1) an economic tool to enforce vendor lock-in (which is a monopolistic tactic) as demonstrated by iTunes store. The real goal of the DRM scheme was to sell iPods, meaning it was there to achieve an early monopoly on the portable media player industry. Because it was integrated easily with iTunes, people didn’t have to think about how to get the music they bought onto their iPods. So, Apple was sneaky and put DRM on the music files to ensure that people would rationally not buy anything but an iPod.

2) A fight for control over your digital life. Apple and Microsoft are basically totalitarian dictatorships over your digital life. They trick you into giving up your freedom to choose how and what you do with your computers by quickly promising to ease your suffering on the computer with “user friendly” computing.

I also hate when I buy a DVD and it spends ages showing me those non-skippable screens going on about not copying it – I didn’t copy it – I bought it – but if you insist on nagging me, I might not buy the next one..!

I often hear people (iTunes users) complaining that they want to “own” their music. OK, great. For $10,000, you own the pink slip to all the songs on your iPod. And what is it you can do with that pink slip that I can’t? For $14.99/month I can have just as much fun playing a Zunefull of the exact same music. Oh, and if I decide that I don’t like Chris Brown anymore, I’m not throwing away my money when I delete his songs.

Bad DRM has scared consumers off from good (transparent) DRM. DRM is ultimately unavoidable, it’s just a matter of hiding the fact that it exists.