Apple Getting Your Backup

Getting your backup

"The ability to back up content was not granted by every service, leading to user confusion and frustration," he says. "Third-party digital content service providers are best positioned to meet the backup and restoration needs of their customers." So the trail leads back to the licence server - which Microsoft is turning off for its customers. Why is it doing that? According to Rob Bennett, who wrote the shock email, it was too complicated to support. "Every time there is an OS upgrade, you saw support issues. People would call in because they couldn't download licences. We had to write new code, new configurations each time," he told CNet.

There are a few mitigating factors. One is that purchased downloads usually include the right to burn CDs - thus removing the DRM, and allowing proper backup. Though it's not quite perfect: most download formats are compressed. The CD will sound the same as the download - but if it is ripped back to a PC in a lossy format (such as MP3), the recompressed file will not sound as good.

Customers outside the US are not directly affected by Microsoft's move. Although several download services in the UK use Microsoft DRM - including MSN Music (which is run by Nokia), Napster and HMV - these stores have their own licence servers. Still, if Microsoft itself has done this, and if DRM for this type of purchase is on the way out, then customers with an investment in downloaded music should be cautious. Best burn them to CD, just in case. Some, however, won't let you. Subscription services such as Napster To Go, which gives temporary access to around 5m songs, will keep using DRM. But so far the subscription concept has not taken off.

Yet Rosenblatt thinks that subscriptions may turn out to be Apple's answer to the DRM-free competition - because it has already laid the groundwork with films which expire a certain length of time after being downloaded or watched. "You can now rent a movie on your iPod. The functionality on the iPod that enables that to happen is part of the functionality that you would need to support music subscription services," Rosenblatt says.