iTunes DRM... the long view

1. I have records that are 50 years old. Ideally I'd like to keep my itunes music... well forever. In 50 years does Apple really expect that the current format they are using will still be usable? Will they still be authorizing computers to check if songs were legally purchased? The whole thing is rather Rube Goldbergian.

2. Playlists are now limited to 7 burns. Sounds reasonable. But see #1. What about over the course of a lifetime. It would be much more fair if we were limited to say 7 burns a year. But that would also be rather Rube Goldbergian... How to check what year we are burning in...

3. Computers change. Formats change. Life moves on. Over the years I have copied my records to tape and then to CD and now to MP3. The important thing was that I had a good original to use for those copies. What happens when I can't play an album of AAC files on my computer because of some DRM issue and have to revert to a burned CD of those files to move the music to the next platform. AAC is already degraded... it is degraded further when it is burned... eventually the copy of the copy of the copy will sound like garbage. Not good.

What to do. Well for now I've stuck to buying CDs and records and I rip everything myself. It's old fashioned, but I think I'll be happier this way in the long run.

Note that these problems aren't Apple specific. Almost all DRMs have some version of these issues...