Why iTunes Has Lost My Sales

I have to start out saying that I’m extremely disappointed. I’ve been a fan and supporter of Apple for some time now. I bought an iPod, like much of the rest of you did. I’ve push people to the iTunes Store for music. I’ve even recommended their computers.

Recently Apple has started throwing around Cease and Desist letters to anyone who thinks about stripping their DRM. While removing the DRM is problematic and against terms of use, this is what I have to say about it.

DRM, for those of you who don’t know, is an acronym for Digital Rights Management. In a nutshell this is to keep you, the person who _bought_ the music, from spreading the music around the internet. They lock the DRM down to five computers which is all checked through their servers at runtime, when you play the song.

The issue with Apple’s DRM is that they don’t play well with others. This means that those of us with Linux, for which they wont produce and iTunes client, or with Zunes, etc. cannot listen to the music we have _purchased_. To me this is a huge flaw in Apple’s design.

Now, there were tools available at places like The Hymn Project that listed tools to help you strip that DRM so that you could listen to your music anywhere. These projects allowed us, the users, to be able to listen to our music when we wanted and where we wanted, this hurts Apples business model. Thus, Apple sends a Cease & Desist order the site owners to remove all links to DRM stripping tools. =\

The reason this hurts Apple is that people are forced to buy their music products such as the iPod if they want to listen to their songs elsewhere. Removing the DRM allows a user to remove that requirement and sales decrease. Personally I like the iPod, even though it is a bit buggy, better than the Zune. I think that Apples brand is nowhere near in jepardy from DRM stripping and that they need to remove their stranglehold on the consumer.

Because of this, I’m boycotting the iTunes Store. I should own what I’ve purchased and downloaded. I should also be able to play that music wherever I want. I will be using Amazon Mp3. Hope to see you there.

Image from coryshaw.com