I don't think anybody likes DRM. Customers certainly don't like it: they want to listen to music and watch video where and when they please. I don't think it's that popular with the content providers, either, because it's not a perfect solution. It might cut down on some piracy, but by no means eliminates it entirely.

DRM has come up recently in a few places, and companies have set up camps at two ends of the spectrum. Amazon.com is doing a booming business selling DRM-free music, sometimes for better prices than at the iTunes Store. On the other hand, we have NBC, who may or may not be partnering with Microsoft to create device software that (somehow) determines if a particular music or video file has been stolen.

As much as I'm sure that both Zune users would appreciate having access to NBC's video library, the problem remains of how exactly Microsoft would do that, aside from splashing giant watermarks across everything. My money's on unicorn tears.

How much more investment will there be in DRM before content providers realize it's an inefficient, ineffective way of deterring piracy? Sound off in comments.

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German iTunes users just got a payload of TV Sendungen (transmission programs) to enhance their multimedia shopping experience. The 35 available shows are mostly of German origin, including series from the German Channels ProSieben, Sat.1, ZDF Enterprises and Brainpool, as well as German versions of U.S. shows from ABC Studios and MTV Networks.

The shows are priced from 1,99 Euro to 2,49 Euro. Shows from Germany include "Stromberg," "GSG9" and "Tramitz and Friends," along with the German versions of "Grey's Anatomy," Season 3 of "Lost," Season 6 of "South Park" (as noted by several tipsters) and the oft-overlooked "Hannah Montana," which all of our German tipsters left off the list. Oh, come on, Hannah Montana makes the wait worthwhile, doesn't she?

We're glad to see another jump in the content iTunes provides in countries outside of the U.S. and hope for more to come!

Thanks Matteo, Danny, Robert and everyone else who sent this in!

iTunes has historically made sharing music with friends something of a hassle. It's not impossible, but it's not a "Just Works" scenario. It does, however, make it ridiculously simple to erase your friend's iPod, but I wouldn't call that a feature. The advent of library sharing on a local network did allow for some semblance of communal music, albeit within fairly strict confines. However, a variety of solutions exist for achieving a more social level in your audio pursuits.

iPod users quickly realize that the first step is to achieve bi-directional transfer from their portable device to the computer. Several great utilities exist for augmenting iTunes' sync capabilities. We've mentioned Podworks before, and Senuti is a long-standing favorite. We've also covered iPod.iTunes, which recently underwent an update. Any of these tools can get your music from your iPod into iTunes, including your friends' iTunes, but I'll take the safe road and mention from the start that music sharing is for personal use only (which will seem increasingly ironic as you read on, but I'm sure you know the rules well enough that I don't need to elaborate).

Sharing your audio files over wider network also requires some additional software. There's Simplify Media, which we highlighted last year. You've also got KavaTunes, a shareware app that makes a web page from your music collection that looks and acts just like iTunes. And now we've got Mojo.

Mojo

Mojo makes it simple to view, play and download music from other Mojo users. You control a buddy list, allowing only certain people to access your music. And the great part is that the standard version of Mojo is free. There's a PRO version - starting at $10.95 for 3 licenses - that adds playlist subscription, but the functionality of the free version is otherwise unlimited (reader Disconnect points out that the free version is limited to 3 Internet users, a fact I missed because I didn't add any more than that. Local network sharing is unlimited, for what it's worth).

Mojo is fairly adept at automatically navigating many network configurations and multiple protocols, automatically detecting other Mojo users. A helper app runs in the background (optional) and provides a constant connection to your authorized friends. Your available Mojo friends appear in your buddy list, and you just select a connected buddy to browse the music they've made available using Mojo's (not bad-looking) interface. DRM songs display in red, and actions taken on them will offer to let you jump into iTunes to authorize your machine. It also detects songs that already exist in your iTunes collection and greys them out. They're still playable, but the option keeps you from downloading duplicates. Songs downloaded through the interface can be automatically added to iTunes, with several options for automatic organization.

I set Mojo up on a remote server and made two users, just for fun. I uploaded a few songs and then streamed them back over the Mojo connection. It worked smoothly and I found myself considering relocating my collection to a server with enough storage and automatic backups. That would free up about half of my hard drive and make my songs accessible to any computer with Mojo installed. It might never happen, but I like the possibility ... and the idea of doing it for free.

Thanks Zoli!

Misu

But, let's say you want to share your music with someone standing right next to you. Obviously, the option exists to do some manual transferring of your collection from iPod to iTunes to another iPod, but there's an easier way on the horizon. Enter Misu, a new application from the developers of Menuet and Art Collector (covered previously).

Misu, which just entered a beta period, offers an extremely simple interface (check out the visuals) for connecting multiple iPods, choosing a source from the detected devices, and melding the music collections together. It compares the libraries of the source and the target iPod(s) and figures out what songs are missing. Hitting the transfer button effectively synchronizes the collections. If there's more music than will fit, it will offer to stop when the target device is full. Misu doesn't offer any options for manual management. It also doesn't currently work with iPod touches, but that functionality is planned.

The Misu beta isn't publicly available, but the developer is opening it up to TUAW readers. To limit the number of beta testers, the invitation will last for 24 hours, starting this morning. People who get in on the beta will also receive a licensed copy of the final product, free. If you've been looking for a program that fills the person-to-person iPod sharing void, grab the Misu beta and take it for a spin. The super-secret code you'll need is 48372.

You'll want to set your iPods to disk mode, and you may want to disable the "Start iTunes when connected" option. Have fun with all that legal music sharing.