[ Edited ]

Ok, so someone stole my lsof article the other day, took a screenshot of it, and posted it to Digg without crediting me.

I got angry and belligerent.

It appears the guy was not actually a spammer but instead just an uninformed soul with no grasp of netiquette. Although it does seem like just basic moral instincts would tell someone that what he did was wrong.

Either way, no hard feelings. The guy seems new to things. If he learned a lesson then that’s cool (although an email from would be nice).

Fin.

This is big. Here are the highlights:

1. EMI’s entire library available from iTunes without DRM
2. Songs are far higher quality, at 256 kbps AAC
3. The songs cost a bit more at $1.29 each

I am highly enthused about this, and I’ll definitely be making all future purchases in this format. I do worry about piracy, though. I’ll find it hard to be angry at EMI, for example, if within a month of starting this there are a thousand free, ad-driven sites where you can download entire albums from their library (with album art) — all without DRM.

At that point, what’s the incentive to purchase? Once the word gets out there’ll be tens of thousands of these sites out there. Just another case of a few ruining it for the many. It’s hard to do the right thing in the world we live in; it often results in a swift poke in the eye.

Hell, even the highly moral will be inclined to cheat once in a while. If you just spent $300 dollars on music in the new, expensive format and another couple of albums show up on some newsgroup or bittorrent site, it’s going to be awfully easy to say, “Hmm, I’ll just gank these two…and pay for some more when I get paid again…”

Here are my predictions:

• 10% will buy EVERYTHING and avoid the temptation to steal anything.
• 25% will buy as much as they can afford and steal a good portion of the rest.
• 40% will steal most of what they want and occasionally buy something out of guilt.
• 25% will just steal and not buy anything. Most will feel bad about it but still do it anyway.

Oh well, I hope it ends up being positive for the record companies. I want to see this model succeed. [ Just for the record, I'm the good DRM (Daniel Richard Miessler). Yeah, DRM really are my initials. ]

Ok, so as of right now I am currently unable to play a good portion of my music and videos that I bought from the iTunes music store. I got to find this out, by the way, while on a plane enroute to New York…while my iPod was devoid of battery life.

When I try and open one of the affected songs or videos I am told that I need to authorize the computer to play the content. When I do so I am told that I already have 5 computers authorized, and that I will need to de-authorize one in order to continue.

Fair enough, but not really, since I only have 1 computer authorized. I figure the answer’s simple and I call my buddy Ken who explains that I simply need to reset my counter — a fact that doesn’t really bother me. So I go and sign into my account to do the reset, and guess what?

My account says I only have 3 computers registered.

Three? As in 5 minus 2? So, just to be clear, the real number is of registered computers is 1. My account thinks there are 3. And iTunes thinks there are 5. Now here’s the beauty of the situation: since I am not up to the limit of 5, I can’t reset the count and get my content to play. WTF. Seriously.

DRM becomes lame at a very specific and tangible piont, i.e. when it interferes with the ability of a legitimate user to use their content in a legitimate way. Well, Apple just hit that point. Only they didn’t just hit it; they trampled it with impunity and ridiculed its heritage.

It’s ironic that after dumping thousands of dollars into iTunes over the last couple of years and using Apple as my shining debate example of correctly implemented DRM, that I am now unable to partake of my legitmately purchased iTunes content.

And it doesn’t seem to be just me; there is a whole lot of buzz right now about ditching OS X for Ubuntu. Did stuff this just happen to a bunch of people at the same time? Did the evil of DRM just catch up with a whole group of us? WTF, Apple. WTF.

“Expect a phone call”, says Daniel, who knows that nobody at Apple is likely to ever see this post, “Expect a not-so-pleasant phone call.”

If you care about music or DRM, you need to watch this entire video:

Video: The Drum Loop That Spawned A Culture

So the RIAA just came out and said that ripping a CD that you bought legally is not “fair use”, meaning it shouldn’t be legal.

I say screw them. I pay good money for my music and these people have lost their minds if they think that putting legally purchased music from a CD on an iPod is somehow wrong.

I can’t wait until these people shatter under the weight of their own stupidity.