It's good to see articles on digital music as it is clear this is of huge interest to us all. I am worried though about the Digital Rights Management used by music download services - or more particularly the way it is used.

I've spent a lot of money on downloaded music from MSN Music, which was great until I looked a bit more carefully at the licence details. The cost and usage of the product is severly restrictive compared to owning a CD. I am being ripped off here and so I will be using up any remaining credit and not returning.

For a start there are the unfair licence conditions, such as backup licences (I can copy the music, it's just worthless without the licence), and the fact that music can only be be played until 2099 - fine for me but what about my children inheriting a music collection. 

It is unclear when you buy music what the conditions are - you have to do a bit of digging.

Worst of all, if you upgrade your computer you have to re-issue the licence - for most of my music this is around 3 times and the initial purchase counts as one.  Suppose I want to keep my music for another 60 years - I have many tracks I bought 10 years ago that I still listen to today. What they are saying is I can't upgrade my computer more than once again in my lifetime (as I have recently already upgraded once). The thought that I might be using the same computer in even 3-4 years let
alone 60 is quite perverse!

All I want is a way to legitimately tranfer my music collection to a new device, and remove it from the old one. There doesn't appear to be a way to do this yet.

Or how about if my computer is stolen, destroyed in a fire or just plain broken - suddenly I have lost my entire music collection. I wonder what the insurance company will make of a claim for hundreds of pounds of digital music?

This is copyright gone mad fueled by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (and we don't even live in the US). The rights of the big companies have become too great and the rights of the individual have been completly eroded. Not in the spirit of copyright law at all. The big music companies talk about theft of music though copying. This is rubbish, it is copyright infringement and should
be treated as such. Just because someone takes a copy of a music track does not mean the original has been taken or lost - it is not theft and should not be treated as such.

I have no interest in duplicating/distributing copyright material or breaking the law but I do want to be able to enjoy freely what I have paid a fair price for.

Graham Parkins