>> Surely they are not all wrong?
>
> That's a rather weak argument, isn't it?

Well they surely have a lot more information than most of us do on the 
subject, plus they are forced by shareholders to make profit, so it 
seems unlikely they took the decision to invest in and use DRM without 
some thought.

> Renting something is a little different to *buying* it.

How about if I sell you the right to watch my film 10 times, is that 
renting or buying?  How about 100 times, 1000 times, for 5 years, only 
through a specific media player (eg your TV set-top box)?

> If I buy a ladder,

If someone has spent some time coming up with a novel design (eg those 
ones that collapse and fold 10 different ways) then you're probably not 
allowed to make copies and sell it.  You can claim it's your ladder as 
much as you want, but you don't own the IP for it.

> Then again, content is strange. If I hear a tune on the radio, and I
> spent two months sat at my keyboard and figure out how to play it,
> that's "reverse engineering". If I record myself playing it, that's
> "constructing a derivative work". And if I let another human being hear
> it, that's "public performance", at which point I'm likely to be sued
> out of existence. (And at this point, I haven't even used the word
> "digital" yet...)

Exactly, the laws are there to allow people to make investments knowing 
that they will be able to profit from their work.  This goes for 
everything from music and art through to designing cars and phones. 
Without such laws it would be a waste of money to try and develop 
something as you'd never be able to get enough money in return.

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