One More Reason To Dislike DRM

I've never been a fan of DRM, better known as digital rights management.  Those three dreaded initials are the reason why those music tracks you purchased for your iPod from the iTunes store are locked to the device, and won't let you play them on your Zune, and vice versa.

While the above scenario is annoying, sometimes it gets even worse- like not being able to play the tracks at all.  You know, like when standards change, and the old encryption schemes are no longer supported.  Apparently, such a scenario is in the works:

In an email to customers last week, Microsoft announced it will be removing the licensing servers to it’s now defunct MSN music store on August 31. The servers allow customers to change their DRM (Digital Rights Management) authorisation, altering which PCs and operating systems are licensed to play the songs they’ve bought from the store.

So, therefore, when you buy a new computer, the songs that you already paid for, are now not playable anymore on the new hardware.  Hardly sounds fair, right?  How many times will I buy the same song that I already owned on vinyl, cassette, and CD?  Once again, this is an argument to only buy tracks from non-DRM sources, or to just rip the tracks yourself to mp3's.