All about DRM and respect

Is DRM just a ploy for companies to become a monopoly? Are these companies just using piracy as a scare tactic to force people to see their point of view and buy their products?

Mike Evangelist has had enough and he will stop buying stuff from companies like Sony BMG. He says that he will "patronize only those companies that treat their customers with some respect." Check out the reactions that he gets by posting his rant.

Apple is clearly getting some flak for their iPods and iTunes music service. A columnist for Newsweek calls Apple as "self-serving perpetrators of toxic incompatibilities," in his "This Won't Work With That" award. The Register questions why can't consumers in one country buy music from another country? The writer quips that this method of dividing up territories is like the 1990's where a CD can't be imported into another country without breaking any laws.

Finally, one company will try to take a swing at iTMS and will reverse engineer Apple's Fairplay , while recording companies are getting scared that selling singles are making them lose money. In other words, they're just being greedy. But what else is new?