Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft’s now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it’s done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer. (…)

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The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right!

As DRM free netlabel I have one thing to say: “If you don’t like DRM, why doesn’t the iTunes Music Store offer DRM free music then?” (at least next to the DRM polluted files)
Nobody is forcing Apple to follow the dictate of a few major labels which unfortunately control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. Look at eMusic, Bleep, Beatport etc., there are enough labels (I guess the remaining 30%) who are willing to sell their music online in good quality and DRM free.

Dianne Feinstein’s “Platform Equality and Remedies for
Rights Holders in Music (PERFORM) Act” would permanently
hobble your ability to record off the radio and force
webcasters to use DRM formats.

If passed, future satellite and digital radio receivers
would be limited by law to what the bill calls “reasonable
recording.” To the RIAA, this means that all consumers will
be banned from choosing and playing back selections based on
song title, artist, or genre. According to the Consumer
Electronics Retailers Coalition, even the transmission of a
recording from room to room inside a house would be
restricted by mandatory blocks and controls.

PERFORM would also mess with streaming Internet radio
stations. Right now, MP3 or open format Internet radio can
take advantage of statutory copyright licensing to
remunerate rights holders and artists. After PERFORM, all
streaming music that uses statutory licensing will be
required to be in a DRM-encumbered format that forbids
interoperability or user-editing. Wave goodbye to MP3
streaming and to moving recorded webcasts to the portable
player of your choice.

PERFORM is yet another petulant scrawl by the RIAA on the
statute books, placing their short term interests over the
freedom to innovate and the future freedoms of America’s
musicians and customers. Tell your representative not to
co-sponsor or vote for PERFORM in the Senate or its
companion bill in the House.

Take action now
Details and full text of the bill
EFF’s summary of the bill’s implications