I see a lot of people blogging about how DRM sucks, lately. And I see all these anti-DRM rallies and parties and whatnot. And it occurs to me the irony of the whole situation. DRM is simply to the commercial music and video industry, what the GPL is to the free software world. It is merely an idea for protecting their works. Granted that all the implementations that people are whining about all the time, do indeed suck. It is kind of amusing to watch all the hypocrosy involved though, just as it is humorous to see a Belgian state that he won't visit the U.S. because of some imagainary policy that people who are in positions which are not elected, somehow came up with. I for one though, am glad that DRM as an idea exists. Sure we have some really crap implementations now. There's plenty of really crappy free software out in the vastness of the net as well. It's not stopping people from making crappy free software, or crappy free music, or posting crappy free videos on YouTube. People will continue to do that, whether or not DRM exists. The people complaining about DRM and how bad the implementations are, just seem unwilling to solve the problems, rather than viewing the problems surrounding DRM, as a new set of challenges that we can overcome by working together and with the DRM ideology, rather than simply trying to swim up a river flowing down a mountain.