November 05, 2007
Evil Fairness
A co-worker approached me today to ask about mp3 players. His daughter had an iPod Nano that she damaged beyond repair after having it for about a year; he is willing to buy her a new player, but not something as expensive as the Nano. Since his daughter’s taste in music changes by the hour, he wants to buy something that will be compatible with a Napster-like subscription service. I told him that almost any non-Apple device will work with the subscription services and then recommended a couple brands with which I am familiar.
My co-worker then asked me about his daughter’s current collection of iTunes-purchased songs. How, he wondered, can she move those songs to her new player? The simple answer, I said, is that she can’t. Actually, there IS a way, even though it breaks Apple’s DRM (digital rights management) scheme and is technically illegal---just burn the songs to CD and then rip them back to the PC hard drive. However, there will be a loss of quality with this procedure.
The man looked at me with puzzlement on his face:
“Are you serious?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because Apple sells iPods and music. The two must be used together. That’s they way they work.”
And here it came, rolling down the mountain like a boulder in front of an avalanche:
“But that’s not fair!”
Actually, it’s very fair. Apple runs a business with the intent of making a profit selling cool products. Their software and hardware are proprietary with regard to the iPod. Don't like it? Don't buy one. There are hundreds of other mp3 players out there capable of doing the same job. My co-worker bought his daughter a Nano and didn't do his homework about DRM. That's not Steve Jobs' fault.
My point is that we increasingly seem to cry foul and unfair over things that are of our own making. Case in point: Congress. The current Congress has the lowest approval rating ever recorded for an American governing body. Yet, not even a majority of eligible Americans vote if we average yearly elections. If you don't vote, then the asshats in Congress are there partly because you stayed at home. Don't say that both parties are the same----if you believe that, you haven't spent enough time studying the issues.
Most of us learn early that life is not fair. Yet, our relative wealth as a society has, I believe, made many Americans believe that fairness must exist everywhere. It's part of what I call the "wussification" of our country. More on that later.
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Hello Matt. Glad to see everything back up and going! I enjoyed this article. Although you did not bring up the Ipod battery issues but that is abother story! Take care, Gus
Posted by: Gus Jr. at November 5, 2007 10:11 PMThe other point is that Apple didn't come up with DRM. That was the music industry's doing. Apple makes oodles more on the iPod than on iTunes sales. In fact itunes just exists to sell more iPods. Case in point - iTunes now has DRM free music at the same price with NO restrictions.
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at November 5, 2007 10:37 PM
MAtt,
Welcome back. It is nice to hear AND read you. Your podcasts are fantastic but I also enjoy the occasional post here as well...
Thanks again for everything, you were missed
Bryan
Posted by: Bryans at November 6, 2007 08:17 AMIt is good to see the "Old" Matt back in action. I see Hash posting so I expect some "exchanges" between him and Jomerica. Good Times! Good Times!
Posted by: SLY at November 6, 2007 10:44 AM
Looks like the complaint PEOPLE on here make with Walmart and Microsoft. That's amusing to see the flip flopping on here again.
Posted by: Jomerica at November 6, 2007 01:08 PM
?????????????????Flip Flopping????????????
Posted by: SLY at November 7, 2007 01:37 PM
Apple good, Microsoft bad. You know what I am talking about. If people read the fine print with Microsoft they wouldn't have a complaint either.
Posted by: Jomerica at November 8, 2007 06:01 PM
It is not illegal to burn the music to CDs, read them into the computer again and copy them to other MP3 players.
It is illegal to distribute copies of copyrighted work. It is NOT and never has been illegal to make your own copies to use where convenient. (You can also photocopy your daily news paper and read the copies on your way to work to protect the original paper for your collection.)
It might currently be illegal in some countries to circumvent restrictions in order to make use of one's right to make copies for one's own use as one pleases, but that is a matter of the courts to handle (whether the law is legal or not), but burning the music to a CD and getting rid of the restrictions that way is exactly what Steve Jobs said one is allowed to do.
It's terrible how used people are already getting used to companies totally overstepping their rights and violating their customers'.
The law says not to distribute copies of copyrighted material to other people. It does not say not to make copies for one's own use. If I recall correctly the law also gives the customer the right (back) to make backup copies (everybody had that right before copyright legislation took it away), which is why a law forbidding to circumvent restrictions might well be illegal.
Oh, well...
Don't give in.
Posted by: Andrew Brehm at November 10, 2007 02:01 PM