This post is an off shoot to the "Copyright and "The Man"" thread and concerns the issue of the future copy protection and digital rights management schemes that the music and movie industries along with hardware manufacturers and spineless lawmakers will impose on the (mostly) innocent public.

However those evil (to use that word so beloved by our fellow forum member AlexO) schemes may be, they will not able to put those schemes on all the CDs and DVDs which will have been released up until the point when an effective copy protection is developed. In other words, the Louie Armstrong Hot Five CD I now own can be copied and will always be able to be copied, for as long as I own it and have a CD burner. Free Louie forever!!!<!--color-->

I just wonder what will happen if these industries really try to tighten the reins now that the toothpaste is out of the tube? Will the people revolt and will support grow for illegal copying? Will the consumers boycott these new copy protected formats? Will altered hardware, which can bypass the copy protection, become the rage? Will the public vote the bums out of office?

I don't know but at least I'll some Louie to listen while it all goes down