I think that is a pretty sensible attitude.

You should not feel rubbed the wrong way by my post as you obviously have respectable business practices.

You might also want to read a bit about how, especially for small labels, file-sharing is quite a bit like radio-play and doing more good than harm in terms of sales.

And think again whether you really want to defend a business association that regroups those who do the exact opposite of what you feel is positive attitude towards customers.

Apple really made a Bad Move converting iTunes to spyware and it should be noted that this kind of action is flat out illegal in quite a couple of countries with decent privacy legislation.

I appreciate the acknowledgement

I have read about this and a lot of organizations like downhillbattle and EFF say it often, but I've yet to actually find any proof or even see any results for myself. There was one band who got a lot of exposure over the internet, but this is because they actually gave the album out as a free download on their website. I personally consider this extremely different from P2P sharing, which is what everyone is suggesting 'gives exposure.'
And even if it did give exposure, they're still downloading the tracks and not paying. Yeah, it would be great to have 1 million fans who listened to the track, but if none of them paid for it, that doesn't help us at all. I am in a very single-sale orientated section of the industry (albums are extremely rare,) so if someone is inclined to downloaded an artist's single on P2P, I've never known those people to further buy a copy. Albums very possibly, not not singles. Also, this isn't a type of music that can be performed live and it's again very rare in this part of the industry for the artists to do anything but make the music, so all they have is the actual sales to live on. So that puts a massive flaw in that argument right away.

But I do not mind people who share the occassional good song over MSN. I believe that is proper exposure. The difference is people who mass-download everything from P2P.

Yes, I do completely disagree with DRM (CDs or downloads,) but that is nothing to do with RIAA. That's just something the large labels do independently, or certain music download services do, assuming it will be more attractive for labels. But there are plenty of DRM-free mp3 download sites. And yes, I am talking about legal ones.

I appreciate the RIAA because of what they are doing to try and prevent P2P networks from distributing pirated copies of music on my behalf (even though I'm not personally a member.) If they weren't doing it, then nobody would be. So many people demonize the RIAA, but they're only a small association who are a voice for almost every record label, small or large, throughout the entire USA. So many people seem to forget that, and I think they've undeservedly gotten a bad rep from people too ignorant to even read that up on their website, who just go around posting "DEATH TO RIAA!", "RIAA SUXX." - It's pathetic.

I doubt I would disagree with you on everything, but I disagree with this as well. I don't see the big deal really. I turned off that feature within 2 seconds of seeing it, just by pressing the obvious button with the down arrow.

I think the benefit it will give the majority of users far outweighs those few who are scared someone might be able to hack into Apple's servers, and in those 2 seconds that they have the feature open for, might be able to look them up and see that they listen to Hilary Duff. :rolleyes:

I like some of the new I-tunes stuff but the hole pod thing is not macintosh, I do own one(2ver.) I use it to listen to my Paid music an some podcast(http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/M...st?id=73329404
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/M...st?id=76140881
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/M...st?id=73329937
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/M...st?id=73329586
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/M...t?id=102387056) but i think of it as info not a way of life. So that said I hope you don't think that you always have to download all the updates, some are down grades and info hogs... just ask steve jobs , thats a joke, he doen't take anymore E-mails after the rehiring with bill gates clan. Just look as a stepping stone when crossing a river, some stones are wet and some are slimy, are you ready to get wet.

Hmmmmm....salami. (said as Homer Simpson would say it).

That is a good analogy! Current practices that are somewhat close: what google does with gmail, although I think they were upfront about that.

Yes, I have a gmail account (had one for a long while now) and when you first signed up for the beta there was a EULA that was not long but to the point. The jest of it was, they will never ever look at your private stuff, but if the government subpenas them, they aren't going to protect your privacy. This was due to the whole post 9/11 security acts the government was pushing. They were upfront about it, and they said they wouldn't look, but if big brother was peeking in, they weren't going to stop them (legally) from doing so.

For whatever its worth, I think I've noticed different behavior today.

I have not changed anything in iTunes. Today I opened it and the little miniStore panel was open, but in the panel it described what it was and had a button asking me if I wanted to start it. The panel was static and not transmitting anything else. When I started it, it provided feedback on the song selected by the cursor, not on the song which was currently playing. This was even though the cover art panel was showing the cover art for the song currently playing (as it was selected to do).

So, does it always ask you now before it is enabled?
Did it always give feedback on the selected song on or the playing song?

I haven't installed anything Apple (besides XCode 2.2.1) since the original iTunes/QuickTime/10.4.4 installations from last week.

It looks like Apple indeed fixed it:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/18...es_itunes.html

How hard would it have been to get it right in the first place, especially with Sony providing some free extra education on the subject just weeks before ?

We all make mistakes, the main difference is that some people own up to them and some deny them almost to their dying breath.

Yep, that's the way it should have been right from the beginning.

cheers, pink

Granted.
However, there are honest and there are sleazy mistakes ;).

Forgetting to include the 64 bit version of a Library in a system update falls into the first category and is just lousy QA, but there is that nasty $$$wish-we-could-get-away-with-it$$$ aftertaste to this one...

I tend to side more with John Gruber at DaringFireball:
Since it follows up on the "Just For You" feature on the site, this seems like something they thought people might like (although I appreciate the difference between the two). 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.'

so I'm confused...did they change a setting on our systems? or was this done on the iTMS side of things?

I don't recal installing any updates between iTunes 6.0.2 and now :confused:

It was all done through server-side changes.
The ITMS and the MiniStore parts of iTunes are done via a specialized web browser. So all that was necessary was to change the HTML that was sent by the server. The hooks for hiding & showing the MiniStore were already in iTunes.