The reasons behind DRM are clear; record labels, movie studios and other content creators are desperate to prevent their content to be distributed without their permission, and of course, without their making a profit from its sale.  There's nothing wrong with this in theory, but in reality DRM is saddled with a host of side-effects which plague end users: compatibility problems, annoying licensing downloads, and general usability headaches, just to name three. And, of course, there are myriad ways of side-stepping DRM, which makes its use even more dubious.  Why continue with a system that doesn't prevent the problem at hand, i.e. illicit file sharing, but either locks honest end users out of their purchases or forces them to break the DRM (and technically, the law) in order to use what they've purchased how they want to use it? 

In recent months, some record labels have begun to acquiesce to consumer demands, stripping DRM from some of their online offerings.  This summer, EMI began selling its music DRM-free via the iTunes Music Store, but for a price; the unlocked audio files cost $1.29, $0.30 cents more than standard DRM-ed iTunes music.  And this week, Amazon launched AmazonMP3, a music download service comprised entirely of DRM-free music tracks, nearly 2 million strong. These high bit rate DRM-free MP3 files from AmazonMP3 sell for either $0.89 or $0.99 per song, and can be played on any software or device that supports MP3 audio files: iPods, cell phones, PDAs, DVD players, Windows Mobile devices, digital audio and video players, etc.  By taking DRM out of the equation, users can finally purchase digital content and use it however and wherever they'd like.

I believe (and hope) this trend will continue, that content creators will finally come to understand that if you make your digital content easily available, widely compatible and competitively priced, the vast majority of people will pay for it.  Why, for example, spend 15 minutes on a file sharing service trying to find a satisfactory encoding of a song when you can buy a very high quality track for $0.89 and know that the data tags will be accurate and that the track will come with embedded album art?  Why risk infecting your computer with spyware when the song you've been humming all afternoon is just a click and a few cents away? 

For years, record labels have assumed that most of their customers are thieves; this simply isn't the case.  Most people who troll the file sharing services for music do so because they A) can't use purchased music the way they want, or B) because they can't find the music they want for sale online (which, more often than not, is because the label or artist is paranoid about making their product available for download).  These problems can be, and are being, addressed.

The next challenge comes from Hollywood, which is having none of the concessions the music industry is beginning to make.  Movies available for download are DRM-ed to the hilt, are ridiculously over-priced (often as much as the packaged product at the store) and are difficult to use on mobile devices.  Why are movie download services not taking off in this brave new world of high-speed Internet connectivity and ultra-fast downloads?  You do the math.

It looks like DRM-ed music may be coming to an end, and that's a very good thing for music and gadget lovers alike.  Our next task is to talk some sense into the folks that make those funny moving pictures.  If you could quickly buy and download a high-quality, DRM-free movie for a few bucks, and play it on your TV, iPod, Windows Mobile phone or PDA with a simple drag-and-drop, wouldn't you?  I know I would.