Bit-tech editorial ponders DRM

There are a lot of good things about Napster, but something curious happened to some of the files I'd downloaded (but not yet purchased) the other day. I went to play them, and they were no longer available. Neither were any tracks from that record label. Napster's DRM (digital rights management) system, which operates using Microsoft's Windows Media Player 9, had taken note of the fact that Napster's deal with that record label was on hold, and had deleted the tracks from my hard drive.

If the large corporations have their way, nobody except them will own anything '“ you'll have to keep paying regular fees to use any technology they've produced. As a content producer myself, part of me is glad to see technology that makes it easier for intellectual property creators to force users to pay to use content. But the technology that's currently being developed to lock down the Web has the potential to seriously abuse our rights.