Crummy NY Times Article Conflates iTunes With FairPlay-Protected Media Files

Randall Stross, in the second-most-emailed article published in the Sunday New York Times:

Even if you are ready to pledge a lifetime commitment to the iPod as your only brand of portable music player or to the iPhone as your only cellphone once it is released, you may find that FairPlay copy protection will, sooner or later, cause you grief. You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever. Because your iTunes will not play on anyone else’s hardware.

No. You can “pledge a lifetime commitment to the iPod” and never once come into contact with a FairPlay-protected song or video. If you don’t like FairPlay’s restrictions — and there are plenty of good reasons not to — then don’t buy any, and rip your music from regular CDs.

iTunes Store music and video locks you in. iPods and iPhones do not.

★ Monday, 15 January 2007