As many music lovers know, Digital Rights Management, DRM for short, is the term for the piracy protection inserted in many music files purchased through a download store such as Zune Marketplace or iTunes.
DRM is broken idea created by an organization that still has no idea how the internet works and is terrified by it. Much like other anti-piracy measures, music DRM does little to stop piracy but does much to hinder the experience of legitimate owners. DRM can be broken, but the users who fall under bad luck who don’t know how to circumvent it because they don’t want to be pirates, lose access all of their files. However, most stores allow customers to re-download a song a set number of times (usually between 3 and 5) before they have to call customer support to get more downloads. What’s truly unfortunate is that DRM is based around the concept about digital media that consumers purchase a license to use it, as opposed to something they own and can do whatever they want with. This hurts consumers who are used to the idea of purchasing something and owning it. The best piracy prevention I have experienced is a music store that is easy to access. If I can buy a song easily, I have no reason to steal.
Most digital music stores provide DRM-Free MP3 versions of most, if not all, of their songs. The risk here is that if something happens to the mp3 file, the consumer is completely out of luck. Mp3s are not eligible for re-downloading and, in some cases, are not capable of being re-purchased. It recreates the ownership life, with the possibility of losing everything with a disaster. However, unlike most property, your files are much more fragile, capable of being destroyed by a bad-timed power outage.
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