If you don't want to use DRM protected music, DON'T BUY IT.
No one is forcing you to use it. Not even Apple. You can buy CDs (you can even buy them online!) or buy downloaded music without DRM and use it on your iPod. Or you can buy an MP3 player from someone else and use it, if you hate Apple so much. Hell, the option of burning music to CDs was included by Apple over the objections of some labels, because Apple felt that people deserved to be able to make fair-use copies of their music.
The point here is that you have CHOICE. Use the power of choice and stop whining so damn much about stuff.
J.
P.S. Apple has stated NUMEROUS times that they don't like DRM, and they've actively encouraged labels to issue their music DRM-free (hence iTunes plus). The problem is NOT Apple, the problem are the music labels. Feel free to rant at them, but keep in mind that it's been done to death and I think people here on this list are tired of listening to your impotent crying.
Defending Apple isn't the right tack to take. They're making their own bed, don't give them yours to sleep in instead (on top of everything else they're taking away from you).
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"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine