In Other Media

Every generation prides itself on being radically different from its predecessor. But ours is truly distinct for growing up in a vast media landscape. When our parents wanted to see a movie, they could decide between going to the theater and renting a VHS. Today, we can watch a motion picture on a computer screen, in the theater, through a projector, via a television set or using a mobile screen like the iPod. Their options were few. Ours abound.

Yet while a flood of software and hardware innovations expand our ability to choose what we see and how we see it, there is also a current that clashes with the tide, curbing our ability to exercise control over the media we consume. And so we rehash a familiar tale: Technology illuminates the world; the powers that be pull down the shutters.

This round of restrictions is generally referred to as Digital Rights

Management (DRM), and it controls user access to music, film, documents and handheld devices by embedding each system with encrypted software that controls the use of that file.

In the case of music, DRM is applied at the behest of the so-called big four: Sony BMG, Warner, EMI and Universal. These four companies require that half the songs offered on the iTunes Music Store come with FairPlay, Apple's take on DRM. FairPlay regulates the number of computers that can play a song (five), the number of times a songs can be burned to a CD (seven) and controls which type of mobile music players can play the file (the songs work only on Apple and Motorola products).

But the restrictions don't end there-FairPlay is hardwired into Quicktime, the platform used to replay content in nearly all Apple applications, from web browsers to editing software. So if you were planning on using a Led Zeppelin song you downloaded from iTunes as the background music to a home movie, forget it, because Quicktime will restrict iMovie from exporting the song.

You don't need a columnist to point out that the logic here is tenuous:

You pay for a song that can easily be obtained by illicit means only to have less control over what you paid for. These restrictions run counter to the principle of ownership, which assumes that when you buy something, it's yours, and you have the right to use it however you please. It's like purchasing green beans at the store and being told you're only allowed to make split pea soup.

What's worse is that the companies who embed music files with DRM are reducing the incentive consumers have to purchasing music legally. Instead of punishing those who download music legally, they should reward them with unfettered access to what is rightfully theirs. The people who download illegally ... well, that's a different story.

However, there are signs that DRM is losing ground. In 2007, Steve Jobs published a memo expressing dismay over the system, claiming that DRM-free music is "the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat." But such action assumes that the big four would remove the DRM condition from their licensing contract with iTunes.

Last week I argued that a cornerstone of economics-that there is no such thing as a free lunch-is of the utmost importance on the web and that we should consider free as operating within an invisible price index.

Paying for content without fair use is far worse than a free lunch you end up paying for in dubious ways. It's more like a bad meal.

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