When is the recording industry going to wake to the information age. Everyone used to copy vinyl to cassette (even though home taping was killing music) and now we copy CDs to computer.
Since all music has to be played no amount of DRM in the world will stop duplication from files or CDs. Perhaps the RIAA will be lobbying for the removal of line out ports as a device specifically designed to enable analogue copying of their merchandise?
The combination of overly compressed and distorted modern music mastering (encapsulated as "everything louder then everything else") and the fooling of the public into believing that 128kbps MP3s are "as good" as CD quality (which was, at best, adequate) means that few people care if their tracks have been copied via a pair of cheap analogue converters. By the time it gets to MP3/AAC/WMA I doubt anyone could tell. And if they could no doubt they would believe that the analogue stage would just add warmth.
We know have digital recording interfaces and software that can caputure audio in 32 bits at 192KHz which provides a dynamic range of well over 120dB (a pin drop to, well, loud music), but play most modern CDs and you'll find a dynamic range of at most 12dB and more often 6dB which is so hypercompressed and distorted it may as well be 8 bits at 22KHz! How mad is that?
http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39151371,00.htm
