As digital rights management schemes go, it’s a sure thing that FairPlay, the one used at the iTunes store, isn’t terribly intrusive. You are authorized to use up to five Macs and/or PCs (doesn’t matter what combination), and copy it to an unlimited number of iPods, more or less. The fine distinctions really don’t matter, […]

Up till now, Apple Inc. has been the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to digital music, which means they are also the gatekeeper to the most-used digital rights management technology for legal downloads on the planet. What this means is that lots of competitors and even some European countries are complaining that Apple has locked […]

If you ask Steve Jobs, he’ll tell you that people want to own their music. He can point to the fact that over a billion-and-a-half songs have been sold at the iTunes store, and that Apple holds over 80% of the legal music download market in the U.S. However, Microsoft and the various partners they […]

When Apple’s iPod and iTunes ecosystem was first established, some analysts decreed that Apple was making a huge mistake, the same one it made when it originally decided not to license the Mac operating system. On the surface, having a unified standard might seem like a pretty good idea. This way, you can mix and […]