Taking DRM too far?

Fred Wilson talks about taking DRM too far:

What I object to is purchasing content and then being restricted as to where I can play it. We have at least 20 devices that I can play music on in my home, between computers, iPods, music servers, phones, PDAs, etc. And that number is going up, not down.

Apparently ( according to this screenshot), you can only play music from the iTunes music store on five authorised compters. To play on any more, you have to first de-authorise an existing one.

The problem is that “Five” is an arbitrary number. To say that the iTunes guys arrived at this number only after doing a fair bit of statistical research (the typical number of computers a user has is 5), is very poor logic. Apple’s iTunes freed users from having to continue to purchase CDs and DVDs (which led to huge margins for recording companies), but it seems to have fallen victim to the same “control freak” mentality that was the RIAA’s undoing.a