OK. I'm a bit of a tech junkie, and as an IT consultant by trade I get to feed it a bit. So on a techie kind of note I wanted to throw this out there. There is heaps of media attention surrounding copy protection of music and games. And the recent debacle with the Sony Rootkit (http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony_anticustomer_te.html for details) is a classic case of this kind of thing.
When video recorders came out the industry made a big issue, as they had with tape recorders. All about how it was the end of the entertainment industry because nobody would ever do the right thing and buy product anymore. And yet, the industry boomed. Now they say the same thing about CD's and DVD's.
In a nutshell, CD's actually have a much shorter shelflife than people thought 25 years ago when they first came out. They scratch, they are susceptible to heat and other environmental factors etc. It is more than reasonable that a normal person may want to make a legitimate backup of stuff they already own. Will people do the wrong thing? Sure. They always have. But, stuff like the rootkit actually only stop those who are your average mum and dad type. These are not the ones causing the damage. Those who ARE a threat aren't stopped by such measures, as they aren't impossible to circumvent if you know enough.
So - the only people it impacts are those normal people out there who in general are doing the right thing most of the time. These are not the people that are causing issues. They are not the people selling countless 1000's of counterfeit CD's. Yet they are the ones who are expected to fork out another $30 if their CD scratches just because they aren't allowed to copy their original. Or maybe $500 for a piece of software with something like SafeDisc installed on it... The average person gets treated like the criminal, while those who profit outrageously from counterfeit goods just program a way around the problem and keep selling their products.
Below is a link to a great talk by an expert on the subject. It's a transcript of a speech given to some Microsoft employees who work on the Digital Rights Management (DRM) project. (DRM is a form of copy protection). If you have a spare 10 minutes and are interested in this topic have a read.
http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html
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