Portable music player technology isn’t as simple as it once was. With digital music files have come new restrictions from the music labels on how music is played and transferred, as well as discussion of various specifications for connecting devices to computers. In a June 16 story on Platform-Agnostic Drag-and-Drop Music Listening, I suggested lovers of independent music might be better off foregoing both Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Microsoft’s preferred connection mechanism, the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP).

There has been a lot of criticism of DRM, but in the process, a lot of people have missed the details on Microsoft’s MTP. I advocated using the older USB Media Storage Class (MSC) connection method because it’s compatible out-of-the-box with Mac and Linux as well as Windows. But I did note that MTP isn’t itself “DRM,” since many of its features are unrelated to music, let alone music DRM. That launched a semi-interesting debate with Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow, and in the process we learned many of you really can’t stand Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow.

The best way to learn something about a technology, though, is to talk to someone who actually develops it. Dave McLauchlan from the Windows Media Devices Group at Microsoft wrote me privately to rebut some of what I said, make some corrections, and set the record straight on the Windows Media devices and specifically MTP. Dave is himself a musician — see his music site, and note that even though he works for Microsoft, his music is available on iTunes via CDBaby and in non-DRMed MP3 downloads. His response isn’t the one-sided DRM advocacy you might expect, though he has some pragmatic points to make about DRM, as well. Most interesting to me is some of the insight he provides on how these technologies are evolving for music use. I stand by my claim that musicians should consider sidestepping labels and selling non-DRMed music direct to their listeners. But there’s plenty to be learned here.

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing responds here to my commentary on platform-agnostic music listening. On a basic level, I’m not saying anything different than what Cory originally did: Windows DRM is broken and frustrates customers, and the MTP connection cripples Windows Media devices by limiting interoperability. (Try plugging a recent MTP device into a Mac or Linux box and see what happens. Then try an ultra-cheap generic flash music player and marvel at the “advancement” of technology.) iRiver giving users an option to switch back to what works, UMS, is a good thing.

What this comes down to is some subtler points on which we disagree, and whether iRiver is really changing their stance. He quotes my original story, so I’ve excerpted it here so we can follow this. Philosophical debates aside, one point worth making is that there’s nothing stopping you at the present moment for using this hardware and software without the DRM features, whatever Microsoft and the manufacturers intended. Readers noted in comments on the previous story that you’re not restricted to DRMed music on iTunes, and can even get around iTunes entirely with third-party software. Just as I thought Boing Boing shouldn’t conflate DRM with the underlying pipe, readers have suggested that software that’s simply proprietary (like iTunes) shouldn’t be conflated with software designed to actively manage DRM licenses (like Apple’s FairPlay), even if the latter depends on the former.

In the future, you may not be able to ignore DRM, but now you can, and that’s important because it means consumers can still choose to avoid some of these broken technologies. I think that was part of Cory Doctorow’s original point on Boing Boing, so I may be splitting hairs, but it is important to break down these issues. Mr. Doctorow spends a lot more time thinking about these things than I do, so it’s interesting to read his arguments here.