DRM is no respecter of persons

It doesn’t matter if you’re an average Joe or a TV and movie star, DRM will hate you equally. Wil Wheaton upgraded to iTunes 7, and I can’t say I envy his ordeal. iTunes basically flushed all his purchased music down the toilet. Wil, I’m truly sorry.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on The Digital Music Weblog lately, and it has inadvertently turned me into a crusader against DRM. There are simply too many arguments against it, and too few in its favor. I completely understand and agree with the recording industry’s need to protect its property, but the measures it is currently taking to do so seem only to molest and corrupt. DRM creates headaches for honest, paying customers and does absolutely nothing to thwart the nefarious intentions of the dishonest.

Take your average brick and mortar store. Sure, they’ll have security measures in place to prevent theft. But the second those security measures make it painful for the non-thieves to shop (let alone use the products once they’ve taken them home), you can bet your buttons that customers are going to start going elsewhere. And if they find a more pleasant shopping experience elsewhere, they have no reason to go back to the first store. Case in point: Wil Wheaton. If I were in Wil Wheaton’s shoes, I’m sure I’d make the same vow he did: never to purchase from the iTunes Music Store again.