Why buy music?
It's hard to believe, but three long years have passed since I purchased my old, trusty powerbook. Three, long, slow years. (Almost as much time since my last blog post, hah!).
Since it's been (a) long and (b) slow and (c) old and well, I hate having to wait 10+ minutes for a build to finish when working from home.. You can guess what I just did, right? I bought a brand-spanking new macbook pro. It's fast, it's shiny, it has a scrolling trackpad. That's not what this post is really about though.
I'm most impressed with apple's 'puter transfer tool. It feels as if I haven't really switched machines. Particularly since this one looks nearly identical to the old one. Except for that creepy camera lens staring at me from the top. It's really starting to creep me out. What if it's on and I don't realize it? What if someone out there is watching me stick the tip of my tongue out as I desperately try to make fewer typos? (Can you just visualize that? See, scary part is, maybe someone doesn't have to visualize it!). But again, that is not what this post is about.
Despite the really wonderful transfer of files, settings, browser cache, cookies and other goodies, one thing that did not move along to my new machine is my iTunes purchased music. I had to enter my password and authorize this machine.
So now.. by doing nothing other than upgrading computers, Apple is telling me I only have 3 more authorizations left before I'm no longer allowed to listen to the music i legally paid for. In other words, unless I never upgrade machines again (yah right), this music will no longer be available to me in a few years. Did I mention I paid for it legally, unlike many other users? Based on a statistic I just made up, close to 70% of iPod users don't bother paying for the music. Someone please tell me one good reason why I should, seeing as I'm being treated like a thief even when I'm trying to be good.
To hell with that. Screw you, music industry.
Comments
Kasia
I don't think it's that bad. If you select iTunes->Store->Deauthorize Computer on your old Powerbook, you should be in good shape.
Jason
Posted by: Jason Chambers | October 16, 2006 10:22 PM
Kasia.. once you get to 5 authorized computers, you can also just have them all deactivated, and then reactivate your macbook pro (there's a button to do that in the iTunes account preferenes window that becomes available after the 5th authorization).
If I recall correctly, you can do that once per year.
Mike
Posted by: CorsicanUpstart | October 16, 2006 10:38 PM
Ah that may come in handy. I reformatted the old pbook before I realized this will be a problem.
This is still stupid, I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to switch machines.
Posted by: kasia | October 16, 2006 10:47 PM
The opposite happened to me. I backed up and formatted my PowerBook and selectively restored my files manually, but totally forgot to look whether I had to copy some hidden file to transfer my iTunes authorisation.
When I though about it, I realised it had been transferred without me noticing. I think it sits hidden in /Users/Shared/SC Info.
Posted by: Ölbaum | October 17, 2006 03:31 AM
Annoyed me as hell, too. Well, I took consequences and now mosty get my music from sites like garageband.com and other CC-licensed music dispensers. Takes out a lot of hassles you get with DRM and you discover really _new_ stuff that way :)
Posted by: hugo | October 17, 2006 05:16 AM
I read on slashdot a month or so ago about how the studies have shown that something like only 10% of iPod owners have music that was bought online. The biggest reason for this is it's easier to buy CDs and rip them so that they do not have to deal with the DRM.
I wish someone would tell the music industry that the way to get people to buy music is to provide a better product than they can pirate.
Posted by: Bob K Mertz | October 17, 2006 10:46 AM
Kasia, You can also call Apple's AppleCare program and have them deauthorize all of your computers, and then you can manually reauthorize them one by one as you use them. It's a small hassle to pay for the convenience of being able to just open, click, buy, listen, that the ITMS is, I think.
Posted by: John Engler | October 18, 2006 12:34 AM
I bet that 10% of iNot buy music from iTubes, while the other 90% stick to legally bought CD's. Let's say iDont buys one of those new 60 GB iThings. Then he has to buy perhaps 15 thousands songs. First of all, the entire Hilton family didn't record taht much, so you would really be in trouble with the limited iTS. Then of course, who wouldn't sell his car for these songs instead of getting them in a week for free from eDonkey? Besides, if you buy that much music, you also be sure to listen to it: you need only 750 hours... so if you know you're going to have a very very long vacation, with no girlfriend or real life, it might be worth buying it.
Posted by: Luci Sandor | October 25, 2006 01:03 PM