Resumen
Today, musical copyright is most prominently embodied not by sheet music but by audio recordings, along with their translations and derivatives. Yet computers have made light work of reproducing most audio recordings, and the industry is unable to prevent what many young fans are now used to -- free copies of their favorite songs from online file-sharing networks like BitTorrent and LimeWire. Technological barriers, like the widespread security standards and controls known as digital rights management (DRM), have been even less effective. Entertainment businesses say they need DRM to prevent the theft of products that represent their livelihood. In practice, however, DRM has been a uniform failure when it comes to preventing piracy. In the music industry, at least, change is underway. In 2007, Amazon announced the creation of a digital music store that offered DRM-free songs, and in January 2009, Apple finalized a deal with music companies to remove anti-copying restrictions on the songs it sold through iTunes.