Let's play a role-playing game, shall we?
You can be Dave Matthews (well, his entire band to be precise). When putting out your CD, you jump on Microsoft's DRM bandwagon and cripple the CD such that the only thing you can copy from it is protected WMAs.
You then post instructions on your website on how to bypass your own DRM protection (burn a CD, and then rip the audio from that) for those who want to listen to your songs on an iPod. You then go on to say that this is all Apple's fault for not supporting crippled WMA.
I'm not saying that Apple's AAC is any better than WMA, but you can hardly blame Apple for not wanting to encourage people to use a format wholly controlled by Microsoft. If you want your music to work for everyone then perhaps you should consider making a regular fucking CD, instead of using a proprietary format owned by the largest monopoly in the software world...
</rant>
3 Comments:
Tim apple are just as bad, all songs brought off itunes can only be used on apple products (ipods).
Also isn't AAC apples own proprietary format also, their in the same boat as Microsoft. I actually thing WMA is better as it is supported by more MP3 Players.
But yeah, it is all a big joke, I can't say I have had any problems...
I download in only mp3, and I haven't run into a CD that I couldn't rip.
I rip my CDs put the CD away and it usually isn't touched again!
Tzortst said, "Also isn't AAC apples own proprietary format also, their in the same boat as Microsoft."
Nope. AAC is part of the MPEG-4 standard as ISO-14496-3. What is ISO, you may ask? International Standards Organization.
What about Microsoft's WMA? It's a proprietary format, through and through. Microsoft retains full ownership and control over the Windows Media formats.
The only nonstandard part in Apple's AAC files is the "FairPlay" DRM extension in songs purchased from the online store. Note, however, that AAC files you encode yourself have no DRM at all.
Steve, note where I said "I'm not saying that Apple's AAC is any better than WMA" ;P
But yeah, as Brad said, at least AAC has roots in mpeg-4 with some DRM slipped in over the top (so non-DRM AAC is quite an open format).