Actually I remember hearing that MS was supposed to have DRM to those same 5 record companies specs, and SonicBlue was signed on to support it with hardware in Q1 2003. The new DRM would allow people to download and listen to unlimited music for $20/month but if you ever cancelled the service then all the music you downloaded, including the music on your portable device, would stop working. MS said they could not finish in time, so they expect to roll it out Q2 or Q3 2003.

Apple got around the complication of this by simply charging per song, as the record companies said they would allow people to burn the downloaded songs to CD for $1 per song, meaning the new DRM is unlocked for $1/song.

All this should be very exciting in the future, at a cost of $20/month.

Jeremy Briggs
www.carplayer.com