C:\Documents and Settings\MyUser>ping mywsusbox

Pinging mywsusbox.mshome.net [65.74.135.110] with 32 bytes of data:

Buying DRM Online

1. Both of these formats, when protection is applied, limit your ability to copy the tracks to other PCs or to burn to CD. They have the ability to limit how many or what type of copies you can make.


2. When you use copy protected music, you aren't buying a copy of the music. You are renting it. The copy remains the property of the store where you buy the music. Since they do include limits on how many PCs you can authorize the music for, at some point you will have replaced your computer often enough to run out of authorizations. My wife reads eBooks because of failing eyesight - just normal farsightedness that comes with age - but we are already having to consider limits when thinking of replacing her PC. Since she started reading them, we've upgraded her PC 6 out of 9 possible authorizations.


3. What happens when the store you bought the tracks from goes out of business? Or licensing models change? How long will you be able to play your protected track? Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the software and media business but even they have closed down MSN Music after tens of thousands, if not millions, of tracks were purchased and downloaded.
   
   So far, Microsoft is maintaining the MSN Music license servers and users should be able to access their media. I don't believe it will be that way for long. What happens 10 years from now after those servers have not generated a single cent in new revenue? Will Microsoft still pay for new hardware and upgrades to those servers? And for security patches and for modifying the current licensing software to work with new versions of Windows Server? I seriously doubt it.
   
   And what about other companies other than Microsoft. There have been other companies that sold music online that are no longer in business. Some of those companies did not have the resources from other sectors to maintain the license servers after the online music sales went defunct. Their customers are just out of luck the next time they patch or upgrade Windows Media Player or Windows. Or buy a new PC. There music rental is terminated without recourse.


4. All online music stores that I know of only sell compressed music - even the ones that sell MP3s. The compression schemes used for most music downloads are lossy - as in a loss of quality over the original Red Book Audio formatted PCM of the CD. The only way to compress digital audio - or to make the file size smaller - is to strip out bits of data. Those missing bits of data generally represent missing sound detail.
   
   (Note, there are lossless compression schemes that strip out data such that it can be rebuilt exactly like the original. For instance, when a specific pattern of data is repeated 12 times, the software can remove 11 repetitions and then include a few bits that tell the decoder to repeat the single remaining instance of that pattern 12 times. These schemes typically offer about 30% compression, not the near 90% compression that MP3 or WMA compression provides. These lossless compression chemes are not typically what you are buying when you buy music online.)


5. If you create a standard audio CD from your downloaded files the quality will not match the quality of a CD by a long shot. I am pretty tone deaf and I can definitely hear the difference in quality.
   
   If you buy physical CDs, you can rip the CDs to your PC in an uncompressed or lossless compression format and then you can do anything you want with it. If you need a copy of the CD, you can get original quality. If you need MP3 or WMA for a device, you can convert to the best quality MP3 or WMA possible. None of this is possible with the poor quality music available from most online music stores or from peer-to-peer downloading services.

Creating Your own DRM