For I tunes related stuff I do not think that it is the way either but for content I do. On every show I've worked on, I personally have tried to delete the content off the machines but I am not afforded the luxury of time to do this. Either they pull the plug or the servers are backstage or near the sources and when it's time to load out, everyone cuts power first thing.

I usually also work with 6 to 8 servers on most of the show that I'm doing and they are usually located backstage, not FOH so I have no way of knowing what is going on back there with my stuff.

Itunes music and video is a lot different then the hard earned content you make or pay for. A typical season costs aroun $39, while an album costs 9 or 10. Content costs at least $5000 per show.

There must be a utility out there that can apply DRM after you are done editing it with your team and if there isn't it would be great if Richard would implement some sort of copy protection control within Catalyst itself and perhaps a companion program that you could run all your content through so it stays on the machine and will only work on that particular machine unless you de-authorize it with your password. You will have the full option to delete it off the machines upon end of show. It would also be a good idea to have a protected remote command that is called "Delete all folders on shut down" with a confirmation and password protect so that you don't inadvertently delete your content on remote shut down. If power gets cut it would auto resume the next time Catalyst booted up in case power was cut to the machine before it had a chance to finish. This way on the final shut down procedure, all your content would be deleted and you would be ensured that it was gone.

Before I started making a lot of content, I spent over $20k in stock and AE starting templates. I would also shoot a lot of DV and HDV and use that, I slowley became well versed at ae and Maya and started creating my own content I would load up every folder that I owned and had a system of knowing where each piece was. It alowed me to be able to have a huge amount of content on a machine, unfortunately, I started seeing my content on other machines, I number and name it uniquely as well as flop xdissolve any non looping material so it is easily reognizeable, especially my custom content.

It really gets to me that I flipped the bill and created content for someone else to have the same degree of freedom to cover their songs. I've seen my work pop up on Profile and Digibeta from times when I had to run everything through the Truck (TV shoots) and I just don't think it's right.

DRM or something like it would eliminate this problem and make Catalyst's stock rise in a lot of people' eyes. No other server has content protection and if Catalyst did, it would make it a no brainer to always use it.

For me, content protection is more important than any special effects or color FX, other than the playback modes, I would be happy with a server with content protection above all other features.

Christian Choi