Apple Smacks Down iCommune 567
flipsidejones writes "Looks like Apple has killed iCommune. iCommune, as mentioned previously, allows users to share music libraries across a network from within iTunes. It seems the license for the iTunes plugin API does not allow for software-based plugins (only hardware: MP3 players, etc). Apple issued a 'Notice of Breach and Termination of License' to iCommune, who have since pulled the download. Something tells me that they won't be putting it back up anytime soon. Every time I forget about Mac OS X being proprietary, Apple does something to remind me." Well, in fairness, this could happen even if Mac OS X itself weren't proprietary, as iTunes still could be. For that matter, iCommune still is, too. Hm, none of that makes me feel any better ...
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see this type of editorial byline in the next Borg article, please.
I'm constantly amazed at how Apple is really not considered evil because they happen to sell an OS based on Unix. Duh. They're a company that sells stuff and makes money just like any other.
Future Apple product? (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually thought they'd go after iCommune for trademark dilution...
Re:The Problems of the Apple License (Score:4, Insightful)
You may not like the APSL for political reasons, but it's got nothing to do with this.
iCommune as a possible competitor? (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a reason they did that... (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I hate to see projects killed, in this case, its not necessarily a Bad Thing(tm). In windows-land, I've got a plethora of networks to hound for one file, depending on who has it. With my mac, I'll only have one, and if the file is out there, it's on that network.
Like I said killed OSS projects are bad, mmmkay? But, a single, united, SUPPORTED p2p network is (maybe) worth it.
It's the license (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There was a reason they did that... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Get it posted on KaZaA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
- vendor intimidation
- semi-legal, prohibitive licensing practices
- price gouging
- market control
- FUD
- product tying
- hiding software features
and
- employee abuse
that our friends in Redmond are famous for. The only difference is that Apple tried to cater to a niche market while Microsoft decided to go for the lowest common denominator and won. The only reason Apple is seen as good is because they are not Microsoft.
Restricting uses (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:quit bitching (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, I don't think the poster was saying anything about prices, but rather the ability to extend the funcionality of a product.
Re:The Problems of the Apple License: Try Reading (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:iCommune as a possible competitor? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, I think the main reason they did this was to prop up their "Don't steal music" line. I'm not totally familiar with iCommune, but it sounds like a great lead-in for a Napster wanna-be. If Apple didn't act, they'd wreck any hope of having a relationship with the music and movie industries (the former hurting already due to accusations), and they may need this if their current hardware/software efforts tank. All IMHO of course.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
before we all go overboard with ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It occurs to me that Apple may have less-than-evil reasons for terminating the contract, not the least of which is to retain their credibility by not becoming associated with some half-assed Napster clone.
Or, they could just be evil. I guess.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure they are a corporation and they have the same intentions of profit like every other corporation, but their path to it, while not always favorable, has always been legal. They follow the same rules everyone else does. Thats why I think people will still try to defend Apple.
Re:iCommune as a possible competitor? (Score:5, Insightful)
--Mike
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
When I first read that, I agreed, but when I actually tried the thought on for size I found it didn't fit.
If Microsoft was the "wanna-be" there's no way I'd be championing them. Most people who "prefer Microsoft" seem to do so for reasons other than "quality of product" or "innovation" or "great cool factor."
If Microsoft was the underdog I don't think there would be all that many people rooting for them.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, in comparison to M$, they've remained relatively benign and tend to produce products of a higher quality. Microsoft has a long history of using underhanded business tactics (e.g. punative lawsuits, abuse of monopoly power) to pursue their ends, while Apple has maintained its edge primarily through innovation.
In reality, this is a move made by Apple to protect itself from exposure to legal liability. It has more to do with the litigious nature of the US business environment than any desire by Apple to "smack down" anything.
Re:quit bitching (no) (Score:1, Insightful)
You can buy a cassette
Now, if you make a copy of a CD and put it on another CD, can you LEGALLY give it to your friend?
Now if you make a copy of that CD and put it on your computer and make it available to other people, can you LEGALLY give it to them? No.
There's the line
mod_rendezvous and apache; it is all in the config (Score:5, Insightful)
Alias
Al.ow from all
Along with a small perl/python script which took your playlist and turned it into a
That is all. Any one who can handle vi can do it manually.
However, combine this with Eric his mod_rendevous and then it gets interesting... http://homepage.mac.com/macdomeeu/dev/current/mod
As that will dynamically announce your web server to the local network.
In Safari; just go to bookmarks, rendezvous - and here we go. Sharing as it should be.
Dw.
Re:Future Apple product? (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple not considered evil (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, they know how to make something geeks love, and that's why a healthy percentage of geeks are moving to Apple despite the well known proprietary disadvantages and CPU speed shortfall.
I don't think most of us truly consider Microsoft evil because of their monopoly. I think it can all be traced to bad products like Windows 3.1, Windows95, etc. The fact that they rapidly obliverated the competition, thus all but forcing people to use their products made them even more vile, but their original sin was bad products.
If monopoly was truly evil, Adobe would be one of the most evil companies in the world, with Photoshop having a massive, massive market share. Photoshop users love the company, and this is because Photoshop, while a near-monopoly, is also a great product genuinely beloved by its users(*).
Monopoly is only truly evil when the monopoly products themselves are evil. But when that is so, monopoly makes the evil even worse, since it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore evil products.
If you think Apple IS an evil company, well, it's trivial to ignore them. And that's the difference.
Hope this helps.
D
(*) Some people would say Adobe was evil due to its recent misuse of the DMCA. But that's not because Adobe is a monopoly, so it's not germane to this discussion.
This messsage was posted from my PowerBook G4/1ghz SuperDrive running MacOS X 10.2.3.
Re:Next iTunes Version (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:quit bitching (Score:5, Insightful)
Not your product, dude. Apple didn't create iTunes so people could illegally (right or wrong, it is definitely still illegal) exchange music files. And because Apple created it, they have the right to tell you not to do that with it. If you don't like it-- and obviously some people don't-- then you should write your own MP3 library manager.
It bothers me that people-- not you, but others-- actually use the word "free" in this context. Are you free to do whatever you want with other people's stuff? Um... no. That's the beginning and the end of the discussion, guys.
Not About P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
iCommune does not serve MP3s, Apache does. iCommune does not copy MP3s, only an external web client could. This isn't about stopping P2P. It is about Apple using its license to prevent someone from doing something they don't like, probably because, as only a few people mentioned, Apple is going to enable Rendezvous sharing in iTunes (in theory, someday).
They violated the license. Period. (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, it's not about Mac OS X being proprietary. It's not about the DMCA. It's not about the RIAA. It's not about Big Corporations squashing innovation. It's about the iCommune folks agreeing to a license when they used the API, and violating the terms of that license, and Apple revoking it. Apple is fully within their rights to do this, and I have no sympathy for iCommune at all. They agreed to the license, and they broke the rules. That's just too damn bad.
And it's not like Apple used the DMCA or something to do this. ALl they did was send a letter saying "Hey, you agreed to this license, and now you violated it. Please stop."
Come on people, it's a LICENSE. Just because you don't like the terms of it doesn't mean it's not real. You know that if someone violated the terms of the GPL and got in trouble for it, we'd all be celebrating. When you support the enforcement of one LICENSE and cry foul when another is enforced, you lose a lot of credibility.
Now, if the license was ambiguous, and what icommune did wasn't specifically prohibited, and then Apple tried to claim it was, then I'd be upset. But this is open and shut.
Frankly, I'm getting a little upset about seeing all these stories on /. designed to trick you into thinking someone is stomping on your rights. Like the one about the student who STOLE documents from a law firm. And this one about a LICENSE VIOLATION. What's next? "Man Arrested for Possession of Linux: Police arrest man for breaking into BestBuy and stealing copies of RedHat Linux"
Re:Apple is stealing from open source community! (Score:5, Insightful)
--They gave their changes to GCC back to the community
--They gave us Rendevous
--They are giving their changes to KHTML back to the KDE community
--They gave us Darwin to play with
--And quite possibly many many more that I don't know.
I'm feeding the troll, yes i know. But it's got to stop. Moderators, mod him down.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't.
Slashdot Editors should be using their privileges for editing, not editorializing.
The only situation in which they should append anything to a submitter's own copy is when a correction or a clarification is required.
If an editor has an opinion to share, or a comment in response to the submitter, they can damn well post a comment like the rest of us do.
Apple, like Microsoft, Remains a Would-be Master (Score:5, Insightful)
You have just expressed a wry gladness that the project was killed, so that your convinience may be better served by having to look in only one place to find a file you are looking for, and with the next breath essentially said "I feel your pain" when you've made it rather clear you do not.
Not only that, but your grand One P2P to Rule Them All and Bind Them will be a propriatary, commercial venture, subject to all the long term instability that implies, such as cut budgests, etc.), inaccessibility (no guarantee it will be compatible with anyone else, limiting your trading to just other mac players, a very small percentage of online file sharers), licensing restrictions (which may or may not be draconian, but either way, where's your choice gone?), possible monitoring capabilities (it is one network, after all, with likely only one approved client), and (seemingly remote at this time, but that will change on a dime if political or economic pressures come to bear) possibly DRM technology built in.
Not to mention it will be a single point of failure. One good lawsuit from the media cartels, a single injunction, and you are out of business with no alternatives to turn to, and your own vendor prohibiting anyone else from offering you one.
Welcome to the world of proprietary software. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Apple is a much nicer Master than Microsoft, and both their equipment and software are superior in every way, but they remain a master, and you a serf subject to their corporate whims. Furthermore, as occasional actions like this have demonstrated time and time again historically, there is absolutely no guarantee that Apple will remain the kinder Master in the future. At some point, these sorts of restrictions make it clear even to the most subserviant that no amount of convinience is worth this kind of tradeoff, and that freedom actually is something worth a modicum of effort to achieve, maintain, and insure.
And when did making money become evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
So they're evil because they're a company that sells stuff?
<rant>
Exactly. You know I'm really getting tired of slashdot articles _and_ comments which suggest that such and such a company or organization is evil or good. Whether it's Apple or Microsoft or even the RIAA, things are not as black and white as most
Since when did the FSF become the bastion of all that is good and pure? Since when did making money become a crime? I don't think I want to label any company as purely good or evil, and particularly not any action so general as making money! Too many of us here are simply zealots, blindly spewing doctrine based on some twisted free-software/open-source/unix-rules/fsck-the-gov
Don't get me wrong, I love open source. I agree with many of these principles. Heck, I contribute to couple projects and release open source code myself! But I hope I'm pragmatic enough not to simply buy the standard dogma that makes comments like "M$ sucks" or "making money is evil" rated "Insightful". Okay, <rant> off.
Re:Apple is stealing from open source community! (Score:3, Insightful)
Some examples to show that Apple isn't "stealing from the OSS community . . ."
- Darwin [apple.com]
- OpenDarwin.org [opendarwin.org] - "OpenDarwin.org, jointly founded in April 2002 by Internet Software Consortium, Inc. (ISC) and Apple, is an attempt to take cooperative Darwin development to the next level. Membership in the OpenDarwin project and access to its works are open to everyone. The project is also fully independent, with control over its own web site, project news, bug tracking information and CVS repository, as well as any other services that the community owners may wish to provide. Neither Apple nor ISC take any responsibility for, or exercise any editorial control over, the OpenDarwin project."
- Rendezvous [apple.com] - see also http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/02/08/29/2310214.
s html?tid=107
Apple's tactics regarding 3rd party developers, its choice of licences, etc. are open to debate. However, I don't think it's correct to say that all Apple is doing is "stealing". And besides, Open Source software is meant to be copied, looked at, modified, redistributed. (I'll save the discussion about "if you want people to abide by GNU, you have to be willing to abide by other licences" for someone else). Apple is doing just this, and as far as I can tell creating good products. If you don't like them, or their busincess practices, or their licences, cool, get something else. Vive la difference, non?Re:quit bitching (Score:3, Insightful)
Then don't use software that comes with license agreements. Seems like a simple solution to me.
The same goes for hardware.
Then, once again, don't use hardware that comes with license agreements.
Of course, if you want to get your hands on good software, or good hardware, then I suppose you're going to have to accept the terms under which the vendors want to sell it. They created it, after all, so they get to decide how, or even if, they want to distribute it.
Re:They violated the license. Period. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not quite. Certainly, MS licenses are restrictive. Licenses in general are. If they weren't restrictive, there'd be no need for them. Are MS licenses too restrictive? Probably. Does this mean they can be violated? No. If there was an article about Corporation X, which made 500 copies of a Windows 2000 CD, and installed it on all of their computers, and got busted by the BSA or MSFT, I'd be on the side of MS, as much as I'd hate it. Apple licenses do tend to be less restrictive than MS licenses, especially the APSL, which, by nature, is less restrictive.
As for the Xbox mod chip stuff, that's totally different. There was no license involved. That was the DMCA (unless I'm mistaken). That's a whole different issue. If Apple had tried to use the DMCA against iCommune, you're damn right I'd be upset, because the DMCA has no place here. But they didn't. You're comparing Apples and Oranges. (no pun intended)
(Don't bother linking to the articles in which Apple has used the DMCA against people. I don't care. I'm only pointing out they didn't use the DMCA in THIS CASE.)
Why is stealing MP3's "OK"? (Score:2, Insightful)
However, while stealing^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h swapping songs may be seen as some sort of protest against their injustices, it is still stealing. So if some entity is in some way facilitating stealing, they have every right to shut it down. "Proprietary" seems to have little to do with it. I think the notion of "free" software is hurt tremendously if it tries to align itself with stealing. There are so many other positive virtues about free software that pitting it as a "robin hood" for people that really only care about getting free music does it a disservice.
I just get so tired of this viewpoint; it saddens me to think that all people really care about is free beer, not free speech. I certainly appreciate all of the great software I have been able to receive at no cost (although I contribute here and there both in $$$ and bug reports when I can), but the notion of being part of a community is much more valuable to me. That is why I don't want this community to become, or at least to be seen as, a bunch of whining freeloaders.
Re:Ahh... well. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that's true, but I remain to be convinced that if it were Apple with 95% market share they'd be any less evil than Microsoft is. If anything, they'd probably be more evil - MS pulls more than its fair share of dirty tricks but they rarely resort to using the law as their weapon as Apple do all too frequently.
At the end of the day, Apple have the same business models and methods that Microsoft do. Look at MacOS and Windows and tell me what's really different underneath. I'm not talking about technical details or "experience", I'm talking about business models. They both charge money for the OS and give away some free stuff with it. They both use it to try and reinforce their other products.
So sure, in the real world it wasn't Apple, but it could have been if Jobs had actually followed the advice Gates gave him when he asked for it and licensed clones. Whether Apple would have tried to destroy Netscape is debatable, but they seem happy to clamp down on people when they make competing products to themselves, or even products that alter their own in some trivial way. It's a moot point, but interesting speculation.
Re:The Letter (Score:1, Insightful)
Since when is a network interface not a hardware device?
Apple Had To Do This... (Score:3, Insightful)
Basic survival intincts. Blame RIAA, not Apple.
Re:I may be missing the point but... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but it comes bundled for 'free' with every Mac. I think most of us would agree that Mozilla is a better browser than IE, it has tabs, popup blocking, it's more secure, it's more standards compliant, it can look boring if you want but it can also look cool and so on. The latest builds are even comparable to IE6 in speed. Internet Explorer itself has hardly moved on in the last few years, Gates has his eye on other balls.
Nonetheless, it's practically impossible to convince a lot of people to use it. Mozillas market share remains at rock bottom. I've tried to convince friends to try it and they point blank refuse, "IE is fine for me, why would I need Mozilla?".
And you know what? I think they might be onto something. Trying to convince somebody to change their web browser, or media player, or zip extractor is like trying to convince people to buy a different brand of oil for their car.
I mean, to most people, things like that are part of the furniture, it works, they don't think about it. The effort required to try something else, when what you have works, is simply too great. We can't be discerning buyers in everything we do (part of the reason classical economics fails) and so the idea that somehow a company could displace iTunes by making a better media player is probably wrong.
The only way that'd be possible is if it was SO much better than iTunes, and iTunes was SO bad that people were willing to find out about the competition and download them and try them out etc, ie not going to happen anytime soon.
So really this company is sort of screwed. I don't agree with the "well it was in the plugin license agreement so they are the criminals here" line either - arbitrary restrictions on plugin APIs that serve seemingly no purpose just reeks of control freakery and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if that was a planned feature for iTunes.
Using license agreements to arbitrarily restrict competition like this is a classic Microsoft tactic, it's sad to see Apple do the same, but not entirely surprising.
apples and, well, oranges (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want "nice", use open source. While companies have profit motives that get in the way of quality and features, the interests of most open source developers are aligned with those of users because they are users.
Re:Next iTunes Version (Score:1, Insightful)
No. The next version of iTunes will let you stream music over Rendezvous. not pirate music over Rendezvous. There's a difference.
Re:There was a reason they did that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is fighting the RIAA/MPAA by democratizing the tools of music and movie production. This makes music and movie production outside the RIAA/MPAA possible for small indies, individual musicians, and small business studios.
The big five labels especially form a sort of cartel that has been ripping off artists and customers alike, and fixing prices. By giving that cartel competition from many small sources, Apple is weakening that cartel, draining its power. Given enough time, the cartel will collapse, and a new, better, music industry will rise in its place, with an abundance of good music, good prices, and rights for the artists.
P2P will never defeat the media sharks by itself, though it will provide promotion to indie artists. Apple is taking the high road, and solving the real problem: the RIAA/MPAA and the monopoly power their members hold over their industries.
"Mothra Leo, the fluttering of your wings is life!
Between the sky and the water,
You wake up.
A flock of moths turns him to stone.
Sleep defeats him."
Japanese language "Mothra Leo", "Rebirth of Mothra"
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I don't even think their market positions would have to be reversed for this to happen, just closer to parity (and preferably with other competitors, e.g. Linux, at about the same level.) An example of this is IBM. Big Blue actually makes some pretty good products these days -- once they lost their absolute market dominance, they figured out how to do actual engineering again.
If Windows were head and shoulders above the competition the way, say, Photoshop is, no one would hate Microsoft that much. It's the combination of power and crappy products that makes them uniquely hated, especially when there are better products with much lower market share (OS X, Linux, et bloody cetera.)
Apple vs. MS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Its an API. What does one use an API for? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care for Microsoft or Bill Gates' managerial style (let others come up with something and scream at them for getting details wrong) but I don't see them in dark robes sacrificing young employees to the God of Pain.
Unix and others (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Unix is actually a big deal.
2) One of the key principles of the FSF is that IP creates an artifical economy. That is why should things which are expensive to produce the first copy of and virtually free to produce additional copies of be sold on a fixed cost per copy basis? That is why shouldn't an alternate means of financing software be found which brings its pricing structure in line with the cost of manufacture?
The same artifical economy does not apply to hardware. Apple being primarily a hardware vendor gets treated more like: NEC, Intel, Dell or Seagate rather than like Microsoft which is the number 1 proponent of the artifical economy.
3) Apple publically supports BSD, GPL and is moving towards releasing a great deal of software into the public domain. Microsoft publically attacks GPL and succesfully lobbied the government not to provide any support for GPL products. Further they've included anti GPL clauses in their license agreement.
4) Apple has worked hard to improve software which effects
5) Microsoft Palladium is a move away from file permission systems back to the capability systems of the 1970s. The capability philosophy has been an enemy of Unix for 30 years. And it has been an enenemy primarily because it shifts political power within corporations away from the IS/IT staff and towards security management. Obviously that's not going to be popular with
I could go on and on but those are 5 good reasons.
Rendezvous sharing without iTunes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple vs. MS vs. GNU vs. whatever (Score:3, Insightful)
If they were as powerful as MS is, I just can't imagine what hell we'd be in...
"Same rules"? I don't think so... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem in this case, is that the rules are not the same for Microsoft, because of their unique market position (a monopoly on desktop OSes).
Had Apple held such a monopoly, many of its practices would cause just as much, if not more, of an uporar as the ones MS got in trouble for. Think about it: they bundle all sorts of software "as part of the OS", and they have repeatedly cracked down hard on clone and part makers trying to enter their niche market.
So, I say the actions of MS and Apple are pretty much the same. Only in the case of MS, these actions get defined as illegal, while for Apple they are merely low, dirty and unethical. But don't you think that sort of hair splitting should be left up to the lawyers?
Re:quit bitching (Score:3, Insightful)
Blah blah, philosophy, blah blah. It's really very simple, dude. If you say to me, "I want a copy of your whozit," and I say to you, "Okay, but I'll only give you one if you pay me ten shekels and promise never, ever to use it on a Tuesday," and then you say "Okay" and you give me the ten shekels and make the promise, you're obligated. You've entered into a contract. And if you then decide to be a jerk and break the terms of the contract-- using the whozit on a Tuesday, like I asked you not to-- then I have every right to do whatever stuff we agreed I could do when we made the original contract. Including, but not limited to, retracting your permission to use the whozit.
This is true because you agreed to it. It's not necessary to fall back on talk of "natural rights" and "fascism." It's a simple deal, no more complex than the deals that people have been making between each other since the dawn of civilization.
What I want to know is this: what makes you think you have the right to bust a deal?
Org explain (Score:1, Insightful)
Apple say "Here, we wrote most of the code already. We share it with you, to make your mp3 player work with our cool mp3 program." This code called an API. Apple put it on website.
Coder goes to Apple web site. Sees the code. Downloads it. Get message which says bunch of stuff, including "We are only sharing this code to make mp3 players work with Mac. Not for other stuff. You agree to only use it only to make mp3 player work with mac?" Coder clicks agree. Coder uses code to make program that is not to make mp3 player work with mac. Apple says "Hey, that not to make mp3 player work with Mac. Stop it. Keep promise you made when you got our code."
Re:Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
Before anyone yells fire in the crowded theater (Score:3, Insightful)
So cut them a break and let's not all trample each other in the mad rush to scream Big Brother at them. Sometimes big companies have agreements and connections that force them into this kind of behavior from time to time.
I don't like seeing it happen either, but there is no cause for calling them "evil" like I've seen here. That's overreaction and says more about the person saying it than it says about Apple.
Re:by that logic (Score:4, Insightful)
Feel a Mac's keyboard. Again, no cheap plastic parts. They're built to last. Take a look at an Apple-branded monitor. There is no brighter, sharper, more color-accurate LCD anywhere. Hell, even the mouse is an amazing work of engineering.
Here's just one example. Let me tell you how my Power Mac G4 is hooked up. The mouse is plugged into the keyboard (USB). The keyboard is plugged into the monitor (also USB). The monitor is plugged into the computer (ADC). The computer is plugged into the wall (power). That's it. There are no more cables. The monitor draws power from the computer over the ADC cable, so there's no need for a separate power plug. ADC also carries USB, so there's no need to run a long USB cable down to the floor for the keyboard and/or mouse. And both the monitor and the keyboard have two USB ports on them each, so when the need arises I can plug my digital camera or whatever directly into my keyboard, no muss or fuss.
This is some extremely well-thought-out stuff.
Then there's the thing about the OS, and how the Cocoa API's are the most powerful and yet easy-to-use API's for any operating system anywhere. But that's a whole other discussion entirely.
People who think Macs are really no different from PC's have never looked very closely at them.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if iCommune became a huge hit, don't be suprised if Apple suddenly had to kill off the plugin APIs because the RIAA came after them for aiding and providing a means of illegaly sharing music.
Re:Stupid Computers. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's really been bothering me that this was modded as flamebait. That wasn't my intention, at all. I have an iBook, and I'm an Apple fan. I wasn't trying to troll, or cause any flamewars.
It just bugs me when I'm misunderstood, and I wanted to set the record straight.