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Microsoft Chided Over Exclusive Music Idea

Posted by samzenpus on from the musical-monopoly dept.

grumpyman writes "The federal judge overseeing Microsoft Corp.'s business practices scolded the company Wednesday over a proposal to force manufacturers to tether iPod-like devices to Microsoft's own music player software. Microsoft blamed the proposal on a newly hired, "lower-level business person" who did not understand the company's obligations under the antitrust settlement."

8 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. Whisky Tango Foxtrot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Who the Hell do they think they are? Apple or something?!?!?!?!

    1. Re:Whisky Tango Foxtrot by badmammajamma · · Score: 1, Troll

      Good thing you went anonymous with that post, otherwise you would have been modded down for dissing Apple (in spite of the fact it's true).

      I don't care if I get modded down, so feel free.

      --
      Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
  2. Turnabout is FairPlay? by CodeBuster · · Score: 0, Troll

    Isn't this precisely what Apple is doing with iPod + iTunes? If Apple can open an online music store and restrict competing hardware and software products then why can Microsoft not compete in exactly the same way? What about the tethering of music purchased on iTunes to the computer which purchased the music and the FairPlay system? It seems to me that Microsoft cannot be faulted for taking a few pages from Apple's playbook in this case.

  3. Why not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    1) Apple does it.
    2) The sooner they lock up mainstream music in restrictive DRM the better. Lock it down, encrypt the hell out of it, throw away the key.

    Great. Who cares? They have the rights to the music, let them do what they want. Whatever. Don't like it? Find something else to do. It's not like there's a lack of things to do. I'm sick of the whining. You were born a slave. Get used to it. Don't like it? Kill yourself. You'll just reincarnate as another slave but hey... Stop paying attention to this nonsense and work for free to improve linux so that my experience is better. hehehe. Too much caffiene, but my interfaces are not taking on badcrcs... I'm going to go bang to rocks together and grunt in a rhythmic pattern. I expect it to be big. very big :)

  4. Re:"Microsoft regrets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Any business who lets ethics get in the way of doing business deserves to go broke!

  5. Re:In defense of MS by Moofie · · Score: 0, Troll

    uh huh. Trying to get hired on permanently, are you?

    --
    Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  6. Wow, how ridiculous... by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 1, Troll

    Wow, how ridiculous...

    We all know only Apple can do things like this, and get praise for doing it at the same time...

    iTunes anyone?

  7. Re:The good old days at MS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Moderators: Please note that "twitter" is a known fanatical sycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft bashing. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" or "fanboy" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, twitter is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.

    I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or Mepis or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.

    If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.

    To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. This is an article about email disclaimers. The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx, because "is teh free".

    Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.

    Here's that drive-by advocacy and FUD in motion: twitter goes on about some topic and then drops the usual "oh and M$ is teh evil" because "WMP phones home" or some such. Called on his FUD, he then claims that WMP stores every song and movie you've ever played in a file, somewhere. Pressed further, he just sort of slithers out of sight, his FUD-spreading complete. This is not about some Microsoft technology that nobody likes anyway; it's about lying for the sake of lying. Way too many of his posts are exactly like this one.

    More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or these two. Or this one. Or this one.

    Still not convinced? This is what twitter considers "humour" while going about his daily "M$" routine.

    M