Would you argue that a 192kbps joint stereo MP3 file is functionally equivalent to the original CD audio, but a 32kbps mono MP3 file is not? Where do we draw the line?
Yes, I would argue that, but it's impossible to draw a line since quality is so subjective.
Well, maybe not *impossible* if we stick to defining what isn't a functional equivalent and we don't mind a bit of compromise. I'd say that a musical recording encoded at 96 kbps CBR or lower (i.e. with no frame higher than 96 kbps) is too degraded to be considered equivalent. But that can still vary a lot based on the encoder, and what about WMA, AAC, Vorbis, or whatever format gets invented next?
If I were writing a law that made it legal to make only low quality copies--which I wouldn't, because I believe we all have the right to make and distribute high quality copies--I'd probably just write something about "an obvious and pervasive loss of fidelity" and hope common sense prevailed in the courtroom.
It's abusive even for copyright notices. If you buy a DVD, you have the right to watch the video thereon in any order you want; your DVD player shouldn't be telling you what to watch.
The only time when P-UOPs can really be used legitimately is when allowing the viewer to change course at a certain point would break the disc's navigation (by leaving registers in an inconsistent state, etc.). Even then, there are usually better ways to solve the problem.
Then the analogy works a little better. And, in fact, I bet you'd have an easier time claiming fair use when distributing a poor quality version of a song instead of a 128+ kbps version, since it would have less effect on the market for that song. (Not that you'd have much luck either way.)
So, all those previews, notices and warnings can be fast forwarded through but, yes are still incredibly annoying.
No, not all of them. A DVD author can disable your fast forward button for certain sections of video, just like he can disable your next/previous and menu buttons. That questionable part of the DVD spec is called "prohibited user operations".
If it is OK for Google to distribute [downsampled versions of original images], why is it illegal for a person to distribute downsampled versions of WAVe files (aka MP3s)?
They aren't analogous. An MP3 file is missing much of the information that's in the original uncompressed audio file, but it's still functionally equivalent to the original; you can listen to it, burn it to a CD, mix it with other songs, etc. and in nearly all cases the differences between the MP3 and the original will be imperceptible. The information that's missing is information that your brain can't detect anyway (if the bitrate is reasonable and your encoder does a good job).
A thumbnail image is also missing much of the information from the original, but it's not functionally equivalent. The information that's missing is information that matters. You can't see nearly as much detail in a 128x102 thumbnail as you can in the 1280x1024 original, which severely limits the usefulness of the thumbnail.
The left acts as if Bush invented wiretaps without judicial oversight, but it was done during the Clinton administration as well.
Mmm, not really. Clinton performed warrantless physical searches, which were legal under FISA at the time, before the law was changed in 1995. If you have evidence that the Clinton administration actually violated wiretapping laws, as the Bush administration seems to have done, a lot of people would like to see it.
As a technology trend, however, it is weird because technology tends to evolve by improvement. Lossy compression is a step backward from CD quality, no matter how small the perceived difference actually is.
Improvement doesn't have to mean better fidelity. For example, one might say JPEG is an improvement over lossless image formats like TIFF: even though a JPEG image might have some artifacts that aren't in the TIFF, the fact that it can be easily downloaded by even a modem user (while still looking good enough) is a huge benefit. JPEG makes it practical to send and receive photos in everyday life, just like MP3 makes it practical to transfer music.
In that sense, MP3 is a huge step forward. There wouldn't be a booming market for solid-state portable music players today if songs were still fifty megabytes apiece instead of five.
Well, how do you define information? I define it basically as a sequence of bytes. Anything you can burn onto a CD, send over the internet, or read over the phone is information (encoded as a pattern of ones and zeros or sound waves).
Software, obviously, is a sequence of bytes. If I have a program on my computer, and I want it to be on your computer too, I don't have to give you my hard drive - I can just *tell* you what the sequence of bytes is that makes up the program (whether by emailing you a zip file or by printing out a hex dump and reading it to you over the phone), and you can make your own copy and run it without interfering with my copy of the program. It's not really something you possess, it's something you know. That's information.
(I admit, I don't know what the HD situation is in Australia. But here in the US, it's almost difficult to buy a non-HD set anymore.)
That's what you might think from the advertisements, but if you go into any Best Buy or Circuit City, you'll find plenty of standard televisions. You'll know when you're looking at one, because the price tag will only have three digits before the decimal point.
Furthermore, even with physical goods, just because you make something and want to sell it doesn't give you the right to set whatever conditions you want. There are laws in place to protect consumers in other situations; there's no reason they couldn't be tweaked to protect consumers in this one too.
Do you have a vague concept of "is mine and i do whatever i want with it?"
Yes, I do. That's a concept that applies to things that can be owned - things that can only be in one place at a time. It doesn't apply to information.
Unfortunately, selling platforms is Apple's main activity, they do not sell hardware and/or software.
What is this "platform" you speak of? I know how you can sell hardware (a piece of equipment in a box with a price tag on it) and software (a CD in a box with a price tag on it, or a download link on a web site with a price tag next to it), but I've never seen a "platform" for sale.
Seems to me that a "platform" is just a euphemism for "a piece of hardware that we're unethically tying to a piece of software".
The Mac is a platform composed of Mac OS X and hardware tailored to make it run without glitches, this is what they offer, the fact you don't like it does not authorize you to use a component of their platforms with different hardware.
Hardware and software are two separate things, and nearly all hardware (including PCs) is capable of running software made by other companies (including Apple). The fact that Apple doesn't like it doesn't authorize them to burden consumers with this lock-in bullshit, and the fact that they call it a "platform" doesn't change the reality of what it really is: a piece of hardware and a piece of software tied together with a string of DRM trickery and anti-consumer legal threats.
If you are over 18, the US gov't is not granted the right to choose what you read or see except where the material in question is illegal for non-obscenity reasons, such as [...] stolen goods (copyright infringement)
I agree with the rest of your post, but I must point out Dowling v. United States (1985), in which the Supreme Court held that illegally copied materials are not stolen goods (because copyright infringement does not "easily equate" to theft).
You see, there was a guy whose job was to make videos: corporate training videos, chamber of commerce videos inviting companies to move to their city, and so on. Before he could start shooting, he had to submit a detailed budget to whoever was paying for the video, describing how much he would spend on actors, sets, lighting, travel, catering, and any other expenses.
But the people who had to approve his budget didn't feel like they were doing their jobs if they didn't make any cuts. Their job was to save money, and they wouldn't be saving money if they just accepted whatever proposal came across their desk, right?
So the guy who made videos would always include a line on the budget for a panoramic shot of the city skyline, corporate headquarters, or whatever, taken from a moving helicopter. The helicopter shot was very expensive... and totally unnecessary. He'd submit the budget, they'd get upset about the expensive helicopter shot, and he'd make a disappointed face and say, "Gee, I guess I could skip that, if it really means that much to you." They felt like they were doing a good job by cutting his budget, and he ended up getting everything he really wanted in the first place.
Ah. My mistake, then.. I never played much Goldeneye.
Either way, the innovation in Halo's controls is greatly overstated. Quake 3 Arena on PS2 had the same control scheme. More than anything, the popularity of Halo on consoles just proves that people can get used to any remotely usable control scheme with enough practice.
Basically, the innovation in Halo's controls was auto-aim. The game subtly nudges your crosshair toward enemies as you move it, compensating for the lack of precision that comes from using a gamepad.
The fallacy that you and many others are making here is that copyright infringement allows you to get something for free without taking it away from someone else. [...] Creating digital content involves a cost to the content creator. [...] they have some expectation of selling their content to recoup those costs.
Indeed, but there's no fallacy. The creator's costs are exactly the same no matter how many people download the song. As long as you're not getting my money--and you won't, if the price you're asking for your song is higher than I'm willing to pay--then you're not recouping your costs from me no matter what. It doesn't matter what I do after that; if I download the song without paying, your costs don't increase.
When you copy someone elses work, you are getting all the benefit of their costs with no cost to yourself.
Correct. Nothing wrong with that, though - I don't owe him anything.
If enough people copy his work without paying, he won't make a profit, or even recoup his costs.
Are you saying that's why copyright infringement is wrong?
Because you could say the same thing about reviewers. If a famous music critic writes a bad review of your album, and consequently no one buys it, you won't make a profit or even recover what you spent to record it. Does that mean the critic (or the people who took his advice) has stolen from you? Of course not. They didn't owe you a thing; the money they might have given you was never yours.
Further, stealing is not wrong just because I'm deprived of a physical object. It also deprives me of value. [...] Copyright infringement destroys the monetary value of the content being copied because it drives the monetary vale of the content to zero.
The monetary value of that content is zero. All the value in this scenario is provided up front by the creator: the act of producing an album in the first place is what's scarce and therefore valuable.
The creator has every right to charge for his services, and to refuse to record anything until someone has agreed to pay. But if, instead, he chooses to do the work up front for free with the unrealistic expectation that he'll be able to keep the content of his recordings out of the hands of anyone who hasn't paid, he's in for a disappointment.
The bottom line is that downloading content without paying for it functionally is identical to stealing it because the end result is the same. [] In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't.
You're ignoring the very reason why stealing is wrong: because the victim is deprived of the stolen item. If that weren't true, there'd be no reason to condemn stealing at all; there's nothing wrong with getting something for free as long as you aren't taking it away from someone else. And it isn't true of copyright infringement.
i submit that a physical object is not necessarily required for theft. if you're a gamer, does it incur your ire when someone steals from you in game?
Sure, but that's only because I've been deprived of something. If you scam me out of 1000 gold pieces, that's a thousand GP I can't spend on a new sword.
if you developed a neat idea and had it on your hard drive, would it bother you when someone copied it onto their USB drive, and distributed it or claimed it as their own?
If you claim that you came up with an idea when in fact I came up with it, that isn't theft, it's fraud. If you simply distribute it while giving me credit, that isn't theft either - it isn't really anything besides copyright infringement.
if it's worth downloading for you, either you want to just have it for the sake of having it, or you've got mild interest in seeing it. either way, there's some price point where you'd be willing to exchange something of value for it.
Yeah, but that isn't the price at which it's being offered. If a song is only worth $0.10 to me, but it's only being offered for $1.00, then the seller isn't getting my money no matter what. My only options are to listen to it without paying (win-lose), or not listen to it at all (lose-lose). Listening without paying doesn't harm anyone, so what's wrong with choosing the first option?
You're right, and I just addressed that in my other response - I believe MS is wrong to lock this otherwise-compatible software out of their "content platform". But if you'll recall, I was responding to a question about why PC games aren't playable on an Xbox and vice versa, and that has nothing to do with Microsoft's lockout.
Since microsoft owns the xbox, they determine what software can run on it, just like Apple can determine what music plays on the ipod. I see no inherent difference.
Well, now you're talking about something else. Microsoft didn't just decree that the Xbox couldn't run PS2 games - what's stopping PS2 games from running on an Xbox is mainly the fact that they're written for a completely different architecture.
However, there are features of the system that limit which games can be played based on corporate policies instead of technical issues: you can't just burn your homebrew game to a DVD-R and play it without getting Microsoft's signature. And frankly, I don't think we should stand for that either. I bought the processor, GPU, and all the rest of the hardware in that box, and I should be able to use them to run any software that's written for them.
Again there is no precedent for saying that one closed platform should be made to support another one, however arbitrary of a choice that may seem to you.
There is plenty of precedent for saying that a closed platform should be opened, though. I don't want to force Apple to support WMA, I only want to force them to stop meddling with other stores' attempts to sell iPod-compatible songs.
I'm sure Apple sees iPod + iTunes as a content platform, but I just don't think "content platforms" are the kinds of things we should put up with, as consumers (by buying in) or as a society (by voting for representatives and judges who are soft on anticompetitive behavior).
Like, why do the retailers have to protect the banks? Why do they have to ask for ID when you already presented a valid banking card to them? Is this system insecure? Yes, and that's why they ask for ID. WTF?
Also, why do retailers still ask for ID after that whole series of Visa Check Card commercials whose entire point was "you need to show ID when you write a check, but not when you use Visa"?
To a consumer. the ipod hardware will not play WMA files the same way that the xbox will not play playstation games.
Who said anything about playing WMA files? Other music stores (such as Real) are apparently happy to sell music in the AAC+FairPlay format... if Apple will let them. There are legitimate technical reasons why iPods don't play WMA, but no good reason why they can't play DRM'd AAC files sold by anyone but Apple.
Furthermore, whatever mistaken impressions consumers might have about the compatibility of different devices are beside the point. Just because a layman thinks it's unreasonable that his Beta VCR won't play VHS tapes, or his CD player won't play DVD-Audio discs, doesn't mean it really is. In this case, however, there really is no reason for Apple to block music from other stores (in the proper format) except to lock consumers into using Apple's music store.
I mean, the original xbox and a pc have more hardware similarities than an ipod and a nomad. Why are xbox games not playable on pc's, and vice versa?
Again, there are legitimate technical differences. Microsoft isn't going out of its way to block games that would otherwise work; the Xbox would need quite a bit of redesigning (and a copy of Windows) to run off-the-shelf PC games. Apple, on the other hand, is going out of its way to block music files that would otherwise play.
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Would you argue that a 192kbps joint stereo MP3 file is functionally equivalent to the original CD audio, but a 32kbps mono MP3 file is not? Where do we draw the line?
Yes, I would argue that, but it's impossible to draw a line since quality is so subjective.
Well, maybe not *impossible* if we stick to defining what isn't a functional equivalent and we don't mind a bit of compromise. I'd say that a musical recording encoded at 96 kbps CBR or lower (i.e. with no frame higher than 96 kbps) is too degraded to be considered equivalent. But that can still vary a lot based on the encoder, and what about WMA, AAC, Vorbis, or whatever format gets invented next?
If I were writing a law that made it legal to make only low quality copies--which I wouldn't, because I believe we all have the right to make and distribute high quality copies--I'd probably just write something about "an obvious and pervasive loss of fidelity" and hope common sense prevailed in the courtroom.
It's abusive even for copyright notices. If you buy a DVD, you have the right to watch the video thereon in any order you want; your DVD player shouldn't be telling you what to watch.
The only time when P-UOPs can really be used legitimately is when allowing the viewer to change course at a certain point would break the disc's navigation (by leaving registers in an inconsistent state, etc.). Even then, there are usually better ways to solve the problem.
Then the analogy works a little better. And, in fact, I bet you'd have an easier time claiming fair use when distributing a poor quality version of a song instead of a 128+ kbps version, since it would have less effect on the market for that song. (Not that you'd have much luck either way.)
So, all those previews, notices and warnings can be fast forwarded through but, yes are still incredibly annoying.
No, not all of them. A DVD author can disable your fast forward button for certain sections of video, just like he can disable your next/previous and menu buttons. That questionable part of the DVD spec is called "prohibited user operations".
If it is OK for Google to distribute [downsampled versions of original images], why is it illegal for a person to distribute downsampled versions of WAVe files (aka MP3s)?
They aren't analogous. An MP3 file is missing much of the information that's in the original uncompressed audio file, but it's still functionally equivalent to the original; you can listen to it, burn it to a CD, mix it with other songs, etc. and in nearly all cases the differences between the MP3 and the original will be imperceptible. The information that's missing is information that your brain can't detect anyway (if the bitrate is reasonable and your encoder does a good job).
A thumbnail image is also missing much of the information from the original, but it's not functionally equivalent. The information that's missing is information that matters. You can't see nearly as much detail in a 128x102 thumbnail as you can in the 1280x1024 original, which severely limits the usefulness of the thumbnail.
The left acts as if Bush invented wiretaps without judicial oversight, but it was done during the Clinton administration as well.
Mmm, not really. Clinton performed warrantless physical searches, which were legal under FISA at the time, before the law was changed in 1995. If you have evidence that the Clinton administration actually violated wiretapping laws, as the Bush administration seems to have done, a lot of people would like to see it.
As a technology trend, however, it is weird because technology tends to evolve by improvement. Lossy compression is a step backward from CD quality, no matter how small the perceived difference actually is.
Improvement doesn't have to mean better fidelity. For example, one might say JPEG is an improvement over lossless image formats like TIFF: even though a JPEG image might have some artifacts that aren't in the TIFF, the fact that it can be easily downloaded by even a modem user (while still looking good enough) is a huge benefit. JPEG makes it practical to send and receive photos in everyday life, just like MP3 makes it practical to transfer music.
In that sense, MP3 is a huge step forward. There wouldn't be a booming market for solid-state portable music players today if songs were still fifty megabytes apiece instead of five.
Well, how do you define information? I define it basically as a sequence of bytes. Anything you can burn onto a CD, send over the internet, or read over the phone is information (encoded as a pattern of ones and zeros or sound waves).
Software, obviously, is a sequence of bytes. If I have a program on my computer, and I want it to be on your computer too, I don't have to give you my hard drive - I can just *tell* you what the sequence of bytes is that makes up the program (whether by emailing you a zip file or by printing out a hex dump and reading it to you over the phone), and you can make your own copy and run it without interfering with my copy of the program. It's not really something you possess, it's something you know. That's information.
That one has no DVI or HDMI connections. No wonder it's so cheap.
If it's a sequence of bytes, it's information.
(I admit, I don't know what the HD situation is in Australia. But here in the US, it's almost difficult to buy a non-HD set anymore.)
That's what you might think from the advertisements, but if you go into any Best Buy or Circuit City, you'll find plenty of standard televisions. You'll know when you're looking at one, because the price tag will only have three digits before the decimal point.
Furthermore, even with physical goods, just because you make something and want to sell it doesn't give you the right to set whatever conditions you want. There are laws in place to protect consumers in other situations; there's no reason they couldn't be tweaked to protect consumers in this one too.
Do you have a vague concept of "is mine and i do whatever i want with it?"
Yes, I do. That's a concept that applies to things that can be owned - things that can only be in one place at a time. It doesn't apply to information.
Unfortunately, selling platforms is Apple's main activity, they do not sell hardware and/or software.
What is this "platform" you speak of? I know how you can sell hardware (a piece of equipment in a box with a price tag on it) and software (a CD in a box with a price tag on it, or a download link on a web site with a price tag next to it), but I've never seen a "platform" for sale.
Seems to me that a "platform" is just a euphemism for "a piece of hardware that we're unethically tying to a piece of software".
The Mac is a platform composed of Mac OS X and hardware tailored to make it run without glitches, this is what they offer, the fact you don't like it does not authorize you to use a component of their platforms with different hardware.
Hardware and software are two separate things, and nearly all hardware (including PCs) is capable of running software made by other companies (including Apple). The fact that Apple doesn't like it doesn't authorize them to burden consumers with this lock-in bullshit, and the fact that they call it a "platform" doesn't change the reality of what it really is: a piece of hardware and a piece of software tied together with a string of DRM trickery and anti-consumer legal threats.
If you are over 18, the US gov't is not granted the right to choose what you read or see except where the material in question is illegal for non-obscenity reasons, such as [...] stolen goods (copyright infringement)
I agree with the rest of your post, but I must point out Dowling v. United States (1985), in which the Supreme Court held that illegally copied materials are not stolen goods (because copyright infringement does not "easily equate" to theft).
In some circles, this is known as a "helicopter".
You see, there was a guy whose job was to make videos: corporate training videos, chamber of commerce videos inviting companies to move to their city, and so on. Before he could start shooting, he had to submit a detailed budget to whoever was paying for the video, describing how much he would spend on actors, sets, lighting, travel, catering, and any other expenses.
But the people who had to approve his budget didn't feel like they were doing their jobs if they didn't make any cuts. Their job was to save money, and they wouldn't be saving money if they just accepted whatever proposal came across their desk, right?
So the guy who made videos would always include a line on the budget for a panoramic shot of the city skyline, corporate headquarters, or whatever, taken from a moving helicopter. The helicopter shot was very expensive... and totally unnecessary. He'd submit the budget, they'd get upset about the expensive helicopter shot, and he'd make a disappointed face and say, "Gee, I guess I could skip that, if it really means that much to you." They felt like they were doing a good job by cutting his budget, and he ended up getting everything he really wanted in the first place.
Ah. My mistake, then.. I never played much Goldeneye.
Either way, the innovation in Halo's controls is greatly overstated. Quake 3 Arena on PS2 had the same control scheme. More than anything, the popularity of Halo on consoles just proves that people can get used to any remotely usable control scheme with enough practice.
Basically, the innovation in Halo's controls was auto-aim. The game subtly nudges your crosshair toward enemies as you move it, compensating for the lack of precision that comes from using a gamepad.
The fallacy that you and many others are making here is that copyright infringement allows you to get something for free without taking it away from someone else. [...] Creating digital content involves a cost to the content creator. [...] they have some expectation of selling their content to recoup those costs.
Indeed, but there's no fallacy. The creator's costs are exactly the same no matter how many people download the song. As long as you're not getting my money--and you won't, if the price you're asking for your song is higher than I'm willing to pay--then you're not recouping your costs from me no matter what. It doesn't matter what I do after that; if I download the song without paying, your costs don't increase.
When you copy someone elses work, you are getting all the benefit of their costs with no cost to yourself.
Correct. Nothing wrong with that, though - I don't owe him anything.
If enough people copy his work without paying, he won't make a profit, or even recoup his costs.
Are you saying that's why copyright infringement is wrong?
Because you could say the same thing about reviewers. If a famous music critic writes a bad review of your album, and consequently no one buys it, you won't make a profit or even recover what you spent to record it. Does that mean the critic (or the people who took his advice) has stolen from you? Of course not. They didn't owe you a thing; the money they might have given you was never yours.
Further, stealing is not wrong just because I'm deprived of a physical object. It also deprives me of value. [...] Copyright infringement destroys the monetary value of the content being copied because it drives the monetary vale of the content to zero.
The monetary value of that content is zero. All the value in this scenario is provided up front by the creator: the act of producing an album in the first place is what's scarce and therefore valuable.
The creator has every right to charge for his services, and to refuse to record anything until someone has agreed to pay. But if, instead, he chooses to do the work up front for free with the unrealistic expectation that he'll be able to keep the content of his recordings out of the hands of anyone who hasn't paid, he's in for a disappointment.
The bottom line is that downloading content without paying for it functionally is identical to stealing it because the end result is the same. [] In both cases you are in possesion of something that you should have paid for to obtain, but you didn't.
You're ignoring the very reason why stealing is wrong: because the victim is deprived of the stolen item. If that weren't true, there'd be no reason to condemn stealing at all; there's nothing wrong with getting something for free as long as you aren't taking it away from someone else. And it isn't true of copyright infringement.
i submit that a physical object is not necessarily required for theft. if you're a gamer, does it incur your ire when someone steals from you in game?
Sure, but that's only because I've been deprived of something. If you scam me out of 1000 gold pieces, that's a thousand GP I can't spend on a new sword.
if you developed a neat idea and had it on your hard drive, would it bother you when someone copied it onto their USB drive, and distributed it or claimed it as their own?
If you claim that you came up with an idea when in fact I came up with it, that isn't theft, it's fraud. If you simply distribute it while giving me credit, that isn't theft either - it isn't really anything besides copyright infringement.
if it's worth downloading for you, either you want to just have it for the sake of having it, or you've got mild interest in seeing it. either way, there's some price point where you'd be willing to exchange something of value for it.
Yeah, but that isn't the price at which it's being offered. If a song is only worth $0.10 to me, but it's only being offered for $1.00, then the seller isn't getting my money no matter what. My only options are to listen to it without paying (win-lose), or not listen to it at all (lose-lose). Listening without paying doesn't harm anyone, so what's wrong with choosing the first option?
You're right, and I just addressed that in my other response - I believe MS is wrong to lock this otherwise-compatible software out of their "content platform". But if you'll recall, I was responding to a question about why PC games aren't playable on an Xbox and vice versa, and that has nothing to do with Microsoft's lockout.
Since microsoft owns the xbox, they determine what software can run on it, just like Apple can determine what music plays on the ipod. I see no inherent difference.
Well, now you're talking about something else. Microsoft didn't just decree that the Xbox couldn't run PS2 games - what's stopping PS2 games from running on an Xbox is mainly the fact that they're written for a completely different architecture.
However, there are features of the system that limit which games can be played based on corporate policies instead of technical issues: you can't just burn your homebrew game to a DVD-R and play it without getting Microsoft's signature. And frankly, I don't think we should stand for that either. I bought the processor, GPU, and all the rest of the hardware in that box, and I should be able to use them to run any software that's written for them.
Again there is no precedent for saying that one closed platform should be made to support another one, however arbitrary of a choice that may seem to you.
There is plenty of precedent for saying that a closed platform should be opened, though. I don't want to force Apple to support WMA, I only want to force them to stop meddling with other stores' attempts to sell iPod-compatible songs.
I'm sure Apple sees iPod + iTunes as a content platform, but I just don't think "content platforms" are the kinds of things we should put up with, as consumers (by buying in) or as a society (by voting for representatives and judges who are soft on anticompetitive behavior).
Like, why do the retailers have to protect the banks? Why do they have to ask for ID when you already presented a valid banking card to them? Is this system insecure? Yes, and that's why they ask for ID. WTF?
Also, why do retailers still ask for ID after that whole series of Visa Check Card commercials whose entire point was "you need to show ID when you write a check, but not when you use Visa"?
To a consumer. the ipod hardware will not play WMA files the same way that the xbox will not play playstation games.
Who said anything about playing WMA files? Other music stores (such as Real) are apparently happy to sell music in the AAC+FairPlay format... if Apple will let them. There are legitimate technical reasons why iPods don't play WMA, but no good reason why they can't play DRM'd AAC files sold by anyone but Apple.
Furthermore, whatever mistaken impressions consumers might have about the compatibility of different devices are beside the point. Just because a layman thinks it's unreasonable that his Beta VCR won't play VHS tapes, or his CD player won't play DVD-Audio discs, doesn't mean it really is. In this case, however, there really is no reason for Apple to block music from other stores (in the proper format) except to lock consumers into using Apple's music store.
I mean, the original xbox and a pc have more hardware similarities than an ipod and a nomad. Why are xbox games not playable on pc's, and vice versa?
Again, there are legitimate technical differences. Microsoft isn't going out of its way to block games that would otherwise work; the Xbox would need quite a bit of redesigning (and a copy of Windows) to run off-the-shelf PC games. Apple, on the other hand, is going out of its way to block music files that would otherwise play.