If anything, it's probably overly restrictive and confusing Digital Rights Management (formerly known by the less euphemistic term "copy protection") that'll eventually doom BuyMusic.com to mediocrity at best, as Wintellians get fed up with needing to remember which songs they can still burn how many times, which songs they're allowed to play on their work computer as well as their home one, which songs they're only allowed to play twice every other Thursday while wearing purple socks and shrieking like a howler monkey, etc. Eventually we imagine most of them will just scrap the whole thing and either buy CDs that they can use however they like, or go the traditional route: fire up a peer-to-peer file-swapping application and download unprotected music for free. (Illegally, of course.)

That'll be less of an impulse if iTunes for Windows lives up to its promise, of course, but that's still a ways away, and there's no guarantee that Steve will even be able to secure the same relatively liberal licensing terms from all five major labels for the Windows version. (Only two had signed on so far when last we checked.) Plus, even if it's every bit as lenient as the Mac version, there are always going to be some people who are driven to illegal downloading not because they're frustrated by DRM, but because 1) they're cheap and 2) their mommas done raised 'em wrong. Piracy is indeed a problem for the recording industry, and will always continue to be-- but we figure it's always going to be worse as long as the recording industry itself sees fit to keep curtailing legal fair-use copying in a paranoid attempt to eliminate any and all piracy in the first place. C'mon, you know the drill: how many times have you been tempted to swipe something just because someone told you you couldn't? Heck, that's why we've got a canister of weapons-grade plutonium we're using as a paperweight. ("Impenetrable security" our Aunt Gladys.)

The form of copy protection most of us encounter on a regular basis is technological in nature (e.g. a means by which copyright holders could blow up computers storing illegally reproduced content), but let's not forget about the industry's other Big Stick: the law. Apparently existing copyright law just isn't draconian enough for the recording execs, who pay big money to back new legislation that would allow, say, Metallica to come to your house and beat you with crowbars for having an unlicensed MP3 of "Enter Sandman" on your hard drive. Ha ha! Just kidding! A savage beating by technophobic metalheads for possession of a single pirated song would clearly constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" and as such is expressly prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. So they're just going to toss you in jail instead.

The scary thing is, that's not actually a joke. A couple of congresspuppets just introduced the Authors, Consumer and Computer Owners Protection and Security Act of 2003 (more affectionately known as "ACCOPS" and less affectionately known as "lamebrained unconstitutional nexus of evil"). If passed, this bill would apparently assume that if one file were involved, then surely at least ten must be-- and at a value of $250 per song ("for some reason"), that pushes the offense up to $2500, making it a felony and bringing with it the potential for jail time. Now, don't get us wrong, here; we're all for respecting copyright and all that (we may be the only people on the planet who never used Napster even once; do we get a spot in the Smithsonian?), but any legislation that would automatically make the possession of even a single illegally copied song into a potential jailing offense is clearly the product of a deranged mind. We're not the only ones to think so, either. Apparently-- and this is something we never, ever thought we'd say in this lifetime-- Michael Jackson and we are of one mind.

Yes, folks, that was an awful lot of exposition just to set up this payoff, but it seems that Michael Jackson himself has issued a press release "expressing concern" over ACCOPS. "I am speechless about the idea of putting music fans in jail for downloading music," says the King of Pop. "We should look to new technologies like Apple's new Music Store for solutions." Amen, buddy. And here's the point, so long in coming: if Michael Jackson thinks something is crazy, doesn't that pretty much mean it is crazy? Come on, the dateline on the press release says "Neverland Ranch," for cryin' out loud. The guy practically invented kooky, so we think the politicians should respect his authority and accept his expert assessment of the sheer looniness of the bill. After all, if you're not going to use your national treasures, why have them in the first place? It's just more stuff to dust.