Straight up, you run into DRM pretty much every day. Bought music from three of the four major labels or any TV show from iTunes? Played a game on Steam? Watched a Blu-ray movie? Hello, DRM. If you wanna get technical about it, digital rights management and copy protection are two different, if similar things. Digital rights management is copy protection's sniveling, more invasive cousin—it isn't designed simply to make it harder to steal content like straightforward copy protection—you thieving bastard you—but to control exactly how and when you use media. We're going to cover both here, since they both refer to technologies that restrict what you do with music, movies and more.

There are, approximately, 10,742,489 kinds of DRM and copy protection. Almost every company or format has its own flavor that works in a slightly different way from everyone else—Apple's iTunes-smothering FairPlay, Blu-ray's BD+, the restrictions built into every gaming console. They've gotten more complex and nuanced over time, too, as content delivery has evolved. For instance, elementary-school DRM would simply keep you from copying or converting or doing other unseemly things to a file, like playing it on a non-sanctioned device. Or you might remember old-school CD keys, before the days of online activation. Today's DRM, like for movie rentals, music subscriptions or software, constructs more elaborate obstacle courses, nuking videos 24 hours after you press play, or allowing a certain number of copies.

Many of these work in similar ways—files are encrypted with the DRM flavor of the day, and they're unlocked or decrypted for your use by authorized programs and devices. Think of it like a secret handshake that only certain programs or pieces of hardware know. Often, they're tied to an account like on Steam or iTunes. This makes it easy for the Man to keep track of and manage what you're doing with stuff—how many copies you've made, how many machines you've authorized to play your content, whether your monthly all-you-can-eat music subscription is still active, that kind of thing. DRM-busting cracks look for ways to strip that encryption out to allow free usage, copying or modification of the file.

So, aside from the fact that DRM keeps you copying or modifying content, and playing it on whatever damn player you wanna play it on, and maybe limits your time with a movie to a fleeting window, it doesn't sound so bad. Okay, it does. But it can get worse—like when DRM breaks. For instance, Valve's Steam network had a hiccup in 2004 that meant people were locked out of the game they paid to play. Or when Windows cocks up and tells users their OS isn't genuine. Or Sony's infamous rootkit CDs. Or when DRM servers are shut down, rendering music useless. The list goes on.

But wait, haven't you heard that DRM's dead? Or has a cold? Weeellll, yes and no. Sure, some music stores sell DRM-free MP3s—Amazon is unrivaled in that has 'em from every major label, and iTunes sells DRM-free music from EMI. And CDs have never had 'em, except for that aforementioned BS copy protection from Sony and a few other short-lived misguided attempts. So, it's sort of going away for pay-to-own music, but it's still fairly ubiquitous, in all-you-can-eat subscription music, in movies and in software, and it's not going away anytime soon. The emergence of streaming serious video content, like with Hulu in particular, sort of challenges this on the video front—there's no DRM, but then again, it's not as easy to rip a stream for Joe Blow as it is to share a file over Limewire. Harder questions, though, like whether DRM means you ever really own anything anymore, we'll leave to the lawyers.

Here's a list an quick blurb on every major kind of DRM you're likely to run into, and why it sucks (beyond the whole keeping-you-from-sharing-it-with-all-your-friends business):

Audio
• FairPlay is Apple's flavor of DRM that's baked right into iTunes, iPods, QuickTime and iEverything else—most music from the iTunes store is lojacked with it, with exceptions from EMI and some indie labels. It allows for unlimited copies of music files, but only five computers at a time can be authorized. FairPlay files only play on Apple's own iThings. Like every other DRM scheme, it's been cracked.

• PlaysForSure (now simply "Certified for Vista," which is confusing since not all "Certified for Vista" stuff will play PlaysForSure, like Microsoft's own Zune) was Microsoft's attempt to get everyone in the portable player industry on the same Windows Media DRM. Even though Microsoft has basically ditched it, it's successful in that a bunch of services, like Rhapsody and Napster, and players—essentially everyone Apple, from Sony to Toshiba to SanDisk—have used or supported it. It's fairly generic copy protection that keeps you from sending it to all of your friends, though it works with and enforces subscriptions, with the biggest bitch being that it restricts you to Windows and to PlaysForSure devices. (Read: Not iPods.)

• Zune uses a totally different DRM tech than PlaysForSure and is incompatible with it. It allows you to share DRM'd subscription content with up to three other Zunes, though it won't let you burn songs unless you buy 'em. And if subscriptions die, it nukes your songs. It also manages the Zune's "squirt" feature, making sure you don't play beamed songs more than a few times and other annoying restrictions.

• PlayReady: Hey lookie, another Microsoft DRM scheme. This one's different from the similar-sounding PlaysForSure in that while it's backward compatible with Windows Media DRM, it works with more than just Windows Media audio or video files, like AAC and MPEG, and is meant to cover a broader range of devices, like mobile phones.

Video
• FairPlay for video is a lot like the audio version, but adds a couple tricks like nuking rental videos 24 hours after pressing play and presenting a slightly more complicated obstacle course to sync them to portable iThings.

• High-Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection prevents video from being copied as it moves across certain digital video interfaces like HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI, which sounds innocent enough, until you try to watch something on a non-HDCP compliant display—and you can't.

• Content Scrambling System (CSS) was DVD's piddly encryption scheme, long ago busted open like a rotten watermelon.

• AACS (Advanced Access Content System) is one layer of copy protection that's part of the spec of both HD DVD and Blu-ray. It's way stronger than DVD's CSS setup with several components involved in the encryption/decryption process, and allows for blocking specific players that have their keys compromised. Plus it can allow specific numbers of DRM'd copies of content, like for portable players. Also cracked, rather explosively.

• BD+ is Blu-ray's secret sauce DRM that's actually a virtual machine, allowing it to do stuff like make sure the hardware and keys are kosher, and execute code. It's been cracked, twice actually, but part of the appeal is that it can be updated—the last version is at least three months away from being cracked again, though it totally will be. BD+ was the main reason some studios supported Blu-ray over the AACS-only HD DVD, and you can see why.

• Macrovision VHS, yep, that old chestnut: copy protection on VHS tapes that made everything squiggly when you tried to run two VCRs together. Why include it in a digital roundup? Well, besides nostalgia, if you want to convert your original 1986 Star Wars VHS tape to digital, this will make your life difficult—fortunately, a quick Google search turns up ways around it.

• TV and cable—there's a lot going on there to keep you from stealing cable's goods, so you need a box or a CableCard to take the encrypted feed and make it watchable. The industry didn't even really get behind the plug-n-play CableCard, either—it was more or less forced on them. There's also this thing called a broadcast flag that stations like ABC or NBC or HBO can embed in shows at will so you can't record them.

• Tivo uses DRM from Macrovision that can slap you with all kinds of restrictions, ranging from no copying at all to automatic expiration, limiting copies or managed transfers to PCs, or even not allowing you to view certain football games outside of a designated region. Its TivoToGo, for porting stuff to portable devices, actually uses Windows Media DRM though.

• Windows Media DRM, speaking of it, is one of the more popular off-the-shelf DRM kits, used by everyone from Netflix for its streaming service to Amazon's defunct Unbox downloads (now Video on Demand downloads) to Walmart's old video store, that's somewhat flexible it what it allows or doesn't, depending on the service's wants—from no copying to nothing but Windows Media compatible devices (i.e., no iPods). It only runs on Windows, naturally.

• Even Adobe Flash has DRM now. If you've used the streaming part of Amazon's Video on Demand service, you've run into Flash DRM (which had a lovely Antarctica-sized hole allowing you to rip movie streams until a couple months ago). Two bad things about this DRM, notes the EFF: First, with an unencrypted stream it's "unlikely that tools to download, edit, or remix them are illegal." That changes if it's locked up with DRM. Also, it means you'll have to use Adobe's own Flash player to video Flash videos. Lame.

• PlayReady is another Microsoft DRM flavor, aimed mostly at portable devices, but it also powers the DRM in Microsoft's Silverlight, which is what just brought Netflix streaming to Macs.

Software
• Windows Genuine Advantage is what makes sure you're not using a pirated copy of Windows. It phones home occasionally, which can cause bad things if the servers go down. If your copy is legit and it says you're a pirate, you're not the first person it's falsely accused.

• Valve's Steam is one of the most elegant, integrated DRM solutions we've seen in a physical-media-be-damned world (except for its two infamous outages). Unlimited copies of games on unlimited computers, but only one can play on an account at a time. It's fairly seamless, like good DRM should be.

• EA's copy protection system got real famous, real fast thanks to Spore, and nefariously restricts game installations to three computers—in its lifetime, not just at one time like some media DRMs.

• Pretty much every console has varying levels of DRM and copy protection (duh, it's a closed system), but DRM issues are coming more brightly into focus as we download games from stores, like on the Xbox 360 and Wii, where games are tied to your original system, so you're screwed if you get a replacement—it'll take some decent footwork to get your games back, at the very least.

• Not software DRM per se, but Windows Vista has a ton of DRM technologies baked right into it.

Any DRM schemes we missed, feel free to complain about how they make your life more miserable in the comments.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about DRM, rights, McDonald's managers or Taiko Drum Master to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

If Apple doesn't respond to the allegations by Nov. 3, Norway will take Apple before its very diplomatic and wussy-sounding Market Council as the first test case to force Apple to bust open FairPlay. If Norway is for seriously taking on Apple, iTunes-loving Norwegians better enjoy its full DRM'd bounty while they can, especially if any ruling about FairPlay extends to movies and TV shows—guess what's slathered all over them? Why?

Likelier actions from Apple than handing over the FairPlay keys: shutting down the iTunes Store in Norway, pulling everything with DRM, or a blitzkrieg into Oslo. [Yahoo! via Ars Technica]

The next step, of course, is to get some sort of repository for hacked apps going. iPhone developers who are still pissed about the NDA might be receptive to people paying for their app on the iTunes store, but getting TIMELY updates from another source (or direct from themselves). This way users can bypass that week-long waitlist for revisions we're currently seeing in the App Store. [iPhone hacking via haklabs via Macnn]

The method doubleTwist uses isn't quite perfect, however. You drag and drop files onto the app, which then fast forwards the file in order to rip and re-encode the contents, which makes it a lossy conversion instead of a purely lossless ripping of the DRM. You can convert about 100 songs in half an hour—much more convenient than the old method of burning a CD, then ripping it back into iTunes.

The whole thing gives you a 5% degradation in sound quality, but is a small price to pay for someone who wants to migrate your music over into another biosphere, such as the PSP, the Zune, Nokia's N-Series, Sony Ericsson's phones, Palm and Windows Mobile (just for example). [Reuters]

Jesus CHRIST. Stop with the "open letters." We know you're just copying Steve because he's the cool kid in class and all, but come on. You know how everyone accuses you guys of just copying Apple? You're doing it. Right. Now. He doesn't care what you think. And no, he's not going to hand over FairPlay, so stop asking.

I mean, Fred, dude, did you miss us laughing at the RIAA for thinking Steve-o was offering to let the rest of the industry get their grubby little hands on FairPlay? Apparently so, because you say:

Should you desire, we would also assume responsibility for FairPlay as a part of our evolving DRM offering and enable it to interoperate across other DRMs, thus increasing consumer choice and driving commonality across devices.

Speaking of DRM, it is not "an enabler," as you claim. The key word in "rights management" is "management," i.e., control. Is "control" a synonym for "enable"? Not in my thesaurus. It's a law of physics that "convenient" and "DRM-protected" do not exist in the same space.

Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas - vacation homes, cars, different devices and remotely. Abandoning DRM now will unnecessarily doom all consumers to a "one size fits all" situation that will increase costs for many of them.

In conclusion, Fred, assorted other dignitaries, no more letters. We know you're full of it. Steve knows you're full of it. Steve, himself, is full of it. Maybe once you've all actually done something about the problems you're so happy to prattle on and on about what you have to say might be worth reading.

Yours,
Giz

– Matt Buchanan

Macrovision's Response to Steve Jobs' Open Letter [Macrovision via Playlist]

Jobs makes it obvious at the end that the letter was penned to head off mounting pressure from several countries in Europe, in particular Norway, to drop its FairPlay system and make iTunes tracks and the iPod interoperable with other players and services, respectively, or risk legal action. But what does the letter do besides that?

Most realistically, it was just a PR move designed to defuse and shift criticism to the record companies while making Jobs (and Apple) look fantastic—all while things stay the same. After all, the odds of the record companies dropping DRM is nil, and he knows it. But look at what he says about the current path: In the "current state of affairs in the industry, [the] customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices." Not exactly a vote of no confidence.

Jobs pretends that he thinks the only reason record companies want DRM is because they have an unfounded fear of piracy. But he knows better. The numbers he throws out—20 billion CD tracks to 2 billion iTunes tracks—show he does. DRM is designed to uphold the CD industry, where record companies control all of the cards and the profits. DRM makes digital music supplemental to, not a replacement of, the CD industry. So that means Steve really is fighting for us, right?

With iTunes, Jobs takes some of that control—as well as some of the profit. And this is when digital distribution is playing a far-second fiddle to CDs. We saw this control come into play when he manhandled the industry to keep tracks at 99 cents a pop—part of that manhandling came in the form of public sound bytes slamming the labels for being greedy.

It's possible he's trying to win the DRM argument (if he genuinely is) the same way: by proclaiming himself willing to help consumers, if only they'd pull him down off of the cross he's nailed to by DRM. Dropping FairPlay would be a minor loss for Apple, whose major source of profits is the iPod, not iTunes. As Jobs said, most of the music on iPods comes from other sources. And even if the tracks aren't wrapped up in DRM, who's to say Apple's going to unchain the iPod from the iTunes program altogether? If iTunes is selling the exact same non-DRM music another store is selling, why go to the other one when you have a perfectly good one integrated with your jukebox/iPod manager? If anything, this would solidify both the iPod and iTunes at the top because there's no need to buy CDs anymore to get DRM-free music.

Finally, as Cult of Mac points out, Jobs says nothing about DRM for video. He can't if he wants to distribute movies from anyone but Paramount or Disney. And the iPhone? A closed system. Apple's not opening anything up anytime soon. It was nice hearing the words from the man himself, but we know DRM is here to stay.

But for all the assumptions we're making, It is also completely possible that Steve is just sick and tired of the music industry, and wants to get his words out on the issue.– Matt Buchanan

iTunes [Gizmodo]

"We have no doubt that a technology company as sophisticated and smart as Apple could work with the music community to make that happen."

Music industry group fires back at Apple [Associated Press]

Apple to Open Up FairPlay DRM [iLounge]

Even if you are ready to pledge a lifetime commitment to the iPod as your only brand of portable music player or to the iPhone as your only cellphone once it is released, you may find that FairPlay copy protection will, sooner or later, cause you grief. You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever. Because your iTunes will not play on anyone else's hardware.

iTunes only has to work with the iPod and vice versa, and together they provide a pretty seamless experience. Besides, if FairPlay really caused the average person that much of a problem, they could (and probably would) just load regular MP3s onto their iPod.

So where do I sign that lifetime commitment? Will it get me an iPhone early? – Matt Buchanan

Want an iPhone? Beware the iHancuffs [New York Times via Boing Boing]