[steve-b]

Fritz is trying to fix a legitimate problem

Nonsense. The "problem" that the established industry sees is that modern tools make it possible for anyone with enough talent and willingness to sweat (admittedly somewhat rare qualities) to produce and publish work of professional quality. This is indicated by the industry's attempt to avoid addressing the issue of copyright violation the same way we address violations of every other law on the books from jay-walking to murder and insist that some novel "solution" is needed which just happens (yeah, right) as an unanticipated side effect (snort) to cripple independent media publication.

[discostu]

No, the problem is the massive distribution of copyrighted material without the owner of the copyright getting any money for it. Keep your eye on the ball here. When you rip a CD you're making a copy, if you don't allow that copy to be used by anyone else that's fair use, not a problem. If you give it to others that's bootlegging, that's a problem. Nothing related to this Fritz chip will stop people from turning their computer into a home studio and making and distributing those MP3s. It's trying to stop the ripping, which sucks because the ripping itself is perfectly legal, that's why I'm asking for a better answer.