How do you buy your music online? Wal-Mart? ::napster::? The new MySpace service? ::itunes::? Your choice of provider is probably determined by factors such as price and selection. But does whether or not the songs are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology affect your decision?

While DRM offers little advantage to the end users, since it makes it harder to share songs and albums, it is something that the music industry has invested a lot of time and energy in simply because it drives up revenue and promotes the artists’ livelihoods. Traditionally, the main issue that users have had with DRM is that it makes it either difficult or impossible to play media on their platform of choice if it was purchased on another. For example, a song purchased on iTunes can generally not be played on another mp3 player. However iPods and iPhones are mainstream enough so that for a lot of people (myself included), it is a non-issue. So what’s the real problem?

The deeper issue with DRM is less obvious: in a way, you have to trust that your provider will be around forever. Let me explain. DRM technology implies that there is a server out there that the software that plays your music can talk to to ensure that you have the rights to the song. But what happens if that company were to go out of business? That server would become unavailable and bang, you couldn’t play your songs anymore. This has actually happened already, not in the sense that the companies went out of business but rather that they simply found the management of the DRM servers to no longer be worth it. Providers like Sony, Microsoft and Yahoo have all gone through this, and very recently Wal-Mart as well.

As things stand right now, most vendors have opted towards DRM-free music. Apple is one the few that remains. But I had a bit of a scare when I read this morning that it might shut down its iTunes service. What exactly would that mean? Would their DRM servers go down also? While I hope that Apple wouldn’t do that, I also realize that it’s a possibility.

This aspect of the DRM debate can be compared to cryonics. Sure you can freeze your body for a few hundred years and (hopefully) be revived later on, but what happens if the company goes under 150 years from now while you’re still frozen at -321 degrees Fahrenheit? Well, you get the idea.

As things stand, it seems that while preserving the interests of the artists – especially if they are just emerging – is a very important and worthwhile goal, DRM is not quite where it needs to be. Perhaps groups of vendors working together towards a solution will be answer. But it could take a while.

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