Declan McCullagh wonders if the iPod video will lead to drm protection laws like the DMCA getting reformed. He quotes Fred von Lohmann as saying "Our best hope for getting amendments to the DMCA is for more regular consumers to feel the pinch of the DMCA." This has been my basic argument for some time now as to why drm and associated laws will eventually be driven to the edge of extinction. As more people get exposed to the need to get more than one device just to play music or films from more than one supplier, more people will get sufficiently exasperated to complain, with their wallets.
That doesn't mean that drm, the DMCA, the EUCD etc won't have periodic revivals, just that controlling information, to the degree that these laws and technologies allow, is fundamentally at odds with people's natural desire to access that information.
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