"To put it simply, there is no way to really prevent people from ripping a track and burning it to a CD. All the DRM in the world can't prevent someone from simply running the output of a soundcard into a recording device or simply using an external program to record the stereo mix."

Wishful thinking, I believe. This may be true at the moment, but long term DRM development is aimed at stopping what's happening with Napster at the operating system level. Don't be surprised if Longhorn has some DRM measures that prevent much of this.

I wouldn't be so sure. Let's just say that Microsoft's Longhorn has a tightly integrated audio format with built-in tracking, self-destruction, whatever. Yes, if you try to use Longhorn to copy that file, you're going to have a message popup telling you that you'll have to pay for an additional copy and no option to copy it. Maybe the player program will communicate back to Microsoft that the file is being played and on what machine it's being played on. Or maybe you don't actually ever download a file to your machine; maybe the player just pulls bits and pieces from different sources (or encrypts these pieces in a jumbled up file on your hard drive) and tries its best to keep you from porting it to other applications.

No matter *what* they pull, though, you can still perform a simple operation. Look at your computer. There is a wire coming from the sound card's "OUTPUT" port to your speaker's "INPUT" port. To copy the songs, simply run this cable into an external recording device (which might be the same computer running a recording program!) and viola. You can take this new WAV file and compress it into an MP3 without noticeably compromising any fidelity. Thus, it doesn't matter what encoding and encrypting are going inside the machine; at some point, it has to output into sound, and that sound can be digitally recorded.

Even if Microsoft made a deal with PC and speaker manufacturers so that the signal coming from the computer was scrambled (this would require "smart" speakers that would be far more expensive than regular ones) at some point, the damn sound has to eventually end up in simple wires connecting to the speaker. It's a simple matter to splice these wires and run them into a recording device instead. If the unit has a headphone jack, it's even simpler. Simply run a standard cable (less than $5) from the headphone jack to the MIC or LINE IN on a sound card (or, again, any type of recording device) and you're gold.

Finally, even if the new system has proprietary "smart" speakers and headphones, and NO lines out, you could STILL simply stick a high-quality microphone (or whole series of them) up to the speakers and get a decent recording.

In short, there will always be a way to "rip and burn" no matter what software is running on the machine. If new hardware is introduced, no existing audio technology is capable of totally eliminating the possibility of using external recording equipment to "rip."

Finally, even in a bizarre scenario where Longhorn was one giant piece of spyware that continuously interacted with Microsoft to let them know exactly what you were doing with your computer at all times, a clever hacker could construct an emulator to fool the operating system into thinking it was communicating with Microsoft. This is essentially how crackers were able to defeat Valve's Steam system.

I don't believe that CODE will ever succeed in eliminating unauthorized sharing. There is always a way to defeat code using code. Hardware is a bit harder to defeat; yet there always seems to be some way to either emulate the hardware or an inexpensive "chipping" solution (such as the mod chips available for xbox and Playstations.) At best these "solutions" make life burdensome for paying users and simply pose exciting challenges for hacking groups.

The only real solution is to do what the RIAA and MPAA are doing and bring the law into it. If they can bribe enough Congressmen to really intimidate the public, they may manage to destroy the file-sharing communities. Considering that they've already started posing infringment cases as criminal, rather than civil, cases, I don't see any reason why the government won't eventually resort to terror. We're talking about a group of people who represent a dire threat to the authority of the power elite, and there's no way they're going to allow that to happen if they can possibly help it. If people think the RIAA and MPAA are nasty now, just wait until "the next generation" when bandwidth, compression, and encryption technologies double in effeciency.

I'm not really sure how long the public will be willing to endure this onslaught. The government will likely reign in these forces before facing another civil war. Besides, as Lessig has argued so well in his works, all that's really needed is a restoration of the BALANCE of earlier forms of coyprights and patents. The corporations have WAY too much power and they've been badly, badly abusing it. In my opinion they are INSANE to incite the public against them at a time when a new technology threatens to topple their empire.

I'd like to see the government scale back the scope and duration of copyright significantly, totally revamp the patent system, and tighten up on questionable contract and "shrinkwrap" policies. With some reform, these institutions could continue to be useful and respectable. Without reform, the public will grow increasingly frustrated and angry. I don't doubt that some major players in other industries will join in and rally for reform as well. I don't know about you, but I'm sure eager to see what happens.

Your assumption is that the electronic industry or Congress won't agree on DRM controls for recording devices that prevent copying of music. Simple enough. Longhorn or OSX embeds a signal in the music that notifies the recording device that the music is not to be copied. Think broadcast flag.

Now this might not stop joe super hacker determined to filter the embedded signal out, but it will make it impossible for most people once the technology becomes prevalent. And it does make it illegal to circumvent.

Interesting link, Charlie, thanks. That technology certainly sounds bleak, yet I'm confident in the hackers' ability to get around it without a hitch. It wouldn't surprise me if the hackers had a bypass system ready to go before the first embededded broadcast aired.

You'll have to excuse me if I'm hot on these topics lately; I've been reading Lessig's Future of Ideas and it's got me fired up about IP again.

The broadcast flag is not that new of an idea.

I agree. I have no doubt that a serious hacker would be able to get around almost any sort of DRM. But DRM isn't meant to keep the hackers out; it's all the normal people, like the millions who have downloaded mp3's off the Internet.