This is the link to the NYT article. (Note: you may have to register w/ NYT to access the article.) It gives a good overview of the situation.
The main issues to me are copy protection and recording quality. I want to ability to digitally copy any CD that I have purchased to my computer hard disk. My computer (yes, it's a Mac) hard drive is my primary digital playback source. I then use the computer to generate compilation CD-Rs for use in my car. My current practices are perfectly legal under the existing fair use doctrine. The record companies also insist that their anti-copy schemes do not degrade sound quality. This not a credible statement. It may be possible that an average listener on an average $500 system may not be able to hear the distortions introduced by anti-copy programs, but I doubt this applies to a discerning listener with a high-end system.
The main issues to me are copy protection and recording quality. I want to ability to digitally copy any CD that I have purchased to my computer hard disk. My computer (yes, it's a Mac) hard drive is my primary digital playback source. I then use the computer to generate compilation CD-Rs for use in my car. My current practices are perfectly legal under the existing fair use doctrine. The record companies also insist that their anti-copy schemes do not degrade sound quality. This not a credible statement. It may be possible that an average listener on an average $500 system may not be able to hear the distortions introduced by anti-copy programs, but I doubt this applies to a discerning listener with a high-end system.