DRM can bite my ass

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From: sabrina downard
Subject: DRM can bite my ass
Date: 16:29 on 10 Jul 2006
Dear Apple:

As I'm sure you know, I've been a pretty unrepentant Mac fangirl for a
while.  I like shiny things.  I like your laptops.  I like your
operating system (and I used to like your old one, too).  I like my
transparent terminal windows.  I like not having to run OpenOffice
just to read the attachments people insist on sending me.  I like
Quicktime.  I like a lot of things you do.

But I've got to tell you, this iPod destructive mind-meld "link" to a
specific computer, or whatever the hell it is, is just fucking stupid.

So I've got two powerbooks.  One's my "real" computer, which has a
slowly failing hard disk, and so I've also got a loaner from work.  I
copied my home directory over to the new one via drag and drop and
everything worked very well -- thank you -- such as my shareware apps
recognizing my previous registration codes, all my photos and
documents and the cruft accumulated over years.  Even my Firefox
plugins came over (and, it should be noted, that the Firefox on this
laptop doesn't exhibit the completely wack-ass behavior that Firefox
on my other laptop does -- so that seems to prove well enough that
it's not my preferences or plugins or something that's causing it,
interestingly enough).  Everything was great.

...Until this morning.  I had ripped some music over the weekend, onto
my external hard disk and added it to the real laptop's iTunes library
therefrom.  I wanted to listen to it at work today, but my upload
speed from home is pretty crummy, so I decided I'd just throw the
music on my iPod Shuffle and take that to work and listen to the
tracks off of it.  I hopped in the car, happily listened to my new
MP3s on said faithful iPod on the way in, arrived at work, and plugged
in the iPod to my loaner laptop.  Whereupon I got a message that said
something like "Some songs have not been copied to the iPod 'wee'
because this computer is not authorized to play them, including
'$song_by_some_other_band_that_was_in_aac_format_but_i_dont_care_about_that_band.'"

Okay.  Whatever.  I have that album on this laptop and I don't know
why you're whinging about it anyways, as I didn't ask you to "copy"
anything.  'Cos it was already *there* and all.  But whatever, I
didn't want to listen to that band at the moment (and I can always go
type in my stupid iTunes Music Store password if I did).  I want to
listen to those new MP3s......hey, WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO?

What I'm assuming happened here is that my iPod, named 'wee' (what?
it *is*!), had some sort of sympathetic bond with my old laptop,
"shiny."  It liked shiny.  It was evidently involved in a fiercely
monogamous relationship with shiny.  When I plugged it in to my loaner
laptop, "snooty," it decided that, as a part of automatically updating
the iPod (why was snooty auto-updating wee if wee is married to
shiny?) it would delete the MP3s that were not a part of snooty's
music library.  Despite the fact that they're not AAC files and had no
DRM of any kind.  And it's not just that iTunes is not showing them; I
downloaded and fired up PodUtil just to check.  Then I plugged the
iPod directly into my external speakers.  Gone, daddy, gone; the love
has gone away.

Attention Apple:  Those were my bloody MP3s. I wanted to play them for
myself on my bloody iPod. You morons have just fucked me over because
now not only can I not listen to them on my laptop speakers, but you
deleted them off the iPod entirely so I can't listen to them in the
car or over headphones until I get home tonight.  (I would be SO
PISSED if this had happened while I was travelling and away from my
home computer!)  In practical terms, won't someone please explain to
me the legal reasons I have *less* right to listen to music I
purchased on one set of speakers versus another, to the point where
the laptop not only disables the music in question but outright
destroys it?  You disabled the AAC files that were not authorized.  If
you wanted to similarly refuse to play back the MP3 files that were
not in my currently-connected laptop's music library, why was it
necessary to REMOVE them and not simply disable them?

I used to carry my old 5G original iPod around with music on it and
plugged it in to listen to on other people's computers with some
regularity.  That was evidently okay behavior back in the halcyon days
of, what, 2002?  The times they are a-changin'.

Suck my dick, Apple.
--s.

p.s. no anti-IMS anti-DRM advocacy rants need to be sent.  I know, I
know, I know.  I did not deserve what I got in this instance, I don't
think, and I'm not ready to pick up a sign and start picketing the
Apple Store just yet, but jesus fuck this was a stupid fucking thing
for them to do.

p.p.s. I'm totally firing up OurTunes and seeing if anyone else on
campus has that album so I can pirate it so I can listen to THE MUSIC
I FREAKING BOUGHT.  You *shits*.

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