I don’t own an i-Pod, indeed I’ve always had a rather low opinion of Apple products as being a poor value for the money.
I don’t like closed systems that exercise too much control over things I buy. PCs have always seemed the better deal. I built built our current machines that value wise blow the socks off of anything you could find on the shelf by a major manufacturer.
I don’t buy i-Tunes. I’d rather have the CD, rip a copy to the hard drive and stick the original in one of our CD Changers. That way I can burn a car copy since sitting in a car in summer Texas sun can do evil thing to CDs.
If it turns out to really suck I can swap it at the used book store. I own it. If I want to give it away I can.
I’ve always thought the software licensing crap for individuals sucked too. There should be one License for businesses one for private users. If I have a desk and lap top I should have to buy the thing twice.
After all it isn’t like Bike Gates or Steve Jobs is going to be reduced to living under a bridge and squeegeeing car windows at the entrance to tunnels for spare change.
Which is why the following piece in Ziff Davis today pisses me off all the more. What pisses me off even more is how these lying pieces of shit at the studios claim “It’s for the artists.” when they fuck the artists over left and right
From Ziff Davis: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/who-owns-your-digital-downloads-hint-its-not-you/2831?tag=nl.e539
By Ed Bott
January 3, 2011
Steve Jobs once said, “People want to own their music.”
Someone better tell the folks who run the iTunes Store and its competitors. If you buy a digital music track or album from the iTunes store or one of its competitors, you don’t own it. Instead, you’re buying a license to play that track or album, and that license comes with an extremely limited set of rights.
Why does it matter? If you buy a CD in the United States, Section 109 of the Copyright Act gives you very specific rights under the first-sale doctrine. Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains those rights:
[O]nce you’ve acquired a lawfully-made CD or book or DVD, you can lend, sell, or give it away without having to get permission from the copyright owner. In simpler terms, “you bought it, you own it” (and because first sale also applies to gifts, “they gave it to you, you own it” is also true).
But the first-sale doctrine only applies to tangible goods, such as CDs. Digital music downloads (just like movies and TV shows and books) come with a completely different, much more limited set of rights. If you buy a digital album from an online service such as the iTunes store, Amazon MP3, or eMusic, you have no legal right to lend that album to a friend, as you could if you had purchased a CD. If you decide after a few listens that you hate the album, well, tough. You can’t resell it. You can’t even legally give it away.
Continue reading at: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/who-owns-your-digital-downloads-hint-its-not-you/2831?tag=nl.e539