Congress wants to mandate one DRM format to rule them all

So get a load of this fantastically inappropriate attempt to legislate the burgeoning online music industry: House Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-California) are floating the idea that Congress ought to mandate a single standard for the DRM used in online music networks. Apparently, Smith is quite vexed that people can't take all of those tunes they've scored from RealNetworks and put them on their iPods. Seems like either Real CEO Rob Glaser has managed to get a bug in Smith's ear, or perhaps one of the five people who were affected when Real's FairPlay DRM hack was disabled happens to be someone with connections. Whatever the case, music industry and consumer groups weighed in at a congressional hearing yesterday to sound off about what a catastrophically bad idea it would be to let Congress and not the market decide which business model is best. We're not saying it would be a bad idea that Apple, and all the players in the download industry, for that matter, support some sort of open standard for downloaded tracks (better yet, get rid of DRM altogether! Insanity, insanity.) — but we are saying we don't trust Rep. Lamar Smith with being able to figure out what that standard should be. Incidentally, Smith was really quite miffed that Apple didn't show up.

[Via Techdirt]