Scoble's found the magic formula for traffic: poke the hornets' nest of open/free computing and Apple fandom with a Microsoft-brand stick. Ouch. Still, it has a welcome side-effect: it gets Cory to write things that I believe, but don't really have time to say.
Scoble has written a weblog entry about, among other things, iTunes DRM and Microsoft DRM, and whether you should get an iPod. Scoble works for Microsoft, as do a number of good, sharp, ethical people that I know, and I know him in passing, and he seems to be a good guy. With that disclaimer out of the way, let me say that I think that this blog entry of his epitomizes the sloppiest, worst thinking about digital-media in the field today.Essentially, Rob's trying to explain the thinking behind the Windows Media party line. The media guys in Redmond think that since you can't play WMA in iTunes or on iPods, Apple's reducing choice with their products. After all, there are a bunch of services and devices that support WMA. I'm as happy as the next guy to see Microsoft whine about vendor lock-in, but Cory's taking the high ground: that both companies are selling us out with their respective DRM regimes. What happens when Apple or Microsoft decides that we suddenly don't need to be able to burn our music to CDs? Might never happen, of course, but never say never.
Without a doubt, the best way to protect that investment is to only buy music that isn't in a lock-in format, and to break the locks on any music you do own, while you can. Scoble asks what you will do if "Apple doesn't make a system that plays its AAC format in a car stereo?" I'll tell you what you should do: you should get yourself tools to turn AACs into OGGs or MP3s right now, so that you can buy any car stereo you want and play your music on it. If you can't get those tools, you shouldn't buy AACs (Student: "What do I do if three thugs follow me down a dark deserted street in the middle of the night?" "Master: Don't walk down a dark deserted street in the middle of the night.")Not to pick nits, but the AAC codec isn't really your problem here. It's no less open than MP3. I've ripped all my CDs to 128 bit AAC and I can play them on any player that supports the codec. Given that AAC is at the core of MPEG-4 audio, that should be a wide range of players. What's important is that you break the locks on the track. None of the CDs I ripped to AAC have the FairPlay DRM slapped on them. The few tracks I've bought from the Music Store do. I could burn them to a CD and re-rip them, FairPlay-free, or I could do as Cory suggests and find a tool that eliminates those steps for me.
