Decius wrote:
] ...locks you in deeper. Want to buy a different portable music
] player next time you buy one? I hope you don't mind throwing
] away 5 years of songs you bought on iTunes, because they
] aren't going to work with anything else.

There are utilities available that can strip Apple DRM. VLC can read Apple files. There are ways out which will only become more elegant in the presence of demand.

Decius wrote:
] ... locks you in deeper. Want to buy a different portable music
] player next time you buy one? I hope you don't mind throwing
] away 5 years of songs you bought on iTunes, because they
] aren't going to work with anything else.

The record companies must have known this going in. It's all part of the deal. Think of it as built-in obsolescence ... the wholly digital follow-on to the migrations from vinyl to CD and from VHS to DVD.

Pure, unobstructed digital content is supremely dangerous to their long-standing business model because, among many reasons, it stands to eliminate the critical revenue stream generated by the periodic remonetization of the back catalog.

They advertise DRM as a near-term protector of retail sales levels, but it's equally important as a long-term protector of the business model. This part of the equation is not mentioned as often.

...locks you in deeper. Want to buy a different portable music player next time you buy one? I hope you don't mind throwing away 5 years of songs you bought on iTunes, because they aren't going to work with anything else.

[ Not precicely. I burn all my iTunes tracks to CD and re-rip them in unprotected format. This is 100% within the terms and gives me a nice backup copy of the album too. You can say, that this is too much of a PITA for you to want to bother with, but it's the surefire legal way to not get locked in. I do worry a bit about the encoding losses, but i figure we're still a fuckton better off than we were with, say, tapes, or records, in terms of maintenance issues, and i gain a little convenience. That being said, i still don't buy much from iTunes. Only things that spark a sudden interest and need to be bought immediately for the most part. Anyway. iTunes isn't the right answer, but it's the right answer for right now, sometimes. -k]

Decius wrote:
] ...locks you in deeper. Want to buy a different portable music
] player next time you buy one? I hope you don't mind throwing
] away 5 years of songs you bought on iTunes, because they
] aren't going to work with anything else.

Don't forget you can download *FOR FREE* all the speaches from last weeks DNC (hope this crazy link works): http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.store.DirectAction/viewPlayListsPage?fcId=2999549&pageType=playlists&id=1

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