Freedom To Tinker has a brief article on the potential lifespan of DRM products loaded on retail music CDs and poses the question of what happens when those same CDs are placed into computers years after their first purchase. The article assumes that if autorun is enabled than the software on those CDs will attempt to execute and install itself to the host. This is not a far fetched scenario considering the progression of Microsoft’s Windows features and it is foreseeable that autorun will be enabled by default on at least the consumer versions of their next OS.

So what will happen? Likely, if there have been substantial changes in the underlying components of the OS than the software will fail in its attempt to install itself. The process would be similar to installing software written for Windows 95 on XP, it may install and function but do not count on it. However, it is distinctly possible that if the software does manage to install itself that it could result in system instability especially if it replaces key system files. Those are not the only possibilities, though.

Freedom to Tinker postulates that DRM manufactures could avoid this situation in several different ways. The software could ship with a sunset date so that after a particular point in time, say 7 years after pressing, it will check the system date of the PC to determine whether or not it should install itself. Other options, which Sony has pursued with the firmware for its PSP, is to ship updates for the DRM on other CDs or ensure that the software is Internet enabled so that it can download updates. The latter has the greatest potential to be problematic from the consumer standpoint.

Imagine in twenty years you are feeling a touch nostalgic for your lost youth and decide that My Morning Jacket’s Z would soothe your frayed ego. You pull it down from the shelf and carry it over to your computer planning on transferring the songs onto your latest generation iPod. Now, you are fastidious about keeping your computer clean of spyware, malware and viruses but the passage of time has dulled your memory to the XCP debacle of the mid-Naughts. You pop the disc in and as expected it spins up but seems to be taking a little longer than usual. Behind the scenes a small executable was launched because autorun is enabled and it promptly checked the system time and seeing that it passed the sunset date immediately shells out to obtain the most recent copy of itself from Sony/BMG thus allowing the DRM software to continue its purpose by keeping you from transferring said CD to your iPod.

Granted, it does come off as outlandish but it should be remembered that software aimed at controlling the user’s experience and ability to perform desired tasks is getting increasingly sophisticated. It would not surprise me if software similar to the PSP game-based firmware auto-update evolves off a proprietary platform to the more open world of home computing–a distinct possibility under the Trusted Computing platform. Rest assured, caveat emptor will continue remain an important phrase.

Boing Boing has continued the conversation which incidentally, this dovetails nicely with their discussion of the Broadcast and Audio Flag proposals now winding their way through the Senate Commerce Committee. Definitely worth a read.