blufive

Robert Scoble has a weblog entry explaining that he reckons there's a battle coming between Microsoft's DRM and Apple's DRM, and how Microsoft is going to win it. (Scroll down, it's a long entry, which starts by discussing Howard Dean and weblogs, before shooting off at a tangent into DRM territory)

In response, Cory Doctorow has written an excellent piece explaining that, actually, they're both going to lose to the third option...

We have a world today where we can buy CDs, we can download DRM-music, we can download non-DRM music from legit services, we can download "pirate" music from various services, and we can sometimes defeat DRM [...]
In this world where we have consumer choices to make, Scoble argues that our best buy is to pick the lock-in company that will have the largest number of licensees.
That's just about the worst choice you can make.
If I'm going to protect my investment in digital music, my best choice is clearly to invest in buying music in a format that anyone can make a player for. I should buy films, not kinetoscopes. I should buy VHS, not Betamax. I should buy analog tape, not DAT.
Because Scoble's right. If you buy Apple Music or if you buy Microsoft Music, you're screwed if you want to do something with that music that Apple or Microsoft doesn't like.

(in case you hadn't guessed, I'm with Cory on this one)