For years (yes, literally, years), I’ve been telling people who complain of Apple’s DRM embedded in iTunes Store music, and berate the company for it, that their rants are misplaced. They need to be instead focusing their energies on the “Music” Corporations who license the songs, and that Apple’s use of FairPlay DRM, though annoying, was a forced product of their negotiations with the megalomaniacal and idiotic companies who try to control what you listen to in every way. Apple was the first company to make this breakthrough of a major online music download store, really, and has paved the way for many other models, and perhaps a DRM-free future of such things.

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