Ice Cavern Studios

Apparently I’m a dumbass. In the future, writing down my personal thoughts, I should check the live page to make sure I didn’t publish stuff live.

Life and Times

Life and Times

I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. God bless you all.

Life and Times

…or why subscriptions make more sense.

So I was checking out Websnark when a I found a link to John Hodgman’s book, The Areas of My Expertise on the iTune’s Music Store. The big deal is that, at the time of this post, the book is free. Because I think the man is funny, and I’m all about free stuff, I figured I’d go get it.

It was at this point I realized a major issue. I don’t use my iPod anymore. I use my Zune. Makes sense, I have access to a much larger collection of music and I’m paying the liscencing fee to listen. No big deal, it was a free MP3. It shouldn’t have any drm on it, since, well, they didn’t charge for it. Wrong. ITunes messed up and forced me to use my second machine rights token on the machine I downloaded it to. Hmmm….

No big deal, it’s an audio book, I don’t need high fidelity. I’ll just burn it to a CD and then re-rip it. Right? Wrong. The book is broken up into 3 2 hour incriments. I can’t burn it to a bloody CD because it’s iTunes restricted, so I have to use Itunes which I don’t think will split up the track onto multiple CDs. So I have to listen to it either on iTunes or my iPod.

Sure, not a big deal, but what if I actually paid for this?

These tracks were free. Whatever. But if I had to pay, shouldn’t I at least have the same options of having bought the audio book on CD. With audio tracks at the store, I at least have the option of burning to a CD and re-ripping (although there is quality degridation). But this? I don’t even get that right. It’s super restricted. What the hell?

And this is my big issue with the iTunes system of purchasing music versus the subscription method used by Zune. With a subscription, I realize I’m only leasing the music. It’s inherent in the system. The fact that I can’t just burn the tracks to a CD is fine. I don’t own it. But I also don’t have to worry about losing the file. If I delete a song, and want it again, I can just download it. Simple.

But iTunes treats you like you walked into a brick and morter store and bought a CD. But unlike a real CD, which comes with liner notes, a case and, oh yeah, an actual physical CD, anything bought from the ITMS is a restricted file. If you delete it by accident, do you get it back? Not that I’ve ever heard. Plus, with a CD, I can rip to unrestricted MP3′s and play it…EVERYWHERE.

I think the iTune’s model is DUMB. If you buy an album on iTunes, sure you save a few dollars, but you’re also getting what you pay for. Less rights. Awesome.

Digital Copyright, The Internet

Life and Times