It is the worst idea the media industry ever had, probably dreamed up by MarkeTroids in a fit of rage when they realised their sales were down by 2% and assumed that by controlling distribution, they would somehow increase sales.

It is likely that until the entertainment industry control every single device in your house capable of recording or playing back media, you can copy it if you can hear it. The RIAA and MPAA are big offenders in the struggle for control. Meanwhile, EMI is big on introducing CopyControlled discs, and several other big labels are hardly any better. Look for a little circle and triangle symbol on the case on any CompactDiscs you bought recently.

Note it seems that WindowsXP from MicrosoftCorporation has no problem with these CopyControlled discs and rips them with two clicks of the mouse. That seems odd, being that MicrosoftCorporation is pushing Palladium which is a rather large DRM effort, but maybe they only care about their own DRM, and just not anyone else's DRM.

Not to be mistaken for Digital Radio Mondiale, an effort to transmit higher quality AAC digital audio over shortwave radio. Without any form of CopyControl as far as I can tell. They couldn't have chosen a less geek-friendly name for this unless, perhaps, they'd named it Radio International Advanced Audio.