A Reuters News Service piece that is being picked up by publications across North America is finally taking a hard look at the potential backlash coming from consumers when they realize that the songs they bought from iTunes are forever locked in Apple’s clutches.
Under the title "Do You Own Songs Bought Online? Well, Sort Of." the article explore the restriction placed on a billion plus songs bought from iTunes. "Owning implies control and if you bought the tracks on iTunes you don’t have complete control," said Rob Enderle, president of market researcher the Enderle Group.
The article goes on to explain how songs purchased from iTunes only play if you use "…iTunes digital jukebox software, on an iPod, burn a CD (you can only burn the same "playlist," or collection of songs, seven times), or stream them wirelessly to your stereo using another Apple gizmo." Further as we and others have long pointed out Apple’s proprietary copy protection prevents song owners from playing their tunes on devices made by any other manufacturer.
"…Beyond just having songs you bought from iTunes "trapped" on the iPod and in iTunes, it’s also not a snap to move songs from an iPod – whether you bought them or initially pulled them off a CD – back up to a computer. While it’s possible to do so, Apple doesn’t make it easy.."
But Apple is not the only one to blame. Record labels wanting to discourage piracy of have embraced copy protection in all its forms. In the end they all may have created a sleeping monster who won’t be happy when it wakes up and realizes it’s locked in chains.
