Comment Number:	539814-00133
Received:	1/8/2009 9:54:25 PM
Organization:
Commenter:	Richard Riessen
State:	MI
Agency:	Federal Trade Commission
Rule:	FTC Town Hall to Address Digital Rights Management Technologies - Event Takes Place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle
Attachments:

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Comments:

Though I can appreciate the reasoning behind DRM in software as well as music, the sad fact is that it causes more of an inconvenience for legitimate users than it does for pirates. Pirates will always find a way around copy protection, they always have and they always will. I have been in the PC world pretty much since the beginning and this is the way it has always been. DRM is something that I have learned to live with, I have multiple computers and a couple of MP3 players that use the same iTunes account and my music does not leave those confines, but I know others that wish they could burn purchased music to MP3-formatted CD to listen to in their car stereos and cannot because of the DRM. Unfortunately, this results in a situation where legally purchased music cannot be listened to by the authorized consumer. Though my concerns are mostly with music-based DRM, I understand that the same situations exist for games and other software. In the end, again, it is the average consumer that gets inconvenienced because the pirate already has what they want and is already laughing at the companies that put the DRM in place.