Ain't it funny. Sony (audio gear) has released what promises to be a fantastic digital personal audio player, and the one thing standing in the way for it to become a runaway success, is DRM.
Ask it to play DRM files, though, and you'll be in for a big disappointment. It will only play rights-managed files downloaded from its own music service - also called Connect - which will be a show-stopper for anyone who has a library of paid-for, copy-restricted downloads.
I love it. Sony Music is the DRM bogeyman of 2005 with the infamous audio CD rootkit affair. If they keep on insisting on DRM on the audio CDs (which I hope they won't), either they are going to poke holes in their DRM system, or their own hardware player won't be able to store music coming from legally bought Sony CDs.
My assumption here is that Sony Music and Sony audio equipment are actually independent companies under the same name, just like Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office are. Microsoft has been in legal trouble for use of undocumented Windows API calls in their Office suite, which was thought of as an unfair advantage against the competitors. Applying the same logic, Sony won't be allowed (or shouldn't be, at least) to make an exception on Sony audio CDs for Sony gear. It's either everybody, or noone.
