Except you have named shows which feature episodic, as well as seasonal, content.
Is the credibility budget exhausted with each show? If not, then the story in each show is not ruined, and as long as each show itself is credible in of itself, in conjunction with the other shows then the story of the season, and then the entire series remains credible.
How is it that the iPod is "much more expensive" than the competitors?
The Creative Zen Vision:M 30gb is $299 on Amazon. The Creative Zen Vision 30gb is $399 on Amazon. The Cowon iAudio X5 30gb is $265 on Amazon (on sale, normally $299). The Apple iPod 30gb is $270 on Amazon (on sale, normally $299).
We've also been hearing how Apple's pricing has been driving competitors out of business, from Rio and then iRiver, and how Creative is losing money every quarter as their stock builds and price drops have forced them to lose money on every Zen sold.
Your "nothing more" bit is the flamebait modifier.
There were at least five things that made the iPod stand out above the other MP3 players in 2001; it wasn't until 2004 that Creative Labs caught up.
1) Size/Density: In 2001 the iPod was 5gb in the size of a deck of cards. The 6gb Nomad Jukebox was the size of a Mac mini and the 256mb Rio PMP was the size of a Zippo. The similar 1.8" HDD Zen Touch wasn't released until 2004. 2) Upload speed: In 2001 the iPod used Firewire to upload songs at 12mb/s, compared to the 1mb/s of the USB Nomad Jukebox. You could fill an iPod in 7 minutes, while it would take over 80 minutes for the Nomad. 3) Usability: In 2001 the iPod had 4 buttons and a scrollwheel to access the songs, playlist, volume, and position. The Nomad Jukebox had 11 buttons to do the same; one could be used in one hand, the other could not. 4) iTunes: In 2001 you only had to plug in the iPod for it to charge, upload, and synchronize. The Rio and Creatives of that age required you to create playlists, drag files, and use special functions in software. iTunes was literally plug, wait, unplug, and play. 5) Mass Storage: This gave the iPod immense geek cred. Your iPod was a vanilla Firewire/USB mass storage device. I installed OS X on mine.
It took competitors three years to catch up; in the mean time Apple had released the iPod mini, which Creative countered with the Zen Micro 9 months later and the Zen Touch was the first Zen to use a 1.8" HDD also in 2004. All the while Apple released smaller and lighter iPods, cheaper and higher density iPods, and Windows compatibility to boot.
Is it any surprise they succeeded when everyone else was giving them the keys to the kingdom?
16 year olds know how to rip CDs to MP3 players, and it doesn't bother them doing it. They don't mind grabbing a couple of MP3s from online, or a friend... its easy for them, they think of it as normal, so the iBusiness_model will soon also be outdated. The next 'killer apps' will be those that allow this new group of technically savvy people to use their information and media however they feel like using it, without the chains or training wheels of current DRM technology.
Dude, it's called an iPod. Rip all your CDs into iTunes. 30GB later, plug in an iPod. 30 minutes later, eject and unplug. In the interim, create 15 different playlists using the iTunes database; all top rated songs, all unheard songs, all most played songs, all country songs, etc.
Then hit play and go.
Criticism of your post: You seem to be ignorant of the fact that iTunes cannot rip DRM encumbered music from CDs, is capable of organizing DRM free MP3s received from the internet, and that the iPod can play DRM free MP3, AAC, WAV, AIF, and ALE songs.
DRM is not the reason the iPod is successful. The iPod is the reason why the iPod is successful.
Name a "far better player" than an iPod in 2001, when it was released. From my memory they were all lower capacity flash players, larger, heavier, and harder to use laptop HDD based MP3 players, they all had slower USB1 or serial port implementations, and they all had multiple button UIs that made them really hard to use.
Feel free to compare to all the failures that had existed up to the 2001 iPod. Creative had a 6GB $500 11 button over one pound USB1 MP3 player in the year 2000. Today Apple has a Mac mini that is about the same size, same price, and probably more portable:)
Why do you think the first generation iPods were so bad? They had several features that were not matched by rival players until Creative Labs released their Zen Micro in 2004, three years later.
1) Fast transfer speeds. Firewire allowed, at 12mb/s, one to fill an iPod in 7 minutes, where it would take a similar Creative Nomad 84 minutes for the same amount of music. 2) Ease of use. iTunes allowed a single action to charge, synch, and upload to your iPod. Plug in, and you're done. Hit eject and your iPod is already synchronized, charged, and full of music. 3) Size. With a 1.8" HDD, it was the size of a large flash MP3 player, compared to a Mac mini sized Nomad Jukebox 4) Usability. With only four buttons and a scroll wheel, it could be used with a single hand, and almost immediately, compared to the 11 button UI that was current on the Nomad Jukebox 5) Storage. With a 1.8" HDD, it was marginally bigger than the largest 256mb flash MP3 player, with 20 times the storage. Not only that, it was a Firewire mass storage device.
Go ahead and look it up, Creative didn't release their 1.8" HDD and 1" HDD players until 2004, giving the iPod a three year advantage! Before then Creative was using much larger, heavier, and power consuming 2.5" laptop HDD.
Except you also fail to mention the corresponding STRENGTHS of the first generation: 1) Fast transfer speeds. Firewire allowed, at 12mb/s, one to fill an iPod in 7 minutes, where it would take a similar Creative Nomad 84 minutes for the same amount of music. 2) Ease of use. iTunes allowed a single action to charge, synch, and upload to your iPod. Plug in, and you're done. Hit eject and your iPod is already synchronized, charged, and full of music.
If you AREN'T just trolling, why do you not recognize the iPod's strengths? On top of those first two, it had three others that creamed the current 2001 MP3 market: 1) Size. With a 1.8" HDD, it was the size of a large flash MP3 player, compared to a Mac mini sized Nomad Jukebox 2) Usability. With only four buttons and a scroll wheel, it could be used with a single hand, and almost immediately, compared to the 11 button UI that was current on the Nomad Jukebox 3) Storage. With a 1.8" HDD, it was marginally bigger than the largest 256mb flash MP3 player, with 20 times the storage.
All those things combined wiped the floor of the then current Creative Nomad Jukebox, the Rio PMP, or the Samsungs.
There are far better mp3 players out there, but they are harder to use, or their knobs are too small, or they have too many functions, or they are not well advertised...
If they are harder to use or their knobs are too small, they cannot be better. A better player would be easier to use with perfectly sized knobs.
What you gotta understand, and since we're kinda "geeks" here, I guess you already do, is that iPod is far from the best mp3 player out there, let alone with best value/price ratio (mentioning value/price ratio and Apple in one sentence makes me laugh).
In 2001, the iPod was far and above the best mp3 player out there. By 2004 Creative Labs had caught up; they had released their Zen Micro to compete with the iPod mini, they had a minimal 5 element UI, they had finally adopted fast USB2, and they came in several colors.
What happened in the intervening 3 years?
Apple released a Windows compatible iPod, they had released a Windows compatible iTunes, they had released ever smaller iPods, the even smaller and thinner iPod mini (January of 2004, nine months before the Creative Zen Micro), and they had been continuously bumping the capacity and slowly reducing the price of the iPods.
So it doesn't seem surprising at all that, in the course of three years, that Apple would dominate if they kept releasing better and smaller and cheaper iPods. Fast forward to 2006 and it seems if anyone else wants to topple Apple then it might very well take three full years of concerted effort to topple them.
As per my "facts", you don't have to take my word for it, please look it up. Creative Labs took several years to catch up with 1.8" drives and 1" drives, colors, good UI, and good form factor.
There is information about him on the web, and he has a few good books such as "Notes on the Synthesis of Form".
Why do I mention him? To a certain extent, especially to users of software, the interface IS the product. The interface is the only way they will ever use any of the features, so if something is hidden, hard to find, hard to use, or designed to be misused, then that feature will never be of any prominence.
So remember to design the interface around your users and your problem. Your program is literally the interface that sits between the users and the problem, a bridge as it were.
If it is evident, please explain then. To my knowledge my Mac has no ssh or telnet servers operational, out of the box, so that any requests on those ports do nothing. It is as if you made a http or ftp request when neither of those servers are operational as well.
So what is the vulnerability you are exposing when I have no servers/services operational?
The problem with your statement, "If your design is good, the components are flawless," is that design is an activity that defines both the problem and the solution. If your problem is ill stated or unexplored, your solution is equally ill stated and unexplored.
There are several analogies that apply to software: It is complex because it is self similar, so that the lowest level of design is about as complex as the highest levels of design, or it is complex because humans are not naturally gifted at translating between reality (the problem space) and language (the design space and the communication space).
Unless you are simultaneously the customer and the implementor, you will have to struggle to get the right problems first, then the right solutions, and then the right implementations from the right people.
The quote you use is pretty bad, especially for people that don't know software:
'Software entities are more complex for their size than perhaps any other human construct because no two parts are alike (at least above the statement level). If they are, we make the two similar parts into a subroutine--open or closed. In this respect, software systems differ profoundly from computers, buildings, or automobiles, where repeated elements abound.'
What you want to convey, to the non software initiated, is why software is difficult, why it is complex, and why it is hard.
I would put it this way; software is really "soft", being only instructions a computer reads and interprets. A physical analogy is perhaps clay, something equally analogously soft, malleable, and easy to work with. Now imagine another physical analogy; take that clay, and then try to build a car out of it. A working car. Ignore the physical impossibilities, like combusion temperatures, but make the point that each component first has to be designed then baked, and that each component has to be integrated with each other component.
So that is what software is like. They may ask, "Why?", and here are a few reasons: 1) Software is easily copied, not easily designed. The hard part is making the first copy, as in the car example. Once you get one product finished, you can copy quite easily, but actually designing and building is not necessarily easy. 2) Software is REALLY malleable. You can continuously change the design as you are working, not unlike building an entire car out of soft clay. 3) Because software is so malleable, each time you discover a new problem you discover a new solution. In other words, the second car you make will be totally different than the first car because instead you will be going from a car to a boat or a train or a helicopter. 4) Also because software is malleable, every "customer" with different requirements brings in new design directions. Imagine if every person working on the car, viewing the car, and interacting the car wants a totally different car? You aren't designing one car, now, you are designing 17 or 18 cars; trucks, vans, compacts, sedans, and sports cars. Now take all these vehicles and merge them into a single multipurpose vehicle.
Assembling the computer is simple; slide in, screw in, lock in, snap in, done.
It's the remaining part that is hard: 1) Power up; diagnose any problems that prevent a full boot (bad RAM? bad motherboard? bad BIOS setting? bad HDD? bad ODD?) 2) Install the OS; diagnose any problems that prevent a full install (motherboard drivers? GPU drivers? drive controller drivers?) 3) Boot the OS; diagnose any problems that prevent a full boot (bad configuration? out of date drivers? bad component?) 4) Install additional drivers; diagnose any problems that occur because of the new drivers (bad GPU driver? bad audio driver?) 5) Patch the OS; diagnose any problems that occur because of patch incompatibilities (CD-RW doesn't like the new patch? network stops working after the patches?) 6) Install the applications; diagnose any problems that occur because the OS wasn't properly configured (networking not working? firewall not working? CD-RW not working? GPU drivers misoptimized? antivirus not working?)
The above is the hard part about putting together a computer. The easy part is physically assembling the computer.
Or maybe how serious and thoughtful Harry Potter is?
Or perhaps you're thinking of Spider-Man? Mission Impossible? James Bond?
If they can get a half way passable script, director, and actor, and maintain the spirit of the series, I don't think we need it to be serious; it can have all the cheese and melodrama of James Bond and be quite a successful movie.
If you want plot and storyline, try some of Square's other offerings. Having less brand weight, Square will take corresponding more risks in terms of emotional development. For example, I was quite impressed with: Threads of Fate Xenogears Chrono Trigger Kingdom Hearts Series
I found the game a lot harder if the only thing I did was hit "X". As soon as I started using the square and especially the triangle buttons the game got a lot easier.
Well then, that describes the problem succintly. Why shouldn't DVDs remain enclosed in CSS? Why shouldn't Microsoft keep SMB theirs? Why not keep.doc undocumented?
The problem is everywhere, and it seems rather unfair to single out Apple when they are not the most egregious examples of proprietary formats. DVDs rank higher, with their higher adoption rate. Of course on the flip side you can pay $15k to license CSS, but you can't license SMB or.doc or any of the CD encryption.
Why shouldn't Apple keep control of their encryption scheme? It exists exactly so they can exert a little control on how the music is used. I'm not saying the intent is right, but insofar as the RIAA and the music licensors wanted it, it works.
To put it another way, Fairplay belongs to Apple, while the music you purchase belongs to you; the CD format belongs to Philips, while the music CD you purchase belongs to you.
Slashdot Mirror
Except you have named shows which feature episodic, as well as seasonal, content.
Is the credibility budget exhausted with each show? If not, then the story in each show is not ruined, and as long as each show itself is credible in of itself, in conjunction with the other shows then the story of the season, and then the entire series remains credible.
How is it that the iPod is "much more expensive" than the competitors?
The Creative Zen Vision:M 30gb is $299 on Amazon.
The Creative Zen Vision 30gb is $399 on Amazon.
The Cowon iAudio X5 30gb is $265 on Amazon (on sale, normally $299).
The Apple iPod 30gb is $270 on Amazon (on sale, normally $299).
All here.
We've also been hearing how Apple's pricing has been driving competitors out of business, from Rio and then iRiver, and how Creative is losing money every quarter as their stock builds and price drops have forced them to lose money on every Zen sold.
Your "nothing more" bit is the flamebait modifier.
There were at least five things that made the iPod stand out above the other MP3 players in 2001; it wasn't until 2004 that Creative Labs caught up.
1) Size/Density: In 2001 the iPod was 5gb in the size of a deck of cards. The 6gb Nomad Jukebox was the size of a Mac mini and the 256mb Rio PMP was the size of a Zippo. The similar 1.8" HDD Zen Touch wasn't released until 2004.
2) Upload speed: In 2001 the iPod used Firewire to upload songs at 12mb/s, compared to the 1mb/s of the USB Nomad Jukebox. You could fill an iPod in 7 minutes, while it would take over 80 minutes for the Nomad.
3) Usability: In 2001 the iPod had 4 buttons and a scrollwheel to access the songs, playlist, volume, and position. The Nomad Jukebox had 11 buttons to do the same; one could be used in one hand, the other could not.
4) iTunes: In 2001 you only had to plug in the iPod for it to charge, upload, and synchronize. The Rio and Creatives of that age required you to create playlists, drag files, and use special functions in software. iTunes was literally plug, wait, unplug, and play.
5) Mass Storage: This gave the iPod immense geek cred. Your iPod was a vanilla Firewire/USB mass storage device. I installed OS X on mine.
It took competitors three years to catch up; in the mean time Apple had released the iPod mini, which Creative countered with the Zen Micro 9 months later and the Zen Touch was the first Zen to use a 1.8" HDD also in 2004. All the while Apple released smaller and lighter iPods, cheaper and higher density iPods, and Windows compatibility to boot.
Is it any surprise they succeeded when everyone else was giving them the keys to the kingdom?
Huh? You didn't know you could copy files off the iPod?
It's a Firewire/USB mass storage device.
cp "\volumes\My iPod\iPod Control" ~\Desktop
Dude, it's called an iPod.
Rip all your CDs into iTunes. 30GB later, plug in an iPod. 30 minutes later, eject and unplug. In the interim, create 15 different playlists using the iTunes database; all top rated songs, all unheard songs, all most played songs, all country songs, etc.
Then hit play and go.
Criticism of your post: You seem to be ignorant of the fact that iTunes cannot rip DRM encumbered music from CDs, is capable of organizing DRM free MP3s received from the internet, and that the iPod can play DRM free MP3, AAC, WAV, AIF, and ALE songs.
DRM is not the reason the iPod is successful. The iPod is the reason why the iPod is successful.
Name a "far better player" than an iPod in 2001, when it was released. From my memory they were all lower capacity flash players, larger, heavier, and harder to use laptop HDD based MP3 players, they all had slower USB1 or serial port implementations, and they all had multiple button UIs that made them really hard to use.
:)
Feel free to compare to all the failures that had existed up to the 2001 iPod. Creative had a 6GB $500 11 button over one pound USB1 MP3 player in the year 2000. Today Apple has a Mac mini that is about the same size, same price, and probably more portable
Why do you think the first generation iPods were so bad? They had several features that were not matched by rival players until Creative Labs released their Zen Micro in 2004, three years later.
1) Fast transfer speeds. Firewire allowed, at 12mb/s, one to fill an iPod in 7 minutes, where it would take a similar Creative Nomad 84 minutes for the same amount of music.
2) Ease of use. iTunes allowed a single action to charge, synch, and upload to your iPod. Plug in, and you're done. Hit eject and your iPod is already synchronized, charged, and full of music.
3) Size. With a 1.8" HDD, it was the size of a large flash MP3 player, compared to a Mac mini sized Nomad Jukebox
4) Usability. With only four buttons and a scroll wheel, it could be used with a single hand, and almost immediately, compared to the 11 button UI that was current on the Nomad Jukebox
5) Storage. With a 1.8" HDD, it was marginally bigger than the largest 256mb flash MP3 player, with 20 times the storage. Not only that, it was a Firewire mass storage device.
Go ahead and look it up, Creative didn't release their 1.8" HDD and 1" HDD players until 2004, giving the iPod a three year advantage! Before then Creative was using much larger, heavier, and power consuming 2.5" laptop HDD.
Except you also fail to mention the corresponding STRENGTHS of the first generation:
1) Fast transfer speeds. Firewire allowed, at 12mb/s, one to fill an iPod in 7 minutes, where it would take a similar Creative Nomad 84 minutes for the same amount of music.
2) Ease of use. iTunes allowed a single action to charge, synch, and upload to your iPod. Plug in, and you're done. Hit eject and your iPod is already synchronized, charged, and full of music.
If you AREN'T just trolling, why do you not recognize the iPod's strengths? On top of those first two, it had three others that creamed the current 2001 MP3 market:
1) Size. With a 1.8" HDD, it was the size of a large flash MP3 player, compared to a Mac mini sized Nomad Jukebox
2) Usability. With only four buttons and a scroll wheel, it could be used with a single hand, and almost immediately, compared to the 11 button UI that was current on the Nomad Jukebox
3) Storage. With a 1.8" HDD, it was marginally bigger than the largest 256mb flash MP3 player, with 20 times the storage.
All those things combined wiped the floor of the then current Creative Nomad Jukebox, the Rio PMP, or the Samsungs.
If they are harder to use or their knobs are too small, they cannot be better. A better player would be easier to use with perfectly sized knobs.
In 2001, the iPod was far and above the best mp3 player out there.
By 2004 Creative Labs had caught up; they had released their Zen Micro to compete with the iPod mini, they had a minimal 5 element UI, they had finally adopted fast USB2, and they came in several colors.
What happened in the intervening 3 years?
Apple released a Windows compatible iPod, they had released a Windows compatible iTunes, they had released ever smaller iPods, the even smaller and thinner iPod mini (January of 2004, nine months before the Creative Zen Micro), and they had been continuously bumping the capacity and slowly reducing the price of the iPods.
So it doesn't seem surprising at all that, in the course of three years, that Apple would dominate if they kept releasing better and smaller and cheaper iPods. Fast forward to 2006 and it seems if anyone else wants to topple Apple then it might very well take three full years of concerted effort to topple them.
As per my "facts", you don't have to take my word for it, please look it up. Creative Labs took several years to catch up with 1.8" drives and 1" drives, colors, good UI, and good form factor.
There is information about him on the web, and he has a few good books such as "Notes on the Synthesis of Form".
Why do I mention him? To a certain extent, especially to users of software, the interface IS the product. The interface is the only way they will ever use any of the features, so if something is hidden, hard to find, hard to use, or designed to be misused, then that feature will never be of any prominence.
So remember to design the interface around your users and your problem. Your program is literally the interface that sits between the users and the problem, a bridge as it were.
Want to know irony?
:)
Creative announced the Micro Zen after Apple released the iPod mini, by about 10 months:
iPod mini in January of 2004
Zen Micro in October of 2004
They also released their first "small" DAP after the iPod:
"full sized" Nomad Jukebox in 2000
iPod in October of 2001
Zen in 2002
Everything good about the Zens and Nomads exist because Apple did it first
So is that why you own a MacBook running Ubuntu, instead of what everyone else does, which is run Windows XP on a Dell?
If it is evident, please explain then. To my knowledge my Mac has no ssh or telnet servers operational, out of the box, so that any requests on those ports do nothing. It is as if you made a http or ftp request when neither of those servers are operational as well.
So what is the vulnerability you are exposing when I have no servers/services operational?
durable: proof against wear and damage
assay: test for drug existance
suitable: useful and usable
They were being redundant. They could have just said, "Durable assay" and left it at that.
The problem with your statement, "If your design is good, the components are flawless," is that design is an activity that defines both the problem and the solution. If your problem is ill stated or unexplored, your solution is equally ill stated and unexplored.
There are several analogies that apply to software: It is complex because it is self similar, so that the lowest level of design is about as complex as the highest levels of design, or it is complex because humans are not naturally gifted at translating between reality (the problem space) and language (the design space and the communication space).
Unless you are simultaneously the customer and the implementor, you will have to struggle to get the right problems first, then the right solutions, and then the right implementations from the right people.
What you want to convey, to the non software initiated, is why software is difficult, why it is complex, and why it is hard.
I would put it this way; software is really "soft", being only instructions a computer reads and interprets. A physical analogy is perhaps clay, something equally analogously soft, malleable, and easy to work with. Now imagine another physical analogy; take that clay, and then try to build a car out of it. A working car. Ignore the physical impossibilities, like combusion temperatures, but make the point that each component first has to be designed then baked, and that each component has to be integrated with each other component.
So that is what software is like. They may ask, "Why?", and here are a few reasons:
1) Software is easily copied, not easily designed. The hard part is making the first copy, as in the car example. Once you get one product finished, you can copy quite easily, but actually designing and building is not necessarily easy.
2) Software is REALLY malleable. You can continuously change the design as you are working, not unlike building an entire car out of soft clay.
3) Because software is so malleable, each time you discover a new problem you discover a new solution. In other words, the second car you make will be totally different than the first car because instead you will be going from a car to a boat or a train or a helicopter.
4) Also because software is malleable, every "customer" with different requirements brings in new design directions. Imagine if every person working on the car, viewing the car, and interacting the car wants a totally different car? You aren't designing one car, now, you are designing 17 or 18 cars; trucks, vans, compacts, sedans, and sports cars. Now take all these vehicles and merge them into a single multipurpose vehicle.
Assembling the computer is simple; slide in, screw in, lock in, snap in, done.
It's the remaining part that is hard:
1) Power up; diagnose any problems that prevent a full boot (bad RAM? bad motherboard? bad BIOS setting? bad HDD? bad ODD?)
2) Install the OS; diagnose any problems that prevent a full install (motherboard drivers? GPU drivers? drive controller drivers?)
3) Boot the OS; diagnose any problems that prevent a full boot (bad configuration? out of date drivers? bad component?)
4) Install additional drivers; diagnose any problems that occur because of the new drivers (bad GPU driver? bad audio driver?)
5) Patch the OS; diagnose any problems that occur because of patch incompatibilities (CD-RW doesn't like the new patch? network stops working after the patches?)
6) Install the applications; diagnose any problems that occur because the OS wasn't properly configured (networking not working? firewall not working? CD-RW not working? GPU drivers misoptimized? antivirus not working?)
The above is the hard part about putting together a computer. The easy part is physically assembling the computer.
The GameCube had a MGS title in the last couple years as well.
I wonder if that means a Metal Gear Solid title for the Wii?
What, like they did for Titanic? Oh, wait...
Or maybe how serious and thoughtful Harry Potter is?
Or perhaps you're thinking of Spider-Man? Mission Impossible? James Bond?
If they can get a half way passable script, director, and actor, and maintain the spirit of the series, I don't think we need it to be serious; it can have all the cheese and melodrama of James Bond and be quite a successful movie.
If you want plot and storyline, try some of Square's other offerings. Having less brand weight, Square will take corresponding more risks in terms of emotional development. For example, I was quite impressed with:
Threads of Fate
Xenogears
Chrono Trigger
Kingdom Hearts Series
What about Captain America as The Nomad and The Captain? He's currently signed up as the anti-registration faction leader, too.
I found the game a lot harder if the only thing I did was hit "X". As soon as I started using the square and especially the triangle buttons the game got a lot easier.
Of course Proud mode is a lot harder too.
Well then, that describes the problem succintly. Why shouldn't DVDs remain enclosed in CSS? Why shouldn't Microsoft keep SMB theirs? Why not keep .doc undocumented?
.doc or any of the CD encryption.
The problem is everywhere, and it seems rather unfair to single out Apple when they are not the most egregious examples of proprietary formats. DVDs rank higher, with their higher adoption rate. Of course on the flip side you can pay $15k to license CSS, but you can't license SMB or
Why shouldn't Apple keep control of their encryption scheme? It exists exactly so they can exert a little control on how the music is used. I'm not saying the intent is right, but insofar as the RIAA and the music licensors wanted it, it works.
To put it another way, Fairplay belongs to Apple, while the music you purchase belongs to you; the CD format belongs to Philips, while the music CD you purchase belongs to you.