Fred Amoroso is the CEO of Macrovision, a company that earns its keep by inventing and maintaining DRM systems and charging Hollywood an arm and a leg for it. The two are a good match, insofar as they both greatly fear technology, and both spin amazing tales to bolster their views.

In the wake of Steve Jobs' fashionably-late missive against DRM, Amoroso has crafted a response that seeks to convince us all that DRM is not only needed, it's actually a fantastic "enabler" that consumers should embrace. He focuses on four arguments:

DRM is broader than just music

DRM increases, not decreases consumer value

DRM will increase electronic distribution

DRM needs to be interoperable and open

DRM is indeed broader than music, and it's no surprise that the CEO of a DRM-producing company would like to see DRM put on everything possible, particularly movies, music, games and software. The reasons why we should want this are ridiculous.

DRM is good for you?

DRM is good for you because it can give you more options, Amoroso argues. "For example, DRM is uniquely suitable for metering usage rights, so that consumers who don't want to own content, such as a movie, can 'rent' it. Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areasvacation homes, cars, different devices and remotely," he wrote.

Topping it off, Amoroso writes: "Abandoning DRM now will unnecessarily doom all consumers to a 'one size fits all' situation that will increase costs for many of them." (Emphasis added.)

Here's a question for you, the reader: what do cassette tapes, CDs, (most) VHS tapes, books, and vinyl records all have in common? They all doom their users to the horrid life of not having to pay more to use them in more than one usage scenario. Your CDs can be played in vacation homes and cars! Your vinyl records can be played back on more than just one "RIAA-approved" player. Oh, the horror!

Amoroso has just admitted that DRM is about creating new ways to sell your rights back to you. Implicit in his argument is the boogeyman threat of cost: without DRM, you'll have to pay more. Yet the emerging digital download market shows just the opposite: for the same price as a DVD, you can download crippled videos at crappier resolutions that don't work on all of the devices you own. Chances are you can't even watch them on your TV. I can walk into my local record shop right now and buy a handful of CDs for less than it would cost on iTunes, and they'll be better quality, universally playable and rippable. Sure, you could do some of this with interoperable DRM, which Amoroso lauds later in his letter. Yet for Amoroso, interoperable DRM is just another commercial opportunity: you can sell the interoperability!

Without DRM, you'll get nothing

Amoroso doesn't want you to think that prices are the only thing at stake here. Without DRM, he argues, there won't be any content to enjoy. "Quite simply, if the owners of high-value video entertainment are asked to enter, or stay in a digital world that is free of DRM, without protection for their content, then there will be no reason for them to enter, or to stay if they've already entered. The risk will be too great," he writes.

Amoroso could be right, and the major players could balk at a DRM-free world. Yet they already live in a DRM-free world, because the only people plagued by DRM right now are the honest customers handing over their hard-earned money to buy DRM-laden products. The pirates perpetuate their piratical existence sans DRM, and from the looks of it, nothing can stop them. Anyone with sufficient motivation can find DRM-free digital goods online without too much effort.

Let's entertain Amoroso's argument. What happens if the major players decide to ignore the digital market entirely? They simply won't be major players anymore. There's no shortage of entertainment options vying for our attention, so let those who have the drive to compete to do so, and the rest can stay at home and whine about it. If the major players want to surrender the market to those independent artists who aren't afraid of technology (like the folks at eMusic), whose problem is that exactly?