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A few weeks ago, Kelly bought a new iPod Mini – bringing our family total to three sexy, California-designed portable music players. My brother Andy was the first to take the plunge. I followed shortly thereafter with the purchase of a Rio Karma, which I subsequently eBayed (wow – we’re using that as a verb now) due to hard drive problems. Kelly bought me my own iPod Mini this past Christmas, and now she’s joined the fray.

After she started buying songs from iTunes, she was [understandably] curious how she could give the files to me, so that I could enjoy them too. After all, if she’d bought the CD, then all she’d need to do is hand it to me. I suppose it was as good a time as any to sit her down and explain the harsh reality of digital rights management.

If Kelly buys a song from Apple’s iTunes music store, Apple allows her to listen to it using the iTunes player on her laptop, or using her trusty iPod. But what if we decide we want to listen to it on my PC? Or on my iPod? Or that we want to burn it to a mix CD to enjoy on a car trip – using the CD burner in my computer? Nope.

Thanks to the magic of digital rights management, that file will only play where it’s authorized. Never mind the fact that Kelly bought the song, and owns the use of it just as legally as she would if she had picked up a CD at The Record Archive or (even better) bought the vinyl version at The Bop Shop.

So what if one of us drops our iPod in a puddle the next time we’re out jogging, and doesn’t want to shell out the bucks for a replacement? If the music came from iTunes, then congrats – the only place that song will play from now on is through tinny laptop speakers.

If I go out and buy a CD, the fair use doctrine of the US copyright law says I can do whatever I want with the content of that CD, as long as that content stays within my household. If I want to burn a mix CD with a track or two from my recently-purchased disc, the government says that’s okay. If I want to burn a second copy of that mix CD for the car – or Kelly’s car – that’s fine too. If I want to rip it into a digital file and keep a back-up copy on my hard drive… yup, no problem! Or drop that digital file onto my iPod? No trouble there either.

So, three questions flow from this discussion: First, why can’t I do the same things with a song that’s purchased, using real money, from iTunes? Second – and more importantly – why are hundreds of thousands of people dumping their hard-earned money into iTunes music? Third – and most importantly – why will we be fined or put in prison for removing the DRM from the music files that we’ve bought and paid for?

To everyone out there who’s buying songs from Apple – and from the handful of other DRM-tainted music services out there – cut that out. If you can’t see the slippery slope that this is leading us down, then you deserve to be subjected to the Brittney Spears songs you’re downloading. But if you care at all for your right to do what you want with the things you buy – whether they be music files, DVDs, books or SUVs – then stop buying music from Apple and go visit your local record store.