In Cory Doctorow's speech at the Red Hat Summit, I found it intriguing how much the music industry conflicts. I already knew about Apple, and how you can only use ITunes, and their music, with an IPod, but never how in depth. With many program updates in ITunes, you aren't necessarily "upgrading", but making it so you can do less with your music.
When the music industry was developing, it again developed from piracy, making copyright laws change as it grew. Now we have reached the DRM age, where companies and publishers want to control the products you buy. In Sony's case with the Rootkit, if you bought a CD from them, you were restricted to using it only on your computer. DRM's are used to try to monopolize the industry. These industries don't necessarily make it difficult to switch from one company to the next. You can drop whatever MP3 device you are using to buy the next best one any time you want. The thing that makes it hard, is the money you invest into that device. With IPods, you have purchased your music on ITunes, meaning hundreds of songs, and if you switch companies from Apple, you can't use those songs, say on a Zune. Much of the time a person will stay with Apple products because of this.
-- Sarah McDermott
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