The BBC has a certain journalistic style where they make everything sound reasonable, and always offer both sides of the story (read their global warming reports). Here they comment on the new report on DRM by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG). The report to be released later today, apparently contains praise towards some limited use for DRM, but also strongly criticises rootkit-like technologies, telling the industry that they could be subject to criminal liability for the use of such technical protection measures.

It seems that one of the main solutions proposed is to have some form of labeling of digital media which will let consumers know what they can do with their works. Why? Because people are ripping their CDs and placing them in their iPods, which is certainly an infringement under current UK law because there is no right to make private copies.

I’m giving up and buying an iPod this week. Any recommendations?

Categories: DRM

3 Comments

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John · June 7, 2006 at 5:09 pm

I feel your pain.Even though legally it's not right to do it, aside from using portable CD players it is near impossible to listen to music on the move without either purchasing and downloading your music collection again, or by breaching copyright in ripping your CD collection.It doesn't help that there are so many commercial devices and software suites that do everything but endorse breaching copyright; it's no wonder people don't know/care where they stand.As for recommendations, the 30gb iPod video is less than 200 on Ebuyer. A must-have for that price in my opinion.Either that or you could just wait for one of the new Walkman phones, but as I tried to say in my blog/blawg http://www.johnmaxwell.eu/ I'd go for the standalone mp3 player.

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geeklawyer · June 11, 2006 at 2:35 pm

Don't buy an iPod they are overpriced and underspecified. Sure there's an add on ecosysytem which is useful in many circumstances but iPods don't do FM or sound recording without pricey add-ons and have limited format handling. I bought a Creative Vision:m not perfect but still pretty handy. You may want to check out iRiver who also do some nice machines.

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Andres Guadamuz · June 12, 2006 at 1:53 am

Thanks for the tips, John and geeklawyer. I'm afraid that I'm now the (somehow) proud owner of a shiny black 60GB iPod, although I'm afraid that it will affect my geek rating. Hopefully my geek credentials are intact: I have Linux installed in my laptop and a Linux server next to my Windows gaming machine.

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