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There is a nice pair of design bookends in today's NYTimes, with Alice Rawsthorn's profile of Marc Newson's Paris pied a terre in the magazine, and RANDALL STROSS's persuasive treatise on Digital Rights Management and the iPhone. (Well, there's not much about the iPhone, but you probably had your fill through the week.)

From Smooth Move

Newson is also the reigning superstar of what the auction houses call "design art"--a name coined for limited editions of famously uncomfortable sculptural furniture. Last summer, a prototype of the 1986 Lockheed Lounge, a chaise he designed two years out of art school, set a record for the work of a living designer when it fetched $968,000 at Sotheby's. At last month's Design Miami fair, all 12 of his Chop Top tables sold out in 20 minutes--at a reported $170,000 a pop.

And from Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs

Even if you are ready to pledge a lifetime commitment to the iPod as your only brand of portable music player or to the iPhone as your only cellphone once it is released, you may find that FairPlay copy protection will, sooner or later, cause you grief. You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever. Because your iTunes will not play on anyone else's hardware.

Unlike Apple, Microsoft has been willing to license its copy-protection software to third-party hardware vendors. But copy protection is copy protection: a headache only for the law-abiding.

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