I saw this today when I was trying to put some They Might Be Giants songs I bought on iTunes a while back on my iPhone, and I am officially done. I’m not going to spite iTunes by spiting myself, so I will keep using my Apple stuff. I’m just never buying a single song from iTunes ever again. I don’t care that they’ve gone DRM-free. That doesn’t make up for the songs I have that are just busted. Sure, the hardcore Apple fanboys might argue that it’s my fault for not deauthorizing computers or what-not, but I think that’s a heaping load of bullshit. That’s the same recording industry argument that all media should stop working over time – if I buy a book, should the ink on the pages eventually disappear?
You know what happens to authorized machines? They get reformatted and break over time. Yet the people who sell is software and digital media expect that when we need to reinstall Windows on our only computer so that we can get work done and meet deadlines, we’re thinking “oh, of course I have to go through EVERY PROGRAM I HAVE INSTALLED AND DEAUTHORIZE IT.” Screw that.
