A few days ago, I posted this NY Times story about how Apple and EMI records announced the sale of music with "DRM" anti-copying and piracy technology. At the time, I was a little dismissive of the announcements importance.

Apple and EMI announce higher quality audio with zero usage restrictions. File this under great news that shouldn't really affect anyone too noticeably.

This morning, I read a post on the Wired "Cult of Mac" blog that analyzed some of the long-term ramifications of the deal. It's a theme that has played out on the blogs over the last few days. Based on my previous comments, you might imagine that I feel like it's all much ado about nothing. You'd be right.

The Wired blog post had a couple of minor factual misconceptions, so I was motivated to comment in respond. Once I start writing, I decided to add in my "It's no big deal" analysis in a little more detail. I thought I'd reproduce it below.

Ultimately, it sure seems like the EMI announcement is much ado about nothing. Like, yeah, sure…fewer restrictions and higher fidelity are a good thing. No complaints there. It just doesn’t seem to me like it will change things a whole lot.

It doesn’t seem to me like there’s been a massive popular outcry about the restrictions or audio quality of current songs. Plenty of super-geeky bloggers have complained about not being able to put their iTunes tracks onto their Linux-based, DIY portable Tivos. And the odd audiophile cluck-clucks about lossy encoding, but it just seems like most people don’t care at all.

The ONLY time I’ve ever run into the usage restriction is when I wanted to post tracks to my blog. Other than that, I’ve downloaded from iTunes, transferred to my iPod painlessly, and not batted an eyelash. I don’t have 5 computers. I don’t burn a whole lot of CDs.

I’m not at all suggesting that people NEVER run into the DRM restrictions. Just that the vast majority don’t. How many people actually have music blogs?

Bottom line: bigger, better features that are obviously pro-consumer are great things. I’m not at all opposed. It just seems like everything thinks this will be earth-shattering. I really doubt it.