Re:They've got it all wrong... (Score 1)

Furthermore, music purchased from the iTunes store does not require an iPod - it only requires iTunes which is available for free on both Macs and Windows machines. iTunes allows you to burn your purchased music to a CD so you can listen on myriad other devices. The only thing it limits is the portable devices you can play the purchased music on in its native format.

He's right. If you do buy a song on iTMS, you do have a choice to either play it on your PC/Mac, burn it to a CD (audio only)... or use the iPod. It's your choice.

And you can play regular ol' MP3's on the iPod, and the Windows version of iTunes can convert unprotected WMA files to M4A files, just tell iTunes where they're located, and then iTunes will convert them to the native iTunes/iPod format. (Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to the Mac OS X version.)

Even if Apple had a case against the Norwegian government, I have been reading in a lot of places (WWW and in print) that the EU is outlawing software patents, and protection of any medium in any way. Just ask the Electronic Frontier Foundation, http://www.eff.org/, they're trying to crack down on Hollywood from restricting people's Fair Use rights, because I have been seeing on that site about how H'Wood is wanting to "police piracy" when some people want to rip their CD's or their DVD's for their iPods or their PSP's, not go and share them online. (Remember the "anti-piracy" rootkit that Sony Music installed on a bunch of Windows PC's about this time last year on a few of their CD's?)

Apple does have the right to sell you music. You also have the right to buy it or not. There is ALWAYS the "Cancel" button in each EULA. If you don't like the terms lined out for you, then don't accept the agreement. Plain and simple.