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Microsoft Unveils 'Urge' Music Service
CHaN_316 writes "CNNMoney has an article entitled, 'Gates unveils his Urge.' From the piece: 'Bill Gates aims to take over your living room and late Wednesday he unveiled a new music service and new software to do it. Using an appearance with Justin Timberlake, the Microsoft chairman debuted a new music service, Urge, to directly compete with the iTunes music store and interface. Urge launches with over 2 million tracks for purchase or as part of an all-you-can eat subscription, an option the iTunes music store doesn't have. The offering will include exclusive material from MTV.' Begin the living room wars we must." Confirmation of an earlier story on this topic.
I have the urge to point out that Urge is a stupid name.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
The only urge Bill should have is to pee his pants and the ass-whooping iTunes is giving him!
Q: I am short, useless and provide no value. What am I? A: a sig
Geez...just the mention of him appearing with Justin Timberlake just killed any idea of quality and usefulness I might have had thought of concerning this service...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
When will somebody notice that with a sentance that include the words
in a story about a online music shop, that all this DRM is really just shooting themselves in the foot! If it doesn't work on a iPod will it not work on a RIO either? how about a sony walkman? Maybe I should download a copy for free and at a higher bit rate from the internet?
Why would i want to buy/rent music that i can't even listen to?
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Or dirge. Just the sort of hip, radical, urban and bitchin' cool attitude that is so well understood by old white male executives in grey suits.
The articles are short on technical details unfortunately, so I'll assume that the music is in WMA format, which, for me, is a reason right there not to download it.
Anyway, I imagine this service is much like Napster in its all-you-can-eat mode; all the music you can download, until you stop paying, and then all the music stops playing. While I could easily strip the DRM off the WMA files (assuming they use a current-gen version of WMA, which we don't know), that would take too much effort on my part to make it worth the money.
Message to Microsoft: If you want to attract people who are currently downloading their music for free elsewhere, you have to offer more than what other music stores offer. Let people who download music through the subscription service (with perhaps a decent per-month limit, say, 100 tracks, to keep people from trying to download the entire database) keep their music when their subscription ends. Otherwise, the service has no value to me, because I know later on I'll get tired of downloading music for a while, and quit paying for the privilege to do so; that doesn't mean I want my entire music collection that I've already paid for to stop working.
I'd also recommend using non-DRM MP3, but hey, this is Microsoft we're talking about. Can't expect everything...
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
"The offering will include exclusive material from MTV, though it will not be compatible with iPods, which are currently the most popular MP3 player."
In my opinoin, that will doom it in the long run. Sure, people will play with it for a while, but those with iPods won't be happy when they can't put the music on the iPod.
Unless someone gets Apple to open up Fairplay to potential licensees, or to include WMA playback on the iPod. I don't see either happening without a court case though.
Whoever comes up with this kind of product names at MS has to be fired.
Now let those Bill Gates "urge" jokes roll.
I subscribe to Yahoo! Music service for $5 a month for unlimited listening. I listen to it at work on my PC. Not everyone needs an iPod to hear music.
to pull down Bill's breast pocket...yet another Microsoft equipment malfunction!
Yes, Microsoft has the desktop market, but they are too clumsy to see this through. Music purchasing requries a finesse that they do not have. Apple has made its mark in the content delievery medium. It goes beyond PC applications into an ease of use, integrated delivery system. I predict this to be DOA. Savvy people won't put up with the hoops they have to jump through to get their content.
"These (partnerships) will allow you to enjoy high definition content and take that away on a portable media device" for what Gates called both the "two-foot experience and the 10-foot experience."
Two feet or ten feet, Justin Timberlake still sounds like crap. Whenever I listen to him, I get a temporal lobe malfunction.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I don't know about you, but the last thing I want is any of Billy's Urges being aimed anywhere in my living room.
in a story about a online music shop, that all this DRM is really just shooting themselves in the foot! If it doesn't work on a iPod will it not work on a RIO either? how about a sony walkman? Maybe I should download a copy for free and at a higher bit rate from the internet?
A great man once said, "I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient."
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Check out http://www.urge.com/ it looks like MTV owns the rights to the Urge name and it might not be a MS name decision.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Now, let's see... Microsoft, MTV, Justin Timberlake?
Throw in "50 cent" and we're all set.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Only one of these choices actually makes music. Coincidentally only one of these companies has a successful online music store.
OK, I read the article. I still don't know what the software being released does. Is it a Web application or a traditional one? What OS's are supported? Does this include a Media player, like iTunes, or is it just the retail store portion? Is this being illegally bundled with Windows or offered separately? They go on to talk about support for TV, without mentioning if that functionality is supported by this new service, and if so what programs will be available. Of course I'll never install this crap anyway, being as it is tied to WMP and I can't think of anything worse for the media industry than to be locked into an MS controlled, proprietary format. Still, I want to know what crap I'll have to deal with when working on PCs. Where's the beef?
Well, the obvious answer for this is not to use DRM.
Digital Sign the music you download so it can be tracked back to you if you swap it, and have a updating list on your PC (updated through Windows Update) that stops banned/illegal copied music from being played?
Or come up with a DRM that will work everywhere! It's not that i mind DRM, it's that is stops me from using music the way I want to use music.
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Nonsense there's loads of formats that MS could use mp3, wav, aiff, APE for example or is DRM the be all and end all of digital music.
AS for DRM, yes iTMS has it, however I don't have 5 computers at home to use up all my authentications and I have no problems transferring them between the computers I have.
I also have a CD Burner, in case I want to lend some tunes to a friend.
I wonder what MS's DRM terms are.
The offering will include exclusive material from MTV
;)
MTV is involved? So I'm guessing this service won't have any music.
Esoteric reference.
Er... It is not difficult to transfer them to another computer, provided you are the user of both computers, and are prepared to register that fact. If not, then be prepared to burn pruchased music to CD first (which you should probably do anyway...).
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Bullshit. Napster might switch but MSFT will not use any format that they themselves didn't create/enhance/ruin.
Just look at the ODF spectical. Independant researchers and archivists have been chiming in saying MSFT format is horrible. MSFT could easily support ODF. MSFT could easily support W3C standards. MSFT could of been smart and killed ActiveX years ago preventing the majoity of the viruses currently in existance.
It's MSFT's way or the highway. Now Napster and Real have all but begged for apple to open up Fairplay. And Apple should of done that by now. But in the end Apple is just as bad as MSFT when it comes to those ideas.
of course I still own a powerbook and have no working windows machines in my presence any more.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
If they offered FairPlay up for licensing, I guarantee you Microsoft would be interested.
You guarantee that do you? (Is that you Bill?)
Microsoft doesn't license anything - they developed wmv rather then licensing quicktime and so on.
It is simply not in their nature to pay royalties to another company - especially Apple who've been a thorn in their side all these years.
I suspect Microsoft are waiting to see what happens Real's Harmony before embracing and extending fairplay.
My pics.
Seriously...
iPod is a piece of hardware.
IS Microsoft really, REALLY saying it cannot write a piece of OS software for a hardware product like ipod?
I'm serious, the chip used in most ipods is well known. It can even handle WMA...its just not done via Apple's ipod OS.
As far as "oh that would make them responsible for support" BS! Like they support any piece of hardware windows runs on.
Oh well, I should be happy it didn't happen this time...cause Urge is a horrible name -_-
The reason, for those who are about to ask, why this is under the "Apple" category, is that this is really an Apple ad in disguise. The slogan practically writes itself: "iTunes: No WMA and No Justin Timberlake as spokesman. What more proof do you need?"
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Subscription-based music is the way to go. This, combined with the Windows "Plays for Sure" initiative will ultimately give MS the upper hand over Apple in the music arena, unless Apple comes out with a subscription option.
I have a subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited and I've found it is definitely worth the $60/year. Right now I've got 744 songs in my collection, which if purchased at iTunes would cost more than 12 years of subscription fees (assuming the price doesn't go up). I can license 3 computers to access my subscription, so I've got it set up on my home computer, my work computer, and my laptop. The service keeps them in sync so if I add music at home, it gets downloaded at work next time I start the service. Since I download the music to my computer, if the network goes down I can still play music.
If I want to burn CDs I can buy tracks for $0.79. But I haven't needed to do that. I have a Creative Zen Micro to carry around. What's really nice is the Roku SoundBridge is compatible with the service. I've got that hooked into the home theater system (and our wireless network) and I can access my complete music collection (even ripped music) using a remote control.
Ok, I realize this sounds like a commercial for the service. It's not...but I'm very happy with it and think that $60/year is a steal. I used to search the assorted P2P networks but my time has value too and it just wasn't worth it to search for and download music, only to find that I've picked up a bunch of bad tracks (P2P is still great for porn though).
So based on my experience with Yahoo Music Unlimited I think that despite its name Urge will be successful and combined with MS's marketing power may turn out to be an iTunes...well, not killer but maybe wounder.
Why should I be forced to burn music to a CD, physically take that CD, move it to another computer, then rip the music back into another format (which, BTW, lowers the quality of the music, unless you use FLAC or something otherwise lossless).
Right now, I can move my MP3 music like so: Copying it across the network. Said feat takes approximately five seconds per MP3.
So why should I be using these stores again?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I was replying to the question raised by the poster, not the practicality of it... If you want to move the music you legally own from one computer to another, it can be done legally. If can also be done illegally - take your pick.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Amen, though the whole "digitally signing / banning" is DRM, however you want to put it. Besides, if they did what you suggested, non-Microsoft players would simply ignore the digital signing bits and play the music regardless of its status.
The solution is simply to avoid DRM altogether. DRM is fundamentally flawed and will always be broken, because in the end, I have your music on my hard drive, and you're not going to be able to stop me from doing what I want with it.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Historically flat-rate type music services have not let you transfer to mp3 players or burn CD's unless you pay the approx. 99 cents to buy the song fully. They assume once it's off your computer, it's pretty easy to exploit the analog loophole (it's still pretty easy to exploit anyway).
So I'm pretty confident that regardless, you wouldn't be able to transfer to your ipod with the unlimited service anyway.
However, they are lamey McLamersons, because there are programs out there that can do a sort of "high speed dubbing" digitally. They force the native app (say, windows media player) to play at 4x, 8x, whatever and listen right on the sound card (before it's analog). Then encode at the matching speed so the resulting mp3 is correct.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
I don't care what Microsoft's history on licensing is, it would be damn stupid of them to ignore the iPod segment if it were possible to reach it.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
All the songs I've purchased from a competing service, eMusic, work just fine on my iPod.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I guess legal must've ix-nayed "Compulsion".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Christian rock is like some youth minister's idea of what rock and roll is: you don't even have Link Wray or the Rolling Stones, no it's derivative boy band music and hair metal. And Urge is like some out of touch dorky software mogul's idea of hip -- aesthetically perfectly paired with Stryper, Petra and Creed.
``Have you heard about this totally praiseworthy and righteous new music service, Urge? Rock on! Praise the Lord, man!''
"Stable platform"? C'mon. Can't you trolls come up with anything new? Windows hasn't has stability issues since the Win 95/98/ME days. At least come up with something that's marginally relevant or true. This pathetic FUD is getting really, really old and tired.
I don't respond to AC's.
...I reach for microsoft.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
The urge.com page that is presented that says coming soon or whatever mines ALOT of data about you.
s 9552561766906?%5BAQB%5D&ndh=1&t=5/0/2006%2015%3A49 %3A12%204%200&pageName=urge_splash&g=http%3A//www. urge.com/&r=http%3A//apple.slashdot.org/article.pl %3Fsid%3D06/01/05/1334231%26tid%3D109%26tid%3D95%2 6tid%3D141%26tid%3D3&cc=USD&s=2048x768&c=32&j=1.3& v=Y&k=Y&bw=1016&bh=544&p=PCMan's%20IE%20Tab%20Plug -in%20for%20Mozilla/Firefox%3BPCMan's%20IEView%20P lug-in%20for%20Mozilla/Firefox%3BMozilla%20Default %20Plug-in%3BAdobe%20Acrobat%3BQuickTime%20Plug-in %206.5.1%3BMicrosoft%20Office%202003%3BJava(TM)%20 2%20Platform%20Standard%20Edition%205.0%20Update%2 06%3BShockwave%20Flash%3B&%5BAQE%5D
....
For example this is the URL of an image included on the page...
http://viadms.112.2o7.net/b/ss/viadms/1/G.7-PD-R/
Then there is the little javascript that creates this URL
http://www.urge.com/s_code_urge.js
You know, the quality isn't that bad for a 'traded' CD. If I wanted better quality sound, I'd buy the damn mastered CD however for a song that a friend trades with me that I really don't care about, I'll take it and hear it once and maybe again in a couple of years.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
on Janet Jackson's tit.
Oh, no, history shows they're perfectly happy to license (or partner on) anything from anyone, provided the terms of the agreement somehow give MS the right to rip the other guy's balls off at a later date.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
When Steve announces a product, he makes it available. There's no coming soon, or available within 4 years, or in the near future crap...
Steve announces these things and you can buy one immediately. If it's software, you can download it/buy it today.
I think the slow lumbering of MS will make this product as much of an also ran as every other competing service to itunes. Tying themselves to MTV is supposed to appeal to a younger demographic, but what teenager associates MTV with music? Unless they're awake at 2:30 am on a Tuesday, they've never seen MTV air a music video. What older person does? VH1 coulda been a better fit than this.
We have this great invention in the UK. It's called "radio". You tune in and you get to listen to music. And better yet, it's free. You even get unlimited listening too. Buy two radios and you can both listen to the *same* station at the *same* time - no extra cost, it's still free!
Wow.
Maybe the radio is better in the UK, over here all we get is wannabees (many nearly as pathetic as Justin Timberlake) on the radio. Yahoo music is a scam because you dont get anything other than commercial free radio. You can't keep the songs, and you can't play it in your car. On the other hand, you'll find a lot more metal, and a good collection of trance on usenet.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Yeah, that's pretty much where I stopped reading. I really need to get some of the drugs they must be using down in Redmond. Delusion like that must be an incredible high.
I did like the "all you can eat" idea, though. The real question is "If I unsubsrcibe to the service, does every song in my collection just disappear?" If the answer is "yes" then my answer is "no thanks."
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I think MSFT would switch. I read an interesting article about how MSFT tried to convince apple to let them license fairplay for use on the 360 and apple said no way...
So they did try asking...
While MS chases after a market already owned by Apple, Jobs and company are moving on into the video realm. Next week Apple will unveil a new Mac Mini media center that like the iPod is easy to set up and use. And just like the iPod knocked out the other mp3 players out there with its combination of simplicity, elegance, and service, so too the Mac Media PC will knock out the the poor media center effort by MS. That is what should happen anyway. I hope Apple delivers.
Billy Boy has had his MSN music store around for around 2 years now and it has been, like MSN itself, a total failure. Now, Billy Boy, touched by the same infinite creative wisdom that produced Microsoft BOB, Clippy and Windows ME, brings out exactly the same fucking product under another brand, and, using exactly the same model as Napster and Yahoo and his other store, expects to win out with his "superior" product.
Billy Boy's new toy, not compatible with the most popular by far audio player, will only help Billy Boy to lose even more money than his current MSN venture does.
My only wish, Billy Boy, is that in a year or two, some journalist with real balls instead of the pants-shitting, brown-nosing creeps that pretend to be such these days, will play you back a recording of your words this day and force you to either admit to just how badly you erred, or to get you to walk out of the studio in tears.
By similar logic...
After I've gone to a movie theater and watched a movie I should get a free copy of the DVD.
After I've paid rent on my appartment for a couple of years I should own it.
huh? you need to clarify your iPod sales numbers because even this press release (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/feb/23ipodmi ni.html) says 10 million iPods sold and that was when the second gen iPod mini was released close to a year ago. in fact, google the sales results for this quarter and analysts are expecting 11 million ipods the holiday quarter alone.
I'm sat in front of 7 right now, and that doesn't include the NAS that actually stores all my music files.
There's another 4 in the living room, plus a Showcenter 200 which gets used a lot for playing MP3s.
I'm maybe not your average user, but 5 uses really isn't a lot. Even my Mac Mini would use 2 (OSX 10.4 and OSX 10.3 boots) for one machine.
Then again I won't pay itunes prices... my local music store sells the real CDs for less.
- ActiveX: This {is,is not} signed, do you want to trust it? It runs (iirc) as any other program on your PC. Downsides: terrible permissions granularity, Windows-only.
- Java Applets: This {is,is not} signed by foo and asks for permission to do bar, do you want to give it these permissions (e.g. disk access)? Runs in a sandbox, so access (unless signed and allowed and barring bugs) outside the sandbox is verboten. Downsides: For full functionality, requires Sun or Sun-compatible Java runtime, so is usually an extra download for users. For abridged functionality, you may wish to restrict your functionality to the ancient Java runtime 1.1.1, which is (at least mostly) implemented in Microsoft's Windows-Extended Java (also known as "Microsoft VM"), but will still likely be an additional (free) download for most users. I suspect Macs come bundled with Java, but I'm not certain.
- XUL: A mozilla-only technology, does applications via XPCOM, XML, and JavaScript. Downsides: Restricted functionality (unless you can install stuff for XPCOM, I think, I'm somewhat fuzzy on this) compared to other solutions; Mozilla-only, a (free) download for most users.
- XAML: Microsoft's take on XUL. Windows Vista only (if it's still included, which iirc it is), I believe it requires Microsoft's
.net, but I could be wrong.
- AJAX: entirely javascript in-browser. Downsides: requires good JavaScript compatibility.
- Plain old CGI: available in any browser. Downsides: very, very limited ease of use compared to other solutions, places very rigid restraints on the user-server interaction.
- Shockwave Flash: I have little experience with this outside of watching short animations and interactive websites with it. Downside: requires Shockwave Flash plugin (a problem on any non-x86 platform, last I knew, including x86_64!)
There are likely others, but these are probably the most common. Notably, several of these are quite cross-platform and provide little, if any, vendor lockin, and the security options of some are much better than the security options of others.--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
you missed the part where Justin ripped off a piece of Bill's shirt, revealing his nipple shield.
Well, I usually never post sites in posts, but this service from Pandora is good enough for me, and has some advantages over iTunes as it *teaches* you about music you might like. Dunno why slashdot didn't post news about it, but for those who like music -- check it out.
you are talking complete bollocks.
MS lets you have your music on 2 computers ever, including the same computer uprgraded.
Apple lets you have it on any 5 computers at the same time. if you have 5 computers and buy a 6th, you can just unregister one of the old ones. I honestly don't see how being restricted to only 5 computers simultaneously interferes with any more than a tiny minority of legitimate users. and even when you are affected it just means one less computer - no music is lost.
MS's system on the other hand is guaranteed to affect every user who upgrades, and to effect them in such a way that they lose all their music completely.
Not that I either expect them to, or want them to, but if they can't win on this, they're going to be in serious trouble. After the total failour of the XBox 360 launch (quite possibly the weakest launch of any major console in terms of "trend setting"), and a pretty dismal year for their shareholders, noone's going to take them seriously in new, younger markets anymore. In other news, their market share is slipping (slowly, but still on a negative trend), and national headlines (NBC nightly news) were made yesterday when serious flaws in windows security were discovered. They're currently losing the HD media wars badly. They're on the cusp of losing all their major upcoming battles, and with all the money they have, you'd think they'd find a quick way of bailing themselves out, but I think MS have really bitten off more than they can chew. Sure, they'll get a chunk of change from "Vista", later this year, but that's only because they've got one market locked in, their break-in power to new markets, on the other hand, has been pretty bad as of late.
They're not going to have as easy a time killing off iTunes as they did Netscape. They got IE in the door because of large businesses with a "no touch" attitude towards new installs on their computers, so they'd stick to the pre-installed IE. Their main demographic in THIS battle, however, is a highly capable, No Fear, computer savvy youth who previously had the RIAA worried by their increased downloads of illegal music from virtually no-named services. This isn't the same crowd with the, "if it's not broke, don't fix it", this is a demographic that's not afraid to go out of their way to get what they want. So, this time, they're really going to have to compete in terms of style and trend, something they've never been good at. Their first move seems pretty clueless to me: hire on a former music content provider (MTV), which is currently regarded by today's youth as being "so yesterday"; for you're spokesman, get on board a washed up teen idol who may have hit it big with 14 year old girls in 1998, but who's name is going to insite a resounding "Justin who?" response from the same demographic today. I mean, Justin Timberlake coule be Dick Clark for all they care—yes, pop culture moves THAT FAST. And for the grand finale, name your service, as someone said, something associated with gross bodily function. Seriously, my first reaction to the name was "ewww", it conjure's up images of some guy badly needing to take a dump. This reminds me of a funny scene from a commedy a few years back, "Nothing to Lose", in which the main character, a marketting specialist, warns one of his clients, "Excriment is the last thing people are going to want to think about when buying cookies", I think this holds true in this case too. Apple captured millions with sillohette's dancing around with iPods, how popular would they have been if the sillohette's were holding their crotches, swaying back and forth saying, "I need to pee"?
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
"Why should I be forced to burn music to a CD..."
Because the record companies are greedy fucks who don't get it and you're not going to have any sort of comprehensive catalog without a minimum of DRM at this point in history.
Next question?
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
Try 30 million iPods sold (as of Nov 2005).
It isn't even close.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
While I do think they are on bad drugs, I don't think the philosophy is so cracked. It's just playing out differently this time.
When Apple started to have huge success with the iPod, all the naysayers came out of the woodwork and (rightly) pointed out that this very strategy - keep it proprietary and lock it down as best you can - totally backfired on Apple before, in the desktop PC area. Microsoft capitalized (to say the least) on the 'open ecosystem' of PC parts that were more-or-less interchangeable, and that came to rule the market. So for MS to say, let's let all the digital audio player manufacturers chip away at Apple until they are marginal again, and we will concentrate on being the software that powers all these music transactions... it really wasn't such a crazy thought.
Except this time, for whatever reason, it is actually working for Apple. So they are stymied. MS, Creative et. al fully believed that the iPod's market domination would surely have slipped by now. The iPod has been out for several years now. But it really hasn't.
Having said all that, I am convinced Apple is too smart to make the same bad decision (I mean books have been written about that decision!) this time around. They just haven't felt the pressure yet, so they have no motivation to do so. If iPod sales slip below a magic number of saturation, say 40%, Apple WILL open Fairplay and go from there. And everyone but MS will praise them for it. I did like the "all you can eat" idea, though. The real question is "If I unsubsrcibe to the service, does every song in my collection just disappear?" If the answer is "yes" then my answer is "no thanks."
That is exactly what happens. You get maybe a month's worth of grace period, then... poof. Welcome to Janus, your two-faced media guardian.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
So, would you rather sell 10 million units of something at a loss or 2 million with a profit?
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
One nice thing Apple lets you do is deauthorize all of your computers at the same time from the iTunes web site. That way, if you sold one of your computers or if you signed on to a public computer or a friend's computer with your Apple ID, nobody else can use your account, etc.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
So, would you rather sell 10 million units of something at a loss or 2 million with a profit?
You're forgetting about economies-of-scale. MS is obviously making it up on volume.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Yahoo music is a scam
I got my Yahoo Music subscription at $36 for a year. That's a whole year of listening to quite a few preset and customized radio stations that never have commercials. And I can skip any songs I don't like or don't feel like listening to at the moment. I can even check a little box to remove the songs with explicit lyrics so I can safely listen at work (though, admittedly, this feature needs some tweaking).
I don't call that a scam. I call it pure genius.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.