Funny, but disturbing

This from a reader/correspondent at Chaos Manor: According to the research firm The Gartner Group: "What makes the Sony BMG incident even more unfortunate is that the DRM technology can be defeated easily. Gartner has identified one simple technique: The user simply applies a fingernail-sized piece of opaque tape to the outer edge of the disc, rendering session 2 - which contains the self-loading DRM software - unreadable. The PC then treats the CD as an ordinary single-session music CD, and the commonly used CD "rip" programs continue to work as usual. (Note: Gartner does not recommend or endorse this technique.) Moreover, even without the tape, common CD-copying programs readily duplicate the copy-protected disc in its entirety." Please note that under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, this makes a "fingernail-sized piece of opaque tape" an illegal circumvention device, and under the Act, possession of this device is punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 and up to five years in jail! Anarcho-tyranny: We are all criminals. Note that the activity the DMCA and Sony's DRM copy-protection scheme are mdesigned to prevent is perfectly legitimate use for say, tapes of music or videotapes of shows and was-up intil DMCA-perfectly legitimate use of CDs, etc.: the archiving of legally-owned copies of music or video, or the trtansfer of their contents for use on other devices. This whole "let's make criminals of people for fair use of copyrighted material they have paid to use" ploy is a violation of our legitimate use of property designed... to make crimiinals of us all. Ferdy has a post, "Notes from Ferdy - The Sony Question," that touches on this as well. What are YOUR thoughts? Shamelessly flogged* at: Is it Just Me?, Macstansbury, Bloggin' Outloud and NIF (*To avert those who've been exposed to recent pejorations of the term from gasping in dismay: flog-Informal. To publicize aggressively: flogging a new book. :-)