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The iTunes Tax?  Pretty sure most of the 30 cents will go to the music labels...

adamb1000

And you base that assumption on what? Steve Jobs' long history of treating his customers well? Apple's well known penchant for charging their customers less than the maximum the market will bear?

Its a choice not a gun to your head.  If your music is contained to your computer and iPod then why even do it.

I think some comparisons to how this has been done by others if it has would be good.

The $0.30 upgrade price for taking a song to iTunes Plus made sense when it was created:  you had a $0.99 song and wanted to change it to a $1.29 song (without DRM and with higher quality.

It certainly doesn't make sense now for songs that are (going to be) $0.99 in the improved format.  And I doubt we'll ever see a $0.30 cent rebate for songs that are upgraded to the new improved format and the new improved $0.69 price.

But I plan to wait until Apple says that all the changes that are going to be made have been made (they haven't said that: they've said something like "by April"). Then I'll look at upgrading the songs (and probably will).

We do live in an instant gratification world, don't we?

And, of course, it may turn out that it will still cost $0.30 to upgrade when the changes are all done, regardless of the new price of each song.  In which case annoyance is justified.

And yes, I can afford to be relaxed about this: I don't have a large collection of iTunes songs, and I stopped buying music in any form except direct from the few artists I know (or the nice locally owned record store that buys the CDs directly from one of those artists). I'm really not happy with the music industry (including Apple) (and most of today's new "music" would not be accepted here if it came with a $10 bill attached).

I relented recently: I did buy a Zune Pass (3 months), and will no doubt convert the 10 songs per month to purchases. Whether I renew or not is an open question to be answered in the Spring.

Only ever bought 1 album on itunes as it was alot cheaper to get it on there, but I have never bought any since. I went into itunes yesterday and I was able to "upgrade" this album for an extra £1.98 (UK). I could have bought the CD for the amount it costs in total. Anyone taking them up on this is a fool (cue: robertsjoe)

"Pretty sure most of the 30 cents will go to the music labels..."

And how much of that goes to the musicians? Minimal I reckon.

It's so funny how the writer of that CNN article trys to justify this by saying this is cheaper than what we all went through when we went from tapes to CDs.  

You can almost see him mentally trying to fight off the Apple fanboy urge to just buy into anything they sell and come up with a way to justify spending the $56.70 to upgrade ALL his files.  You just KNOW he can't win that fight and he will sadly break down and just pay his Apple tax like a good little brainwashed sheep.

Thank God for the IRiver and the Zune…

This is just more Windows whining.  Apple will soon wipe the floor with MS thanks to their forthcoming brilliant innovations such as this http://is.gd/eEka :-)

I thought I read that the labels made that necessary.

Plus...someone has to pay for the bandwidth of re-downloading all those songs.

Isn't buying a DRM-removal software cheaper than paying to have all your collections made DRM-free?

This is BS from Apple. Fortunately I saw through their marketing ploy a long time ago.

And Paul lies again.  Why did Paul leave this line out?

From the same website he quoted from:

>>But it looks like                    **the labels**                                prevailed in sticking it to consumers on one last point. Anyone who wants to upgrade their entire existing iTunes Library to DRM-free versions of the same songs, can conveniently do so with one click. But it is going to cost you 30 cents a track to do so.<<

Solution: Amazon.com .mp3s...

Done.

DRM'd-AACs = Stupidity

BTW, I'm going to re-post that every time someone blames Apple for this.

Or burn to disk and remove DRM...

If you DON'T think this is at the insistence of the labels, then you are just proving your jackassery. Jesus. Paul, Mike, weedmonk and the rest could even find a way to blame Apple for the war between Israel and Hamas.

Do you honestly think that a company that held out for so long to avoid variable pricing, would adopt the scheme merely to *** it's customers?

By God Apple better have all the kinks worked out on day one, while MS can take 18 mos to get Vista right.? Surely piecemeal upgrading is coming, and if it doesn't? Big frickin' whoop. Upgrade or don't, it's your choice, just like every other chance to spend YOUR money. Me, I'm not gonna, because I have never felt "restricted" by DRM.

OK, for a long time I have just watched as Paul constantly bemoans Apple and its users, but this blog post finally made me sign up to reply to Paul's blog.

This sort of thing really makes me mad. Copy and pasting selective text from other websites is not something a professional in any field should do. It just makes you look like a fool.

In this case, it is no doubt the music companies themselves that will get this so called tax. Let's also add that no one is forcing you to press that upgrade button.

Also, Apple deserves praise for finally convincing the music industry to let them sell without DRM.

This sort of post looks desperate. Attacking Apple for the smallest thin even when that thing is out of their control. Pathetic.

>>Do you honestly think that a company that held out for so long to avoid variable pricing, would adopt the scheme merely to *** it's customers?<<

This.

>>This sort of post looks desperate. <<

Double this.

@danieldecker: "Do you honestly think that a company that held out for so long to avoid variable pricing, would adopt the scheme merely to *** it's customers?"

Doesn't seem like a far stretch for a company who charges $129 for 10.x OS upgrades, $79 for iLife upgrades, $0.99 for Keynote Remote app, and a special $9.99 upgrade to iLife '09 if you buy a Mac now....  What a steal...

Paul www.rif.org

Ocean pretty much just handed your @$$ to you:)

Such is living life with an iLobotomy...

My solution...keep my zune pass at $15/month. I can plug the zune into all of my home and car systems and listen anywhere...plus I get 10 songs per month for free. Even DRM free ones. I like it. But, again...if somebody wants to spend the money to do the upgrade...let them. That is their right.

--tayme

So Apple are supposed to fund the download of 6 billion music tracks.   8MB * 6bn = 48,000 TBs of bandwidth.  Apple should pay that? Why?

I have about 300 songs that I bought from the iTunes store for 99 cents. They have DRM and are 128K AAC.

I knew that when I bought them, and I've enjoyed having them. iTunes allows me to keep them under the original agreement, and that seems fair.

Apple now offers me the option of upgrading my songs to 256K AAC and remove the DRM for 30 cents each.

That seems reasonable to me.

But please keep harping about how awful and sneaky this is. I just don't see it.

It's absolutely hilarious to watch all the Apple fans tripping over themselves to say "It can't be Apple screwing us over. It must be the "Evil Record Industry(R)", or the RIAA, or the Illuminati, or Martians or, or, or..."

Apple's customers bought a license from Apple for a product that's become non-competitive. Apple is offering their customers an upgrade to that product to make it competitive with Microsoft and Amazon and is charging their loyal customers a high fee with onerously few options to not be left behind.

That sounds exactly like Apple's normal business practices.

And all of you are fighting for the chance to tell the world how lucky you are to have Apple treat you badly.

That sounds exactly like Apple Fan's normal business practices.

I'm sure we'll see exactly the same discussion when Apple announces the pricing for Snow Leopard.

@boyreinvented: Apple was not the first vendor to convince the labels to sell DRM-free music. Amazon's been doing that for a while.

@daProject: Apple could've provided a conversion tool that would have cost them a fraction of the cost of that bandwidth.

This is definitely just another way Apple loves to grab cash from its happy customers.

Mike. This isn't a case of fanboys making things up. It's the truth.

What's funny is the Microsoft fanboys like yourself that are desperately trying to use this to hit Apple fanboys with.

The reason that Apple didn't offer DRM free music was that the record companies were using DRM free music to try and boost sales at other outlets. They hate Apple almost as much as you do and were desperately trying to get people buying elsewhere.

Well that's failed, they've given up and finally let Apple have it's way.

Apple is not a perfect company by a long way, but honestly, this is one time when attacking it, just makes you look silly. Save your rants for one of those days when Apple really does something really bad. This certainly isn't one of them.

Mike. This isn't a case of fanboys making things up. It's the truth.

What's funny is the Microsoft fanboys like yourself that are desperately trying to use this to hit Apple fanboys with.

The reason that Apple didn't offer DRM free music was that the record companies were using DRM free music to try and boost sales at other outlets. They hate Apple almost as much as you do and were desperately trying to get people buying elsewhere.

Well that's failed, they've given up and finally let Apple have it's way.

Apple is not a perfect company by a long way, but honestly, this is one time when attacking it, just makes you look silly. Save your rants for one of those days when Apple really does something really bad. This certainly isn't one of them.

boyreinvented

Well, now that you've declared it to be "the truth" who could possibly disagree.

edgesmash

Actually, Apple doesn't even need to do that much. All they'd have to do is change the pointers in the database (the one that keeps the records of what customers have licenses to what media) to point to the non-DRM, higher quality versions and tell customers that the next time they refresh any tracks they own, they'd be getting the new, higher quality, non-DRM version.

No massive download bill, little to no changes to client code, trivial changes to the servers, savings from not having to keep both formats stored on Apple's server farms.

@edgesmith: Apple has wanted DRM free music for a long time. Remember Steves' letter? The thing is, it has taken this long for the industry to bow down to the pressure from them. They wanted other music outlets, but fundamentally, people like iTunes as clearly that is where people are buying them from. I never said Apple were the first to offer DRM, but they deserve credit for working to get it  none the less.

I find it funny to see how mikegalos and others here, including Paul, rush to say how evil Apple is at every opportunity. Come on people...if people are happy with thier iPod or iPhone how is that harming you? I just don't get this and it gets sillier every day. Both sides are equally guilty of this. Look at robertsjoe and others posting thier juvenile BS whenever somebody says something positive about Microsoft. At least its entertaining, I guess...but even that is starting to fade.

All of you that have either flavor of the company provided bliners on here are very simple minded individuals.

--tayme

boyreinvented

Yes. Steve published a letter. That means it must be true. He'd NEVER do anything that might be deceptive.

I don't think it is the Music Labels that are giving in to Apple but the reverse.  The Music L ables have been happy to sell DRM music for quite some time (look at Amazon).  It was Apple refusing to allow variable pricing that was preventing DRM music hitting iTunes.  Apple have now caved in on that so iTunes can have DRM free music in order to allow them to tackle Amazon's growing market share.

@mikegalos - Perfect example of my previous post...

--tayme

I was wondering what all the MS water-boys on this site thought when MS decided that people that bought music for Plays-For-Sure music players were told they would have to repurchase there music in order to have that music play on a Zune?

www.engadget.com/.../microsoft-rebrands-playsforsure-to-certified-for-windows-vista

arstechnica.com/.../6133

www.google.com/search

I guess getting screwed is a relative term. Talk about zealots, fanboys & delusional hacks.

Pingback from  links for 2009-01-08 | hxf148

@Mike lol, you have the worst "holly than though" attitude on this site.  Can you not READ what Ocean pointed out?  (you will never answer that question why did I even ask).

You should start your own blog Mike  www.thedailytool.com.  Plaster that lovely mug all over it.

@Mike:

Listen to yourself! It's hilarious and totally tragic.

At the end of the day, Apple is a company. A corporate entity not a charity. Do you honestly think that if things were reversed, Microsoft would be letting people upgrade their libraries for free.

If you do, well you must be living in a dream world!

@Alan:

You don't get it at all do you?! The music companies have refused to let Apple sell DRM free music because they wanted to encourage sales of DRM free music from elsewhere. They hate that so many people use iTunes, because they hate someone else having control over them.

This isn't some conspiracy. I'm already starting to wonder if you guys are just fanboys or total whackjobs and I've only been posting for a day.

@AlanRR

Amazon was not gaining on iTunes.  After MacWorld its doubtful they ever will.

mediamemo.allthingsd.com/.../amazons-mp3-store-one-year-in-no-itunes-killer-probably-wont-be

boy

You're the one claiming that Apple is totally altruistic and that evil external forces are making them have to do this bad thing that they'd otherwise never want to do. And, of course, that we should believe everything you say because it's "the truth".

The DRM war in music is over...Apple won. MS on the other hand is now stuck competing with players that they once partnered with. Apple bought about this change & anyone that doesn't realize this can not think straight. I don't like the 30 cent charge. So we'll see how that goes...it's still early. AAC(MPEG 4) is a better format than MP3 & WMA is dead (thank goodness). Now anyone can make a music player & buy music from any place they choose & not have to be beholden to any corporation. Thanks to Apple. MS could never compete on a level playing field...now they will have to & they are behind. It's a win win for the hardware makers out there. MS does not control this industry that's a huge plus.

Last April iTunes music store surpassed WalNartand became the biggest seller of music, online or otherwise. It is still gaining marketshare and sale volume.

@mikegalos: Care to explain how iTunes Music Store can be defined as "non-competative"?

Looks like it's busines model work pretty fine to me.

"Amassing a collection of iTunes-bought Protected AAC tracks is like failing an intelligence test"

Actually most people who have a salary and an iPod + a computer and who know s**t about aac and mp3 (people >25 who are not geeks) will purchase their songs on itunes without having a clue what format their songs are and what aac is. I know a bunch of them, they know the price and the friendliness of the store interface and are happy about it. That don't make them idiots.

Actually I tell them to buy songs from Amazon after browsing on iTunes.

"Amassing a collection of iTunes-bought Protected AAC tracks is like failing an intelligence test."

It's not just Apple and it isn't just iTunes.  Amassing a collection of ANY restricted music tracks is a mistake.

@Mike:

I don't know what planet you live on but here on Earth those 'evil external forces' certainly exist in the form of record companies and their RIAA. These people sue  the less fortunate for vast sums of money, so let's not pretend they are all nice and lovely and don't care about money.

Oh, I used the word "truth" and you are never going to let me forget it, but all the time you just use that instead of creating a real argument, you'll just look petty and pathetic.

I certainly don't think Apple are perfect. They do plenty of things to piss me off and OSX has some really irritating features and flaws. Just like Microsoft and it's Windows OS.

PeyloW

Reread what I said.

Apple didn't sell their customers an iTunes Music Store, they sold them licenses to music. And the product they sold them was low quality encoded and DRM locked. That is non-competitive these days.

boy

So, now that you've admitted that Apple is just another business, go back and explain your argument that Apple couldn't be the ones responsible for or profiting by charging a roughly 30% fee for removing the "DRM feature" that provided absolutely no benefit to the customer in the first place.

"Amassing a collection of ANY restricted music tracks is a mistake."

I have about 5,000 tracks right now from my Zune Pass. I can play them on up to 3 PCs and 3 Zunes(yes, we have 3 Zunes in our house). The Zunes can connect to every audio device in my house and cars. I don't need to burn CDs. Plus, I get 10 free per month that I can use as I see fit...so, if I do need to use a song for a slideshow or something...there it is. I've had the Zune Pass for 13 months now...thats $195  dollars or about $0.04 per song. I get to keep them as long as I have my Zune Pass...plus add as many more as I want. That works for me and I am wondering how that is a mistake.

--tayme

@Mike

As a business, if a supplier was charging 30% for something, then it wouldn't make sense to just absorb that cost. It makes sense to pass it on. That's what Apple has done.

The DRM was there because of the supplier, not the retailer.

Where is your argument?

And Paul lies again.  Why did Paul leave this line out?

From the same website he quoted from:

>>But it looks like                    **the labels**                                prevailed in sticking it to consumers on one last point. Anyone who wants to upgrade their entire existing iTunes Library to DRM-free versions of the same songs, can conveniently do so with one click. But it is going to cost you 30 cents a track to do so.<<

Lots of good content in this thread. Even sir Mikey can see the error(s) that Paul is committing.

This is the day Thurrott came to equal Dvorak.

boy

And how do you know what Apple's being charged, if anything, for removing the DRM from already licenses music? And who is it who is charging Apple this fee? And how do you know any of that?

As for the DRM, it was there because it was negotiated between Apple and the owners of the product Apple was selling.

Now, again, do you have any evidence of any of this or are we still doing the "I declare to be The Truth" level of religous belief backing up what you want to be true?

Ocean,

Are you declaring yourself the Queen by calling me sir Mikey?

(Oh, and I agree with Paul on all of this - Apple charging to remove DRM is price gouging and abuse of monopoly power)

Whatever, Paul. You're increasingly shrill and irrelevant. This shows why.

I think of it as a payment to a higher quality file. I decrypted my files months ago, but the iTunes + files are 256kbps vs 128kbps, so your not paying for nothing.

"I was wondering what all the MS water-boys on this site thought when MS decided that people that bought music for Plays-For-Sure music players were told they would have to repurchase there music in order to have that music play on a Zune?"

There were only six copies of "Plays For Sure" songs out there anyway, so it really didn't matter much.

"I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Amassing a collection of iTunes-bought Protected AAC tracks is like failing an intelligence test."

How many do you have, Paul? Be honest. I suspect that by your "standard" you're probably one of the least intelligent people on this board.

When Galos crosses Thurrott, you know Thurrott has screwed up.

Here's why this is so abusive.

First, lets separate out the upgrade in quality of bitrate encoding. That's a seperate issue and one where I'd argue that Apple has every right to charge a fee.

Where they do NOT have a right to charge is in removing DRM. Apple, by removing DRM, does not give you additional rights to use the music. It's not like they sold you a license and then sold you an enhanced license with extra rights - that would be fine.

All they removed is their way of enforcing the terms of the rights they sold you.

If you stayed within the rights you bought then any use of the DRM was damaging you by making the product hard to use within the terms you agreed to. The DRM is at best transparent and at worst buggy and violating the terms of the license.

If you chose to violate the terms of the rights you bought, with or without the DRM, you are violating the terms in either case.

@ "he-likes-it-hey-mikeygalos": "Oh, and I agree with Paul on all of this..."

What a shock.

" - Apple charging to remove DRM is price gouging and abuse of monopoly power"

Apple is offering to let you upgrade to a higher-quality product with better encoding and no DRM at a bargain-basement price. Did you take all your DVDs back to Wal*Mart and demand that they give you new Blu-Ray discs when that format came out, "mikey"? Did you insist that George Lucas reimburse you for your Star Wars collection at their cost when DVD replaced VHS? Did you go knocking on doors at Microsoft telling them they better pony up new copies of "Play For Sure Sometimes on Certain Player" songs when they screwed their "PFS" partners and introduced the Zune?

How about some intellectual honesty here, "mikey"?

Apple is entitled to do whatever the hell they want. They shouldn't have to give their product or their bandwidth away for free.

I am guessing that mikegalos was a lawyer at one time, along with his many other vocations.

So, mikegalos *IF* Microsoft were to do a similar thing, would you be dogging them like you are Apple?

--tayme

"Apple, by removing DRM, does not give you additional rights to use the music. It's not like they sold you a license and then sold you an enhanced license with extra rights"

Do you know that for sure, "mikey"? I think you're wrong. The new license does have extra rights. The DRM license limited you to five burns on a CD, and gave you rights to use it on a limited number of devices. AFAIK, there is no such restriction on the DRM-free files, which means that,

" - that would be fine."

Exactly.

@Mike:

I'm not on the attack here, so I don't need to show the evidence. However, you do. Where is the evidence that this money is not going straight to the music companies?

If Paul is going to attack Apple, then he needs to back it up with some proper sources. If you want to side with Paul, well, the way he throws accusations  at Apple, you are going to have to provide the sources for him too, because most of the time, it's all conjecture.

If you want to attack, do it properly and have the facts and show them to us.

"The DRM was there because of the supplier, not the retailer."

Now you blame the supplier, not the retailer. So where are you in Paul's other blog "Problem with Zune was Toshiba’s fault, not Microsoft’s "? You certainly agree with this by the same logic?

tayme

Good guess, but, no. I've never been a lawyer.

If Microsoft did the same thing and swarms of Microsoft fanatatics were spending their time defending Microsoft charging a fee to remove DRM above reasoable costs, I'd hope that I'd be calling them on it as well. Should that happen and I don't, feel free to call me on it.

The closest analolgy  recall was when Microsoft removed copy protection from an early version of Word for MS-DOS around 1983 and they offered a disk replacement program to new unprotected disks for the cost of shipping. (And ate the other costs) At the time, I don't recall swarms of people announcing how wonderful that was. The general response was that it was about time. (There was still a fair amount of copy protected software at the time so it wasn't that unusual)

boy

It's not being "on the attack". That's hardly unusual here. (Somebody over here sent me a private note that they pray daily that I should die so your posting is hardly an "attack" by those standards) It's that you made claims but had no evidence whatsoever that they were true aside from declaring them true.

If you make a claim of truth you need to be able to back it up or say it's just your opinion. Either's fine. You've just done neither.

"Now anyone can make a music player & buy music from any place they choose & not have to be beholden to any corporation. Thanks to Apple."

Yeah, after Apple has controlled the market through DRM with ipod of course Apple can remove the DRM now.

"Actually most people who have a salary and an iPod + a computer and who know s**t about aac and mp3 (people >25 who are not geeks) will purchase their songs on itunes without having a clue what format their songs are and what aac is. I know a bunch of them, they know the price and the friendliness of the store interface and are happy about it. That don't make them idiots."

Of course these people are not idiots, they just lack certain knowledge in a specific area, and that's why we need people like Paul as an expert in a certain area to educate these people.

@Mike: " Somebody over here sent me a private note that they pray daily that I should die"

Ouch, I know Win and Mac people hate each other, but that's a little far.  We're all fanboys about something, but no one is entitled to send death requests.  Let's keep the hatred to snide blog posts, eh?

kalewallace

I figure as long as they're hoping for divine intervention for my death and not planning on doing it themselves it's not that big an issue. Still, more than a bit creepy to think somebody out there is that disturbed.

Looks like they found another scapegoat.

Good for them.

@Mike: " Somebody over here sent me a private note that they pray daily that I should die"

That's pretty serious. People seem to be taking this too seriously for their own good.

Yeah, praying for someone to die for having an opinion is WAY over the line.

I wonder which one of our resident Apple fanatics will own up to sending that?

And by judging by the attitude of some of the posters here, I wouldn't be surprised if Paul gets similar notes.

F'ing nerds need to get a life.

"I wonder which one of our resident Apple fanatics will own up to sending that?"

It's a pretty safe bet that nobody will. Their parents might not let them keep living in the basement and will make them move back upstairs if they found out.

Screw the Zune Phone. MS is already in the phone business. MS should have a portable gaming device, like Xbox mobile. Maybe it links with Xbox via WiFi. Or DL mobile versions of games that you already own to the mobile device via WiFi. WinMo 7 is what MS should beef up and stick to software for phones. They seemed to do pretty friggin' good with WinMo already, so make it better rather than deal with hardware problems.

Seriously, this has gone way too far. A death threat? Wow. Talk about loss of perspective. Its just people's opinions for God's sake. It doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.

Paul, now you have a genuine reason why you need to step moderation on this board. This nonsense has to stop.

As for the iTunes tax, I'm more convinced that this is an action of the RIAA more than Apple. Probably the recording industry wanted Apple to charge everyone an additional 99 cents per track. I know a lot of people would have been opposed to that. Have you guys forgot how ruthless the RIAA was with lawsuits to kids? Forcing people to pay thousands upon thousands just for some of the crappy songs people downloaded? Thats why many artists are avoiding industry labels and creating their own separate from the establishment.

I'm not happy about the iTunes upgrade charge, but the $29.70 to upgrade my existing collection isn't bad. Considering what you're getting outweighs the charge. Granted there may have been cheaper ways to strip out the DRM, but then you're still stuck with 128 K AAC file. Not bad, but could be better.

Nothing in this life is free. If you thought the RIAA would upgrade us for free, if Jobs even mentioned that the RIAA and companies would laugh in his face. 30 cents to eliminate DRM, gain 256K quality files, and freedom to use the songs is worth more than a minor charge.

I'm going to do it.

@Mike -  Its a sad day when anyone wishes death upon anyone else.  I was shocked when I read this.  I agree with Shark on this - its way over the line.  Mike, take my reply to master3 in humor.

@Master3,

I doubt it was an Apple Fanboy.  They have more class and would have written something along the lines of "Eat $hit and die".

Yawn!

Even I wouldn't go that far...wishing death on mikegalos or robertsjoe or any of the other resident trolls...That's just plain stupid. Now, I might wish for a plague of locusts to fly up their butts...but that be fun to watch!  ;-)

--tayme

Maybe that's what happened to Paul, my fish. Somebody prayed that he would die, and the wrong Paul kicked the bucket. I really liked that fish and have never seen another like it. I'll keep an eye on Mike the fish. Damn fish haters!

hmm, paul of course is quite out of his rocker. he really needs to let this apple obsession go.  palm had a huge day and this is the rant that paul unleashes?  he's becoming unhinged over this.  Maybe he can get into the new palm and finally get his sanity back.  

>>Seriously, this has gone way too far. A death threat? <<

I agree, if it were true.

Repeating from the top:

>>And Paul lies again.  Why did Paul leave this line out?

From the same website he quoted from:

>>But it looks like                    **the labels**                                prevailed in sticking it to consumers on one last point. Anyone who wants to upgrade their entire existing iTunes Library to DRM-free versions of the same songs, can conveniently do so with one click. But it is going to cost you 30 cents a track to do so.<<

>>Somebody over here sent me a private note that they pray daily that I should die<<

No username attached?

The moderator should be able to see who it was or to track their IP.

Paul, what about a post about Microsoft ripping $1.5bn off people with their "Vista Ready" fiasco. Oh hold on! That'd mean you'd have to be fair about things. Which you're not.

Didn't Microsoft warn you about too many Apple related posts on this site?

"The moderator should be able to see who it was or to track their IP."

Exactly.  Log files with username, IP, even mac address if proper logging is turned on.  I also agree, if its even true, that its a pathetic, cowardly move.  

You would have to be a total idiot to pull that kind of crap in today's world of technology and not think you cant be tracked.

@mikegalos: I loved the list of all the Windows Live Mobile stuff. Already been seen and done better elsewhere. Let me check, yep.. on the iPhone. Microsoft being Xerox again.

"The difference being that Live Search Mobile is already up to version 4 and works on lots of phones and lots of carriers."

And this means what? Windows Mobile is many more versions ahead of iPhone OS. Yet it sucks. It's a horrible OS and was shown up by iPhone's version 1 as being terrible. It's that simple.

@imapolicecar: "No surprise that Paul Thurrott claims that the Mac address was "no excitement" but fails to note that the Microsoft keynote as being "incredibly boring"."

Of course he wouldn't. Hypocrisy abounds in this place.

The truth of the matter is that the iPhone has won. It is so far ahead of Windows Mobile that Windows Mobile no longer matters. It's irrelevant.

@ Heran"Yeah, after Apple has controlled the market through DRM with ipod of course Apple can remove the DRM now."

Why not continue to do that? So through you're analysis Apple has everything to lose from going DRM free. You're argument makes no sense. Neither does your argument about the amount of Plays-for-sure music that was sold. What's wrong is wrong. Seems most people that wrote about the Plays-for-Sure debacle don't agree with you. Apple makes money on hardware. MS on the other hand, at the time, made money by selling draconian DRM schemes to hardware companies. First it was Janus, that didn't work out. Then it was Plays-for-Sure which didn't work out. Then it was Vista Ready (didn't work with Zune) now they have tried to follow the exact same business model as Apple. With their own DRM scheme & their own music player. Meanwhile, leaving their Plays-for-Sure partners in the dust & their customers high & dry. People seem to forget what the music landscape was like before iTunes. MS even dropped support for MP3s in hopes to kill it off & take control of digital media through licensing their own draconian DRM scheme Janus along with their own, as usual, proprietary formats that only work on, of course again, WINDOWS. In MS's world everything had variable pricing, variable rights & MS would  control the ecosystem. You could burn this song to disc, another song could not be burned to disc but you could only have it on one computer, etc. etc. etc. Complicated, anti-consumer mess. How could any human being keep track of the gaggle f_ck of rights management in that wonderful world of MS? Then came iTunes. It changed the landscape. Fairplay, Apple's DRM, was by far the least restrictive DRM scheme on the planet. All songs were 99 cents, They could all be burned to disc & played on your computer. Infact when iTunes first rolled out you could share your music library with others online...that was stopped by the record companies. The iPod supported MP3s, AAC, Protected AAC & WAV to name a few. DRM was a necessary evil imposed on all companies by the RECORD COMPANIES. Apple does not OWN THE CONTENT or THE RIGHTS TO THE CONTENT. So, why buy WMA now that it is an open DRM FREE music world? Plenty of hardware makers support MP3 & AAC, why will WMA exist in he future? Why should hardware makers pay for a license? It will be a legacy format, for compatibility's sake (If MS is kind enough to do so). What if they aren't? What you have witnessed is the end of a format war. WMA & MS lost.

Great xkcd cartoon about Windows 7! http://xkcd.com/528/

In other news - Microsoft to re-brand "Live Search". First Vista is dumped, being such a tarnished brand, and now Live Search. Changing the name of something that's that bad does not improve it.

"Microsoft being Xerox again."

Actually, Live Search Mobile predates the Google clone on the iPhone by several versions and years.

Silicon Valley apparently makes their own photocopiers but needs two companies to use them.

"Exactly.  Log files with username, IP, even mac address if proper logging is turned on.  I also agree, if its even true, that its a pathetic, cowardly move.  "

It is true (and you're a bit of a bozo to assume otherwise).

He was logged and reported to appropriate people. And I suspect the his parents will take away his Internet time for a week and make him eat his broccoli.

"I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Amassing a collection of iTunes-bought Protected AAC tracks is like failing an intelligence test."

There's so many things you could say that about, but saying it about the most popular music store on earth is both arrogant and elitist, and even surpasses claiming that Windows/Mac users in general are idiots. Add to that your ignorant comments about audio file format sound quality in the past - ho hum.

DRM solution:

1. Take your DRM protected tunes

2. Burn an audio CD with them

3. RIp your audio CD to your MP3 of choice (or even WMA!)

4. Done.

@robertsjoe - Did it ever occur to you that if Paul Thurrott was a Microsoft employee paid by Microsoft what to say he would be deleting your crazy conspiracy theories? Or maybe you think that just because he uses Windows he is too stupid to know how to moderate a threat? I've seen your types (people who make software choice a religion), and I wouldn't be surprised at this crackpot thinking.

@dittobait: "why will WMA exist in he future? Why should hardware makers pay for a license?" Well, you forget that companies also pay a license to use MP3! MP3 is not an opensource format!

"Amassing a collection of iTunes-bought Protected AAC tracks is like failing an intelligence test"

Running Windows on a server is also akin the failing an intelligence test

I must however highlight irony in the grammar mistake of my previous post

"I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Amassing a collection of iTunes-bought Protected AAC tracks is like failing an intelligence test. "

And, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Listening to Paul on any topic involving Apple is not LIKE failing an intelligence test, it IS failure of an intelligence test. Paul does intelligent technical commentary---some of the best on the web---but then just goes off the rails on Apple. Meds need adjustment?

Given how heated the discussion has become here at times, and as a sort of public service announcement :), I jut got this in my email, the famous $409 laptop:

"It's the brand new 15.4" widescreen HP notebook with 1GB of DDR2 Memory, 120GB Hard Drive, DVD Burner with HP's Lightscribe Technology, a Webcam and much

www.tigerdirect.com/.../item-details.asp

"

To my eyeballs, it's not too ugly as Windows laptops go, but will surely need more than 1 Gig of RAM? It would amuse me to have more than one poster bragging about a $409 laptop. I wonder if it can be induced to run OS X?

End of public service announcement

Mikegaolos,

Take a break, man. Put on "Tonight" by Oscar Peterson, crank up the volume, and perhaps your reflexive Apple and Mac user bashing will be converted into a more live and let live approach. Same is true for Mac zealots.

Understanding how important MS is, I used to go here for updates; now its Bott and Foley. Enough of the frat boy debate already.

LC21:  Great post.

"mikegalos": Are you going to address my question?

lotsa

There was a question in there somewhere?

"This is the day Thurrott came to equal Dvorak."

No, Enderle.

@aemarques

"why will WMA exist in he future? Why should hardware makers pay for a license?" Well, you forget that companies also pay a license to use MP3! MP3 is not an opensource format!"

Yes, I know this..but why pay for an extra license on a proprietary format? It's an extra expense that is not necessary.

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