able to play the song they legally purchased elsewhere. Hacking ... cracks ... viruses ... morality -- all that too.
I've been in software development for many years now. And the One Sure Thing about software is that at some point in the future, it will suck. This is not through ill will or bad intention. On the contrary, it is the good will that does it. To justify their jobs, all aspects of software dev -- from product managers to coders -- must continue to add features. The add until the application begins to sink under the weight of Clippy.
So it is inevitable that the iPod and iTunes will suck. But if you have purchased your music through Apple, you will not have the freedom to switch to another playback app or device.
So what's a kid to do?
There are plenty of blogs devoted to e-bitching and iMoaning, but here at the ranch, we're about solutions. Emusic. At emusic you pay for it, and it's yours to play wherever. The songs are mp3s with no DRM. Mind you, they're business model is a bit strange -- a monthly fee of $10 gets you 40 downloads a month. And they don't have the widest selection of Today's Hip Recording Artists. But my tastes run a bit independent anymore, and most of what I've paid a buck a song in iTunes over the last year I can find in emusic for a quarter each (Calexico, Matthew Sweet, Nico Case, Jay Farrar, &c.). So I'm pretty happy with it.
As for Zoe, however, they is no Ashlee Simpson or Avril Lavigne on emusic. So she's pretty much out of luck. Digital music is a lot like love. At some point you realize that even with all that investment of time & money, sometimes the music won't play anymore.
