Ruminations on software freedom

Ruminations on software freedom

Posted Aug 30, 2007 18:36 UTC (Thu) by pcharlan (guest, #29128)
In reply to: Ruminations on software freedom by NAR
Parent article: Ruminations on software freedom

This is wholly different than computers not working well. I have been watching computers lock up for 30 years, but a couple of months ago while syncing my iPod, iTunes removed an album from my iPod because it decided that I didn't have permission to listen to it.

That album is the only thing I had bought from iTunes. In other words, the one product that it should have known I *did* have the copyright holder's permission to listen to, it erased from my iPod without asking and didn't even tell me how to resolve the situation. (Re-"authorizing" the computer eventually resolved it.)

What makes this different from a crashing computer is that it's not merely being flakey. It's not going to sleep. Rather it's WAKING UP and taking control of things that I'm normally in control of, and I'm utterly at its mercy.

This has happened a couple of times. The first time it happened shocked and outraged me to the point that I won't buy DRM'd music again, no matter how convenient. Because you don't "own" jack squat, and you never know if the computer's going to "let" you listen to it.

Jake, really great article. It should be on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

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