Like everyone else, I'd have to call foul play on this one.

Although the compression may not be as good as ogg/flac/etc, mp3 is probably one of the most universally compatible formats out there--there are players for practically os in existance.

As for other formats, compatibility may not be as universal, partly due to companies' cold shoulder towards less mainstream OSes, partly due to dropped support for older machines. Though many may use wmp solely because it comes with their computer (talking about less-savy users), they'll have no trouble with these streams (if they're wma, for example). However, Mac support for wmp is shaky at best, Microsoft's official app crashing often, and VLC, although providing a good alternative to the official client, chokes up on wma streams. And I haven't bothered with Linux enough to know what WMA/Real support is like there.

I'm hoping that this doesn't pass, and it would be nice if the US government focused on something other than DRM and restriction on technology for a change, but sadly cash must be more powerful than words.

-Alex