Is Fairplay Fair? Opinions? Is DRM against Fair Use?

Music companies would sell you the tracks for 50 cents and in FLAC lossless (and pink ponies with wings would bring you the newspaper every morning ), but the truth is that the recording and movie industries are used to having an iron grip on their stuff, and that's the way the last 50 or 60 years have been. If it wasn't for the VCR court ruling saying it's not illegal to sell a device even if it could be used for pirating stuff, we wouldn't even have cd burners.

...in that some good-intentioned-rules not only FAIL at their proposed deterrence of the unlawful (ie crimes are still perpetrated with guns, just illegally-obtained ones, and people still download music illegally), but SUCCEED at inhibiting the lawful (ie it's exceedingly difficult to register and transport a firearm, and DRM/incompatibility make it difficult to use/store your own files); this is a lose-lose situation, folks!

I think most people agree that preventing violent crimes and paying for copyrighted music is good, but that's not the issue; the problem starts at the very beginning, in the approach. We need to come up with something that actually works as a deterrant without inhibiting the proper use of 'it'. I propose the need for heightened surveillance of illegal activity in conjunction with stiffer penalties for those convicted, but that's all I can think of for now. Whatever the answer is, what we have right now obviously isn't working!

The RIAA and MPAA fear change. They have managed to get the laws of this country changed to protect their business model. Other industries have done similar things (import quotas, tarriffs, etc) but not to such and extent. Imagine if GM and Ford got a law passed that said the only automobiles that could be sold in the country had gasoline engines in them, and any modifications to your car to make it run on anything else were illegal.

I am amazed at how well the MPAA has managed to get the convince the public that they have the best interests of the "artists" at heart. Keep in mind that of you 99 cents you pay to iTMS:
Apple gets between 33-30 cents. From that they must pay the transaction fee, bandwidth, hosting, software development, promotion, and everything else associated with actually gettin you the music.
The label gets the rest. Of that, they pay the artist about 4 cents. And the contracts say the artist has to pay back promotion fees, production fees, etc, so chances are the artist will see zero.

Is Fairplay fair? Well, you agreed to the EULA, so the obvious answer is yes, it is. In an absolute answer, is it fair to pay $1 for a realatively low bitrate version of a song that you don't really own, but have on long term rental?