He's got 550 albums that he's bought over the years and has since ripped into digital files. He doesn't use file-sharing applications like Kazaa unless he's checking out some new music. Admittedly, Davidian, 32, doesn't buy many CDs, but it's not because he's not willing to part with the cash. It's just that nothing much on the radio interests him.

	See also:
•	Kazaa's File-Sharing Swap
•	The Day the Napster Died
•	ReplayTV Won't Quit, Won't Quit
•	Napster Now Bertelsmann's Baby
•	Hear how MP3 Rocks the Web

No, Davidian feeds his new love for dance music with regular visits to MP3.com, one of the plethora of sites where independent and unknown artists post their music for anyone to download legally for free.

In short, he's the type of guy the recording industry should be salivating over. He's into exploring new music, he's into legal sites, he's had a history of purchasing albums and says he has no problem with the concept of paying for music.

There's just one problem: He hates digital rights management (DRM), the security systems being used to control how consumers can listen to music they legally purchase.

Dividian's story is not unique, and his distaste for DRM is a big problem for record companies and movie studios. Without that security on CDs and DVDs, the industry thinking goes, no online business can survive. But no consumer wants to buy protected content.

The federal government is listening -- at least to the entertainment industry. The House Judiciary Committee continues its hearings to determine if there should be a mandated security system that comes with all digital content and consumer electronics products.

"There is one way to deal with information pirated and sold without DRM protection, and in concept it could be a tech mandate," said Rep. Howard Berman (D-California) before postulating that technology applied from the production stage through distribution could solve the file-sharing problem.

This is the latest in the debate over Senate Commerce Chairman Fritz Holling's (D-South Carolina) Security Systems Standards and Certification Act legislation that would force electronic devices to come with copy protections built directly into the systems.

While the digital rights management companies understandably believe security is paramount to the success of online business, none want the government mandating a standard.

"Imposing broad technical measures simply to address a specific issue would stifle innovation and certainly result in higher consumer costs with few, if any, corresponding benefits," said Will Poole, Microsoft's vice president of new media platforms.

There's the rub. Entertainment companies, terrified about digital piracy, must partner with technology companies to create an open security standard that Dividian doesn't want on his product in the first place.

But piracy concerns aren't going away. Billions of music files a month are swapped using Kazaa, Morpheus and Gnutella, three of the most popular file-trading networks, while up to 500,000 films a day are shared using those same networks according to a recent report by Viant Media, which predicted movie piracy will steadily rise in the coming years.

"Spurred by this summer's blockbuster movies, we believe it may currently be undergoing a period of rapid expansion," Viant analysts conclude in The Copyright Crusade II report. "If the current capacity and interest levels remain intact, we would estimate that this represents roughly a 20 percent increase over traffic levels observed a year ago."