Not to be a Steve Job’s fan boy but he understands my needs when he says I want to “own” my music and not rent it.
It is not the legal side of renting music that bothers me so but rather the technical side. You need to connect with a server every now and then to keep listening to your library of music. If you don’t the music stops playing. Not only do businesses come and go but the standards and systems they support change. They don’t always provide an easy path from one system to another either (Microsoft recently dumped their Plays For Sure system with the Zune system. Your Plays For Sure music won’t play on a Zune.)
I doubt very much that a library of music I rent now will continue to work as is in 10 years time. There will be breaking changes between now and then.
The same is true with DRM stamped media.
At least as a technically savvy user I know I can keep my non-DRM, non-rented music library playing for as long as I want. As changes happen I’ll either find tools or make tools that bridge the change.
It will be a lot harder to bridge the change with a rented or DRM stamped library.
