Why I'm not getting an iPad, iPod, iPhone or Kindle.

One acronym sums it up: DRM.

If I buy some media for personal use, I want to be able to use it. "Digital Rights Management" is all about restricting the consumer to only use a media product on specific devices. Cory Doctorow on bOINGbOING.net is far better versed in the intricacies and legal issues than I. Go there if you want more details, but know this:

You do not own the media you buy; you lease it.

At least, that's according to the media middlemen who write the laws via lobbyists.

For years, Microsoft led the cause of DRM; but around the same time, Apple perfected it. Purchase a tune from iTunes? You can only play it back on designated Apple products. If you decide you'd rather have a Blackberry or Android phone... you'll have to re-purchase the same media for which you've already paid.

Amazon's particularly schizophrenic about DRM. (Full disclosure: I worked at Amazon for four years, but not in any of its media sales divisions.) On the one hand, they sell their music digitally as DRM-free MP3s. I can play them on any MP3 device I own in perpetuity. On the other hand, there's DRM-heavy Kindle. It offers many conveniences and attractive features, but the bottom line is that the DRM forces the user to only ever consume the media that they've paid for on an Amazon bit of hardware. Oh, and you can't lend it to your friend, like you can with a physical book.

Ultimately, we have a scenario that considers the customer to be a criminal. It was bad enough in days gone by when the industry raked in regular money by changing formats regularly (45s? LPs? 8-Tracks? Cassettes? CDs?) While I'm betraying my age, I've had to buy the exact same content on each of these media. I'd rather buy it once and then be able to use it on the device of my choice. Digital media allows me to do this. That's why it's so threatening to the media publishers. And that's why the media producers consider its customers pirates by default. Hence, their insistence on DRM.

They have to protect their failing business model, after all.