When Hillary Rosen is on your side, you know something is weird...

From this article:

"The problem is that the iPod only works with either songs that you buy from the on-line Apple iTunes store or songs that you rip from your own CD’s," Rosen writes. "But . . . other music sites have lots of music that you can’t get at the iTunes store. So, if you have an iPod, you are out of luck. If you are really a geek, you can figure out how to strip the songs you might have bought from another on-line store of all identifying information so that they will go into the iPod. But then you have also degraded the sound quality. How cruel.

It's a little bit like the DVD+R and DVD-R fight, it's a little bit like the VHS vs BETA fight, but with one exception. There are multiple DRM solutions from Apple, Microsoft and Real to name a few. Compatibility is definitely not a guaranteed right. That would clearly be a downgrade from CD days, but I'm sure everyone knows that. One reason why I believe Hillary does not like the Apple model is that they kind of keep it for themselves.