[SLL] KCLS eMusic

[Glenn Stone]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 10:40:08AM -0700, douglas wrote:
>It is the DRM junk that the library has to work with.  This OverDrive 
>stuff is total junk.  It is hard to work with.  What I do not understand 
>is I get a month to listen to the stuff, but I can get it from the 
>library as often as I want.  I just wonder what is the point.  Just to 
>make it harder to use?

I think the point, much like the point of Jobs' use of iTunes DRM, is very
simple:

Lock-in.  

MSFT wants you to use ONLY Windows.  Apple wants you to use ONLY Apple
hardware.  GM, with its funky Torx screws, wants you to ONLY use a GM
dealership to get service.  

A lawyer friend of mine pointed out that if a corporation is legally a
person, and that if publicly owned corporations are legally bound to first,
foremost, and always Maximize Shareholder Value, then filing for an IPO is
tantamount to creating a sociopath.    Playing well with others is the
farthest thing from their little fictional minds. 

This whole thing about corporate entities not playing well with others is
how we get things like Iceweasel, the lack of MP3 support in generic Fedora,
and the whole hoo-ha about non-GPL graphics drivers in Ubuntu.  It ain't
pretty... but the legal sausage on the corporate side is the real scene of
carnage.  

-- Glenn