iTunes and Me

April 1, 2005

Until month ago I was a fairly compulsive iTunes shopper. I have over 600 iTunes tracks, almost all of them bought in the last year or so. I used to hear about an interesting album, _listen_ to the entire album through Rhapsody, decide I wanted it, and then download the thing — all legal and all without putting down my beer. It wasn’t Utopia but it was close.

It’s been a month since I bought anything from iTunes. The copy protection issues just became too onerous.

See, can stream my Mp3s to my TiVo box so they come through the stereo, which I think is nifty. But I couldn’t stream my iTunes files — iTunes doesn’t play well with it. I looked briefly at getting an AirPort but it doesn’t do anything I don’t already have covered _except_ stream iTunes files to my stereo.

Then Apple decided to automatically delete any iTunes files that had copy protection removed. I had not tried to remove any copy protection, so this didn’t affect me. But I had considered it in order to get my files to work with the TiVo, and this destructive level of intrusion bothered me quite a bit.

Then, Apple limited streaming rights on existing files. In the first case you can argue Apple doesn’t have to talk nice to anyone else’s equipment. In the second case, you can argue that Apple is exercising their rights under the iTunes terms of service. But now they are taking rights away from me that I had previously? When I haven’t done anything wrong? Granted, I never used this function…

But I started thinking: what else can Apple do? Clearly they have the power to alter how I use my own audio files after I have purchased them.

What if they just decide to delete everything owned by Sony? Or what if they decide they have the right to censor my own music collection, and one day all potentially objectionable songs are deleted from my computer? What if iTunes 4.8 checks to see if you have Gnutella installed in your computer and starts deleting your music collection just because you have the capability of possibly thinking about violating a copyright agreement?

My iTunes buying ceased. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I didn’t get all mad and decide to boycott. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it any more. It was more like having one really bad night with a gallon of Cuervo Gold. Every time I thought about getting something from iTunes I’d get slightly queasy.

Then Steve Jobs claimed that Napster DRM was hacked (which was a lie), and he followed that up by saying iTunes was superior because people wanted to own music, not rent it, and iTunes lets you own.

No it doesn’t. Apple can delete those files any time it wants. Without warning. It can change how you play them. It can change its mind about what you’re allowed to do with them. Apple can revoke your ownership rights any time. It can do these things, and it has done them, and every indication is they will do these things again.

So yeah. I haven’t bought much from the iTunes store recently. I have a lot of new music though. It’s all on compact disc. It takes up a hell of a lot more space, but at least I know I’ll be able to listen to that music where, when, and how I want to. And if they master DRM for CDs, well — at least they can’t retroactively add it to my collection.

Posted in Technology