(It is a highly touted aspect of free market envrionments that companies will do what they can to protect themselves. Unfortunately in our society companies try to pass laws on anything they feel threatens thier market hold. For instance, you may remember the anti-digital sattelite TV commercials put out by the cable companies that informed us you can not recieve local channels over your sattelite service. I had originally thought this was due to a technological limitation, it turns out that the cable companies imposed monopolies were so threatened by the advent of digital sattelite broadcast that they bribed congress to pass a law making it ILLEGAL to broadcast local channels over sattelite systems! This law has since been repealled (or had a time limit) and sattelite systems now deliver local channels. Companies with monopolies hate competition and often try to use the 'pass any law you want' mentality in the us to maintain it instead of trying to actually comepte in a competitive market. On that note, IBM touts a new digitally music security system, making it difficult to use such services as napster and gnutella. That larger music companies were trying to get congress to pass a law outlawing peer to peer internet networks because music can be traded over them. This is like closing all highways because criminals use them to transfer illegal substances. Not very logical, not to mention the detrimental impact this would have on the growth and potential of the internet (the closest thing to a free market environment there is!) While I dislike the high prices charged for CD's just like the next guy (which have increased ten fold over inflation) I feel these are things the markets have to work out for themselves. If a music company doesnt want anyone copying and trading thier music, they must make it technically difficult to do so. Instead they automatically try to pass a law. They are not to blaim, as they are trying to work in thier own interest, it is the system and the government to blaimed for allowing such rediculous laws to be passed. Laws should be limited to preventing assault, theft, or physical injury - Mike)

from - http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2676785,00.html?chkpt=zdhpnews01

IBM touts new Napster-proof music locks

By John Borland, Special to ZDNet
January 22, 2001 4:37 AM PT
IBM will release a new version of its anti-music piracy
technology Monday that it says could help block song
traders who use services such as Napster or Gnutella.

Big Blue is one of the oldest players in the so-called digital
rights management business, in which companies create
software to block or deter would-be pirates from
downloading music online without permission. A 1999 test
conducted with most of the major label record companies
led many analysts to put IBM in a leading role in the young
industry.

The advent of Napster and its peers has changed the rules
and risks in the online music business. Now IBM and other
companies are trying to keep just enough of the Napster
model alive to satisfy consumers, while giving copyright
holders near-absolute control over the way songs and other
media are distributed.

That's a tall order, with a few controversial ways of
fulfilling it. IBM's new tack is to allow a song to be copied
and sent from person to person as often as consumers want.
But built-in restrictions would be triggered by the copies,
permitting the next person in line on Napster or an e-mail
chain to play the song only once, hear 30 seconds or hear
nothing at all.

The model sounds much like what the record companies
have been asking for. Analysts say the innovation gives IBM
a new leg up in the content-lockup business, but that nothing
is settled.

"It's all up in the air," said Alan Weintraub, a Gartner Group
analyst who follows the industry closely. The record
companies "are looking at what to do, playing around with
different technologies."

An arms race
As fast as companies try to protect music or other media
from hackers and crackers, the underground tends to find a
way to break or evade the protections.

The history of content that's been put on the Net in protected
form is not a happy one.

Stephen King's electronic book was stripped of protections
just days after being put online for download. The copy
protections on DVDs are facing assault by crackers using a
software program called DeCSS, which the film industry is
trying to stamp out online.

It's partly for that reason that the big content companies have
yet to settle on a standard. Most of the record companies
have announced trials with versions of the several dozen
types of copy protection on the market, but none has
achieved anything like dominance.

The music and publishing companies also have to persuade
consumers that buying songs or books with built-in
limitations on sharing and copying even for personal use is a
good idea. A backlash among free speech advocates has
already begun, with critics arguing that the record
companies are trying to expand their copyrights beyond what
is already allowed by law.

Most of the debate is still in the theoretical stage, however,
since few companies are distributing music that is protected,
few devices are made that can read the protections, and a
vast library of music is still available on Napster without
any protection at all.

Like Napster, but with rules
IBM is betting that Napster in its current form will
ultimately go away, making its limited-distribution model
more attractive.

"If you assume that Napster will disappear in its current
state, what's going to replace it?," asked Scott Burnett,
business development executive for IBM Global Media and
Entertainment. "That's what we're talking about here."

The new version of IBM's technology will add several
features geared toward thwarting this kind of unauthorized
distribution of music and pushing consumers toward paying
for music they find online:

*Copyright owners, such as music companies or publishers,
can limit use of a song or book after it has been distributed
once. Thus, sending a song through e-mail, or through
Napster, could theoretically disable or limit use of the copy
that the second person receives.

*Copyright owners could give songs or books different
types of protection based on geographic region, much as the
DVD industry does today.

* New plug-ins for RealNetwork's RealJukebox and the
MusicMatch Jukebox will allow direct sales and payment
options for music protected with the EMMS technology.

Even IBM admits that its technology stands some chance of
being hacked, although Burnett called his company's model
"among the most secure, if not the most secure" versions on
the market. But he, along with many analysts, predict that
only a small proportion of consumers will try to break
through copy protection once it's used.

"All this stuff is crackable," Weintraub said. "But there is a
level of technology that will keep people honest. I believe
that putting some constraints around it will make most
people think about what they're doing."

That may be. But other analysts believe that the anarchic
distribution of music and other media through peer-to-peer
services such as Napster is here to stay.

"I think any content that winds up on the Net will be
distributed on parallel networks (such as Napster), and there
will be nothing that anyone can do about it," said Rob
Batchelder, a Gartner Group peer-to-peer analyst. "As far as
I'm concerned, trying to put out digital rights management is
like fighting the war on drugs."