• Apple: Refurbished iPod touches on sale, 8GB for $180, 16GB for $240, 32GB for $320
• Amazon: Rewards points upgrade for existing Amazon.com Visa holders
• Apple: Free Select iTunes TV Shows in HD (requires iTunes 8

• Travelocity: United Airlines Sale: Round-trip flights from $108
• Amazon.com: Amazon.com Men's Watch Deals: Timex, Marc Ecko, more from $40 + free shipping
• Sears: Seven7 Women's Jeans for $18 + $6 s&h, more

• Budget Truck Rental: $50 Gift card when paying w/American Express
• Reverie: T-Shirt Sale: Buy 1 TEE get 1 free TEE
• BestBuy: Westinghouse 42" 1080p LCD HDTV and portable DVD Player for $749.99 + shipping

• Drugstore.com: New Customers: Save $5 or $10 off First Order
• Vann's: Panasonic FZ28 10.2MP Digital Camera $340 Shipped
• Amazon: Get Savings of up to 75% off Bargain Books

I wanted to tell you guys about my positively sexy Washington Mutual experience. On 6/01/08, someone hacked into my iTunes account, and using my debit card information, purchased two $200 gift cards, something I noticed when checking my online statement. I call WaMu immediately, tell them about the fraud, and they say they will issue me provisional credits, which they do. I then ask the fateful questions that started this mess:

"Is there anything I need to do or give you? Should I call iTunes? Do I need to investigate?"

The answer was a swift, resounding, no. You don't need to do anything. We will contact Apple and we will investigate.

I've had good luck with WaMu, so I honestly had no reason to think that this was not even close to the correct answer. I've never been defrauded before, so I assumed that I had done my part, and that if something came up, they have my phone number and the WaMu message center, so they could let me know immediately. This was incredibly stupid.

Fast forward two months and change, I'm taking a trip from LA to Chicago for my very first production of a play I'd written. I check my balance before I leave. I take the red eye, I buy food, gum, etc. I land in Chicago at about 6 AM, and crash. The next day I try to use my card. It's declined. I have a dress rehearsal in three hours.

I check my balance and the two credits are gone, the withdrawal dated for sometime between when my connecting flight left Las Vegas and when I woke up. I am now severely overdrawn. What's worse, the four things I purchased while in LA and in transit conveniently all clear in the day after the provisional credits are revoked, each invoking their own overdraft. No warning. No notice. No calls.

I go the bank, the teller tells me that the bank has deduced that I lied about the fraud, and there's nothing I can do. I throw a fit, he gives me a number to call. I call the number. The CSR tells me that what happened was that affidavits were sent to my graduate housing address on, literally, the day I moved out after getting my master's and because they were sent back returned, there's nothing he can do.

This is the first I'm hearing about affidavits, period. This is the first I'm hearing about affidavits being sent to an address I wasn't at, and the first I'm hearing about them being sent back. I pitch a fit. He tells me that I could try sending proof of my residency claim and info to a fax number, and address it to an Alex Wilson.

I fax my proof of residency, and call CS back to follow up, asking if I could get Alex Wilson's extension. I am told that Alex Wilson is not a real person. He is just a name for people to fax things to.

What?

Also, there is no way for me to follow up with him, or the office where the documents were sent. I have to be patient and wait for a letter in the mail. I honestly have no idea if any of this is true.

I should mention at this point that due to be being stranded and broke, I have missed the final rehearsal, and half of the shows. I call CS back again. I explain the situation, I ask if there is anything she can do. She notes that the investigation is opened back up, but that now I need to contact iTunes and fax WaMu proof that what I say happened, did.

What about the affidavits? What about the part where I didn't need to contact anyone? The CSR reinforced that she didn't know what I was told in the past, but this was what I needed to do now. And I can't have my provisional credit back, or the four overdrafts.

At this point, I have missed my show entirely. I call Executive Customer Service the day my flight is leaving, and leave a message. No response. I beg for a ride to the airport, and on my layover, write an e-mail to ECSR, explaining what happened. I get an e-mail the next day that is kind and apologetic, and says that this should be resolved in 24-48 hours. I celebrate pre-maturely.

I check in with her at 24 hours, she is still working on it. I check in at 48, no response. And then, at about 76 hours, I get an e-mail that diplomatically informs me that I am lying about how I was informed and guided after the fraud, and that it was my fault for moving (and I guess, by proxy, getting my masters) at the wrong time, and my fault for not having a future address at that time, despite my not having any idea what that address would be used for beyond account identity verification. It was phrased: "According to our policies, what you have suggested could never f*cking happen and you are full of sh*t."

And that, despite the fact that I faxed the required info when I returned to LA, that I have repeatedly referred to this as fraud, and not a dispute, that I have a f*cking phone and access to a message center that they use to inform me of other important things, I got the dreaded "we have insufficient information to dispute the charge with the merchant."

Not having the presence of mind to disbelieve what the debit fraud CSR says costs about 536 dollars, priceless memories, and a week and a half. Took a screenshot of my message center inbox, just in case. What other evidence do I need to start assembling so that I can nail these bastards?

-Kristin

The Electronic Funds Transfer Act, which governs debit card transactions, is pretty clear on this issue. If you report the theft of your card or your code within two business days, your liability is limited to $50. We're pretty sure that someone stealing your debit card information from your iTunes account and ordering gift cards with it counts as fraud and not an "error." Here's some more information about the law from the Federal Reserve.

With this in mind, why not file an official complaint with their regulator? It'll be valuable later on if you have to keep fighting with them. Here's how you do that:

1. Contact WaMu with a formal complaint. You can do this in writing, or by email. Keep a copy of this complaint for your records.
2. Figure out which agency regulates your bank by calling or using FDIC's Bank Find. We happen to know that Washington Mutual's primary regulator is the Office of Thrift Supervision.
3. Write a formal complaint letter to the bank's regulatory agency. Follow the FTC's instructions for writing a complaint.

   This document also has the correct contact information for the various regulatory agencies. Keep a copy of this complaint for your records.
   

   By filing a complaint, the regulating agency will investigate whether WaMu actually violated any banking regulations.

For more information about launching an EECB, click here.

(Photo: Stirwise )

UPDATE: 9/02/08: In response to our email inquiry, WaMu has said they're interested in checking out this story.

Benny writes:

18 months ago I bought 3 hard drives from Seagate. Very quickly, they began to fail under regular usage due to ye olde Clicke of Deathe. This last month, another drive failed with all of my iTunes data that I'd just transferred for safety. I located Seagate's Data Recovery department and found out that the bill for recovery starts at $1700, even for a home user. I then wrote to Apple's tech support and told them what had happened and asked if they could re-enable my purchases (which totaled less than $500 over a couple years). This morning I woke up to a great email from an Apple guy who re-enabled almost everything I'd purchased! The only omissions were some episodes of The Office, which isn't so bad considering the scale of the purchased amount.

Naturally, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Mark one up for Apple.

If you don't use your Juniper iTunes Rewards VISA (issued by Barclay's) for an entire year, they close the card and report to the credit agencies that you requested to close it. I've learned that when I called to inquire about a lower rate on 2/26, the agent canceled my account.

I called the main 800 back and was told that I had indeed requested the account be closed when a lower APR was not available. I firmly but politely insisted that I did not request to close my credit card. The CSR then told me that if I used "that kind of language" she would have to disconnect me. I then asked her what we could do to fix the situation. She placed me on hold and I was disconnected.

I called back and after explaining the situation to the 2nd CSR, she became very curt and informed me that the notes on my account said that "words had been exchanged." —--? I apologized and asked if I could reactive my account without a hit on my credit. I was placed on hold and disconnected.

After calling back a third time, I was told that my account was active and the CSR had no record of it being deactivated.

I faxed a complaint to BBB of Delaware, the state agency that regulates banks in Delaware, and a couple fax numbers I found on Google.

Granted, Netflix only has about 6,000 movies available for download—but even if their library is missing some obscure or specialty titles, that's still not a bad price-per-movie if you watch a lot of flicks on your PC.

We hate to sound like a commercial for Netflix, a company this writer has hated and avoided since 2002 when I caught them throttling my rentals—and that craptastic 2006 "settlement" was even more offensive than TJX's offer to hold a "special sale" for its victims of identity theft. But hey, a deal's a deal, and $9 a month for unlimited movie and TV downloads is pretty sweet.

"Netflix Expands Internet Viewing Option" [Wired]

What do you think about OiNK being shut down?
Trent: I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me.

I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that's what's such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they're grateful for the person that uploaded it — they're the hero. They're not stealing it because they're going to make money off of it; they're stealing it because they love the band. I'm not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want.

Trent Reznor and Saul Williams Discuss Their New Collaboration, Mourn OiNK [NY Mag]
(Photo:AdamL212)

The service, which is set to start in November after a test period in October, comes less than three weeks after NBC Universal said it was pulling its programs out of the highly successful iTunes service of Apple Inc. That partnership fell apart because of a dispute over Apple's iTunes pricing policies and what NBC executives said were concerns about lack of piracy protection.
...
NBC makes many of its popular shows available online in streaming media, which means that fans can watch episodes on their computers. Under the new NBC service, called NBC Direct, consumers will be able to download, for no fee, NBC programs like "Heroes," "The Office" and "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" on the night that they are broadcast and keep them for seven days. They would also be able to subscribe to shows, guaranteeing delivery each week.

But the files, which would be downloaded overnight to home computers, would contain commercials that viewers would not be able to skip through. And the file would not be transferable to a disk or to another computer.

The files would degrade after the seven-day period and be unwatchable. "Kind of like 'Mission: Impossible,' only I don't think there would be any explosion and smoke," Mr. Gaspin said.

Anyone interested in these downloads? Too much DRM?

NBC to Offer Downloads of Its Shows [NYT]

From the NYT:

The decision by NBC Universal highlights the escalating tension between Apple and media companies, which are unhappy that Apple will not give them more control over the pricing of songs and videos that are sold on iTunes.

NBC Universal is also seeking better piracy controls and wants Apple to allow it to bundle videos to increase revenue, the person familiar with the matter said.

Negotiations between the two companies continue, so Apple and NBC could still reach a deal before the current contract expires.

NBC Will Not Renew ITunes Contract [NYT] (Thanks, Molly!)

"I have been attempting to Complete the album "Rush of Fools" by Rush of Fools. When I click on the "Buy" button to complete my album, I am presented with the following error: "Purchase of this item is not currently available This item is currently being modified. Please try again later.[?]" I have been attempting to purchase this product for almost 15 hours. I would really like to get a hold of this product soon. Thanks! Have a great day."

"Dear Evan, My name is (removed for privacy) and I understand that you are experiencing some difficulties using our 'Complete My Album' feature for "Rush of Fools". I am sorry for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.

Please reply to this email and include the title(s) and order number (s) of the songs you have previously purchased from this album. Once I have this information, we can look into this issue more in-depth.

iTunes Store order numbers begin with the letter "M" or "W," and you'll find them in your iTunes Store email receipts as well as in your Purchase History. To review your Purchase History, follow the steps in this article: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93010

I look forward to your reply, Evan!

Sincerely,

(removed for privacy)
iTunes Store Customer Support

Thanks for the quick response.

The song I have purchased from the album "Rush of Fools" is "Undo". My order number was M#########.

Thanks again for you help. Have a great day!"

Dear Evan,

Thank you for providing me with the requested information. I have issued 10 replacement song credits to your account "(removed)." You can use the credits to buy the remaining songs from "Rush of Fools" or any other songs of your choice from the iTunes Store.

When you sign in to the iTunes Store with this account, the song credits will appear by your account name in the upper-right corner of the iTunes window. The next time you buy a song from the iTunes Store, one song credit will be used to pay for the purchase.

If you don't see the credit, choose Sign Out from the Store pull-down menu at the top. Then choose Sign In from the Store menu, enter your account name and password, and click Sign In. Your song credits should now appear next to your account name.

Thank you for your understanding, Evan. I hope that you continue to use and enjoy the iTunes Store!

Sincerely,

(removed for privacy)
iTunes Store Customer Support

(Photo: Baston)

• You have to have iTunes and a credit card to activate the phone. It even runs your credit, which is sort of scary. You can also choose to have your credit pre-approved in an AT&T store.

• "To use iPhone, you'll need to sign up for a 2-year service agreement or a renewed 2-year service agreement if you're an existing AT&T (formerly Cingular) wireless customer." Existing customers can keep their voice plans, but must sign up for the iPhone data plan.

• "iPhone is covered by the Apple Warranty. There is no eligibility for the wireless phone insurance program."

• "You can return your iPhone within 14 days for a full refund, but there is a 10% restocking fee if the box has been opened."

Here's the rest of the return policy from the FAQ:

Q. Do you have a special return policy for iPhones?
A. Yes. Apple branded equipment is covered by a 14-day return policy and must be returned to the original point of purchase. If the Apple branded equipment is returned unopened and in the original shrink wrapping, it will be refunded back to the original payment method. Opened Apple branded equipment that is returned within 14 days will be subject to a 10% open box restocking fee. All products must be packed in their original, unmarked packaging including any accessories and manuals that shipped with the product.

iPhone Frequently Asked Questions [AT&T]
Pre-purchase understandings (PDF) [AT&T]

It's too soon to call it, but those figures are encouraging. —MEGHANN MARCO

EMI has DRM free sales boom [Inquirer via BoingBoing]
(Photo: Wikipedia)

Now, if you buy an album, you'll get a discount of 99 cents for each song you've already purchased. Sounds fair.

Better still:

For a limited period of 90 days, Apple said it will make the "Complete My Album" offer retroactive to users who purchased tracks dating back to the launch of the iTunes Store four years ago.

Apple iTunes offers 'Complete My Album' [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
(Photo: Lazy_Lightning)

"We advocate the continued use of DRM in the protection of our and our artists' intellectual property," Bronfman said on a conference call yesterday. "The issue is obscured by asserting that DRM and interoperability is the same thing. They are not. To suggest that they cannot co exist is simply incorrect."

Warner hits Apple proposal [Boston Globe]

So, I work at the Spokane CompUSA,and every Saturday night, we print out all the new advertisement tags to put up on products that are going to be on sale for the next week and put them out.

The tags come from the corporate computers, we don't make them ourselves. They're SUPPOSED to match what is in the advertised papers.

This last Saturday, one really funny Zune advertisement printed out. It didn't match the advertisement, so our manager laughed took it down and put it in his office (showed it to our Apple rep the next day, he almost fell over laughing).

He let me take the tag and copy it. I took the copy home and scanned it.

CompUSA Knows How To Sell Zunes [Macforums via digg]

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.

If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Thoughts On Music [Apple via MacUser] [Photo: Valeria Mellissa]

The Comcast Cancer: Is Web 2.0 the Cure? [ZDNet]

• "The software Apple has designed for the iPod, which disables the iPod's inherent ability to play WMA format files, is thus a classic example of crippleware. [emphasis ours] By preventing the iPod from playing WMA or any other protected music format besides FairPlay-modified AAC format, iPod owners' only option to purchase Online Music is to purchase from Apple's Music Store. This conduct constitutes an illegal tie in violation of antitrust laws."

• "Apple deliberately makes digital music purchased at the Music Store inoperable with its competitors Digital Music Players."

• "Conversely, Apple also makes the iPod unable to play music sold at its rivals' Online Music stores."

• "The protected music file format used by most Online Music stores is the WMA format. ... There are no technological limitations preventing the iPod from supporting WMA playback."

• "Apple is alone among mass-market Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format."

The following is from Apple's motion to dismiss (PDF):

• "Without DRM, legal online music stores would not exist. Thus, this complaint does not challenge Apple's use of some form of DRM. Rather, it attacks Apple's decision to develop and use its own DRM rather than licensing and using Microsoft's. As a matter of antitrust law, however, that theory is so unsupportable that plaintiff cannot bring herself to identify Microsoft as the maker of the software that she contends Apple should be forced to use. Enhancing Microsoft's dominance is obviously not a goal of the antitrust laws. But the central flaw of this complaint is much broader than that. No matter who makes the software, the antitrust laws simply do not require Apple or anyone else to use another company's technology."

Is not lack of support for a file format "crippleware"? Read the ruling here (PDF).

Is Apple in violation of the Sherman Act by "tying" iTunes to iPod? The judge responds:

•"To establish that a tying arrangement is per se illegal, a plaintiff must prove (1) a tie between to separate products or services sold in separate markets; (2) sufficient economic power in the tying product market to effect the tied market and; (3) an effect on a substantial volume of commerce in the tied product market."

Apple's motion to dismiss was denied. —MEGHANN MARCO

Court documents: iTunes-iPod antitrust lawsuit [Seattle P-I]

Does Apple have a music monopoly issue? [ZDNet]

Some choice quotes:

• ... most people, even iPod owners, still get their legal music by and large from CDs, not online.

• People want their music without restrictions, and too many legal downloads, like those from iTunes, come with restrictions.

• Some subscription services will delete the music from your player when you cancel your subscription. You'd almost be better off buying an LP.

• They don't want to have to match their music store with their music player any more than they want to have to match their brands of gasoline with their brands of car. (Our favorite.)

• What the Recording Industry Association of America lacks in brains it makes up for in stubbornness, and so the most hyped among the legal options either force us to accept unacceptable restrictions, or they force us to buy eight or nine crappy songs to get a couple of good ones.

DRM sucks. Just buy CDs!—MEGHANN MARCO

New report spells trouble for music industry, not Apple [USA Today]

Apple comes clean with South Park Season 10 [MacNN]

1. Register.
2. Reserve your car through Avis.com or through the Avis reservation center at 1.888.777.AVIS.
3. Receive an email containing your music download code(s) for the iTunes Music Store just days after you complete your rental.

It's an effort by AVIS to get customers to rent through their site rather than a 3rd party booking site (which can offer savings), but hey, maybe it's worth the $4.95 or $9.90 to you. — BEN POPKEN

Rent on AVIS.com and get FREE Music [AVIS via More Than Points]

Has this happened to you?

Here's a site full of angry shuffle owners to commiserate with.
And a poor bastard getting no help from a Mac forum.
And some people bitching at iPodLounge.
Thanks, James!

Not that the original text bothered us, they just seemed strange choices for the "we're okay with anyone who has a Mac" Apple corporation.

Gone are the references to foreign exchange student groups as including a "half-drunken Latvian girl" or god-lovers as being "exceedingly insular." Presumably, the original copywriter for these is gone as well.

"I was listening to Friday's podcast this morning and I noticed the exact awkward cut that you specified: the Nightline segment cut out shortly after the Comcast technician was mentioned...Martin's last segment was also cut off and the podcast ended before the usual closing music. "

If Comcast is still watching this space, well, here's another piece of media for you to get repaired.

Adding Jason's observation to the statements given by Comcast's and ABC's PR offices, it appears more likely that the omission was due to an ABC technical error, rather than as deliberate Comcast censorship. Certainly if it had been censorship, it certainly wasn't handled very smoothly. However, the resulting outcry proves that there's a lot of people out there pissed at Comcast. Multiply seven missed appointments times several hundreds of thousands of subscribers... and that sharpening of kitchen knives gets pretty loud.

Previously:
• UPDATE: Comcast Censors Critical Nightline Story
• Comcast Censors Critical Nightline Story

The project, called River of Crime, is a 1940's serial of 20 shows described as a modern day Dragnet, following a Joe Friday-like protagonist who collects crimes. "After an early fascination with the electric chair, the series' protagonist soon finds himself completely absorbed by the idea of crime and criminals, and each episode unfolds as a personal recollection, a memory of some unlawful event that has affected his life." For Residents fans, this sounds a lot like a meshing of God in Three Persons' cohesive narrative with Freak Show's omnibus structure.

Boing Boing is very cute in announcing this, not deigning to call the Residents anything as prole as mere rock musicians when some obtuse techno-hipsterism can be inserted just as easily. So the Residents are an "anonymous surrealist art/performance group"... with no mention at all that they are predominantly a kick ass band who sometimes dabble in (and just as often revolutionize) other forms, like video games and music videos. Also, the Residents aren't anonymous: it's Homer Flynn backed by all the dead Beatles. Duh.

This is something of an indulgence post of mine, since I love the Residents so much, but when the entire music industry is trying to prevent you from burning your music to disc, it's just great to see these consistently esoteric outsiders come up with an album format where you're encouraged to do just the opposite.

River of Crime [Official Site]

I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKED... I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure.

The Record Industry fucking over artists? Who'da thunk? According to this page, Weird Al is making 85% less per song if you buy from iTunes than if you buy his CD in a store. Why is it just so much more enraging when it's noodle-haired Weird Al getting screwed?

So buy CDs, directly from the artist if you can, at a record store or through Amazon if you can't. Rip them yourself, keep the CD. You're giving more of your money to the artist that way and you aren't being locked into a proprietary DRM format that, mark our words, you'll be trading in just as soon as some company finally steps up to the plate with an iPod/iTunes killer.

Weird Al Yankovic Homepage

The police approached us beforehand as we were gathering in the park across from the mall, distributing suits and signs. While the police were there in force, complete with paddy wagon, they were not confrontational. I explained what our plans were (it turned out they had already been informed down to fine details — Apple really had been busy) and even discussed the downsides of DRM. They offered to arrest some of us if we wanted, but we politely declined their offer.

John also has some words to the various idiots who think that it is 'whining' to believe that the "burn your mp3s to CDs, then rip again" is not only convenient but also is an adequate concession to consumer rights.

I hope we'll be addressing the substantive comments (like those that have been made here about the ability to burn CDs as a means to not be annoyed by the DRM) in our writings as this campaign goes on. For now, let me just urge people to read the iTunes Terms of Service and Terms of Sale closely (as Consumerist readers surely love to do). They will see that the burning ability is provided as a mere "accommodation" (Apple's words) and does not extend you any actual rights over your music. Since you are only licensing and not owning the music, any changes made by Apple to their terms could be applied retroactively. This means that all of that music you burned and imported to various places would suddenly be subject to the various new restrictions.

comment on this post

Activists investigate DRM contamination in MA Apple store [Defective By Design]

We somehow missed news of this, but there was a nationwide protest at various Apple Stores on Friday, trying to educate people about the dangers of DRM. The primary danger being, of course, the fact that it's bad for consumers because it locks you in to a single competitor... if you put your head in the microwave and then decide to switch from an iPod to a Creative Zen, you need to repurchase all your iTunes songs. Ironically enough, this protest was held the same day I decided to give my aged mother my old Dell DJ and invest in an iPod myself. Unfortunately, I went to Best Buy, so I didn't run into any of the guys at the Boston Apple store; otherwise, we might have had some of that first-hand content Ben's always telling me I should be trying to find.

It's a good, if perhaps idealistic, cause, so we wondered how the protest turned out: if this video of the protest at the San Francisco Apple store is any indication, each store's protest was launched by four smelly nerds dressed in Haz Mat suits, presumably to seal off their B.O. from the ordinary people whom they deigned to edify.

There's somehow nothing sadder than when a protest in favor of a cause you believe in only manages to pull in a handful of dudes.

comment on this post

Anti-iTunes DRM demonstrations across the USA tomorrow [Boing Boing]

As an example: we like Apple. We like iTunes. We think, overall, Apple is just the sort of shot-in-the-arm that the music industry needs. And Apple is a pretty trustworthy company. But that didn't stop them from silently degrading the rights iTunes customers have over their ability to copy the songs they purchased to other machines or hard copies (we remember this very clearly, but we're having a hard time Googling it up, not really quite certain of the germane search terms. Anyone got a reference citation for this?).

Anyway, Reuters has an interesting look up at the murky concept of ownership in the digital age, highlighting the dangers of letting a company licensing you thousands of dollars worth of media but not allowing you to directly control it as property. What happens when you want to switch away from iTunes? You have to buy all your songs somewhere else, on a different DRM format. What if you want to backup your iPod? It's not easy... they are designed to make the process as difficult as possible. There's nothing here that anti-DRM folks don't already know, but it's an interesting primer on the issues surrounding what companies are trying to tell you what your rights are compared to the rights consumers have enjoyed when making purchases for centuries.

Although we really do believe music, like soylent green, is "the peoples," please rest assured the image is posted with our pointed tongues gorily transfixed through our cheeks.

Do you own songs bought online? Well, sort of [Reuters]

"GW Bush's iPod contains "illegal" (according to RIAA) music In the video linked below, we see that President Bush's iPod contains songs by the Beatles; since no Beatles songs have been licensed for the iTunes Music Store yet, these must have come from ripped CDs. Remember last February, when the RIAA told a federal agency that ripping CDs is illegal? I wonder if they'll bring charges."

Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted, necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorization. In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorization, not about fair use.

Link

Flashback to 1991, when Apple Computers and Apple Corps settled an argument over their equally fruity logos by agreeing that Apple Computers would never sell music. Of course, then iTunes came around. Apple Computers, weaving a wonderful semantic wormhole through the very fabric of rationality, is now claiming that they don't sell music, they are merely the conduit through which music passes. To prove otherwise, Apple Corps' lawyer apparently played Le Freak for the court. An intriguing legal strategy in what is a rather weird story to begin with.

Apple vs. Apple in Dispute Over Trademark [New York Times]

So we were delighted when fire-of-our-loins Gina Trapani... um... Matt Haughey over at Lifehacker pointed out this blog detailing all the stuff you can get for free over iTunes. Oh, it's not all cream — Dolly Parton's on there. But well worth adding to your RSS feed, if only to download the occasional song through iTunes that isn't helping fund the RIAA's lawsuit campaign against small children and lonely old grandmas without a computer.

Free iTunes Downloads (Thanks, Lifehacker!)

1. Go to this link.
2. Fill in the survey etc.
3. Check your email for the code
4. Go into the iTunes Store and click on the Redeem link
5. Login and enjoy your credit.

Note : If you are placed anywhere outside the U.S. then you will have to trick iTunes into believeing you're not. Check out how in this video.

This can be done multiple times using different email addresses. Here's a geeky technique for quickly generating multiple gmail accounts.

Not that we advocate any of this. It's provided here purely for academic purposes.

[via FluxionTech]

The online retailer still needs to sign licensing agreements with the four big music companies.

Amazon is thinking about offering the players, which may be built by Samsung, free as part of a subscription offer, or selling them with preloaded songs that could be swapped out for other songs.

Somehow we think it would be appropriate for you to play "Video Killed the Radio Star" now. As part of our customer empowerment program, we'll let you make up the reason why.

Report: Amazon to Compete with iTune, iPod [ComputerWorld]

A judge in Northern California green lighted plaintiff Thomas Slattery s efforts to pursue a class-action suit against Apple. At stake is DRM-tunes 80% market share, thanks mainly to its anti-competitive tying of the iTunes store and the iTunes player.

The question is, with Apple s huge cult-base, who s going to join? Oh wait, people stuck in dull little boxes performing dull little tasks. Like making money.