Month: February 2007

Jobs Issues Statement on DRM.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent a shot across the bow of the recording industry today, issuing an in-depth statement that said that if the recording industry would allow it, Apple would wholeheartedly embrace selling music without digital rights management (DRM).

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.

The recording industry’s Jack Valenti quickly followed suit, issuing his own statement to consumers of digital entertainment.

Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you imagine a world where you shut your cake-hole and buy this crap the way we tell you to, huh? Can you imagine that? Huh? Can you? You frickin’ better imagine it or I’m gonna hit you in the head with a frickin’ Zune.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer also chimed in, releasing the following statement early this afternoon.

I was totally going to say that. Exactly what Jobs said. Totally. I mean, I was just talking about this. Ask what’s his name… uh… you know… that guy… Nerdie McSweatervest. Slouchy McJuicebox. Uhh… Gates! Anyway, I was tellin’ him the exact same shit the other day. I’m like, hey! Donnie Dorko! DRM! It’s gotta go, baby! But he’s all like, blah, blah, blah, barriers to entry this, blah, blah, blah, leverage technologies that, blah, blah, blah.

Fricking dork.

Ballmer’s statement was then followed by a statement from open digital rights activist Cory Doctorow:

Phew. Man. That whole thing where I went off on Apple for embracing closed formats… kind of makes me look like an ass right now. Kinda wish I hadn’t written that.

And now I’ve got all my shit in fricking Ubuntu. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking there.

Do you know, I actually cut myself on Ubuntu yesterday? I don’t even know how that’s possible.

Also kind of wish I hadn’t had the Apple logo tattoo lasered off my arm. That hurt like a mother.

Shortly after Jobs’ statement was posted, Apple was sued by Apple Corps for the unlicensed use of the word “Imagine”.

Apple Settles With Apple Corps.

Apple Inc. and the Beatle’s Apple Corps announced today that they have entered into an agreement to share the “Apple” trademark. This replaces a previous agreement and marks a new – more collaborative – stage in the two companies’ interaction.

While the announcement says that the terms of the settlement are confidential, Crazy Apple Rumors Site was able to obtain the following list of items that are included:

  • The entire remastered collection of the Beatles music will be available only through iTunes, but Apple must also take all that warbly crap Yoko did, too.
  • Apple will create a special-edition Ringo iPod, which – in a secret arrangement worked out between Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono and Steve Jobs – will actually just be a regular iPod with “Ringo” engraved on the back.
  • Apple Corps will also drop an unrelated lawsuit against Phil Schiller over the similiarities between “Schillermania” and “Beatlemania”.
  • The “sosumi” system sound will be renamed “multi-year non-binding licensing agreement”.
  • Jobs gets to smoke the last bit of residue from the bag of hash Lennon was on when he wrote his songs on Magical Mystery Tour.
  • Paul McCartney will pen a soulful, heartfelt ballad to the Quartz Composer Engine.
  • To seal the deal, Jobs’ daugher Lisa will marry Sean Lennon, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In exchange, Jobs will receive one sturdy ox.

Apple Inc. and Apple Corps declined to comment for this story, but did issue a statement indicating that CFO Peter Oppenheimer “is the walrus. Goo goo g’joob.”

Nothing. Nadda. Zip. Zilch.

You know, I’d feel bad about us not getting a post together tonight, but I know for a fact that you just come here for the comments anyway, so it’s no big deal.

Anyway, you’ve got the whole weekend ahead of you and a wad of cash in your sweaty little fist (which is all covered in Cheeto dust), so maybe you could dump a little of it on one of our fine advertisers.

There’s Rogue Amoeba. They make good stuff. Although Kafasis tried to kill me that one time.

Well, there’s also Delicious Monster. The things they can do with an iSight camera. Tell you what. Although Shipley did call me a… well, let’s just say he said I like to do something to dogs that I don’t. Totally. I mean… really. I don’t even know how that would work.

Anyway, that brings us to our new advertisers: Shiny White Box and Many Tricks. They also make boss software and so far neither of their CEOs has tried to kill me or accused me of being into bestiality.

Of course, we’ve only just met so…

I should probably give them some time.

…

Do you think Gruber has this kind of relationship with his advertisers?

Vista Revealed to be Suit of Bats.

Princeton University researchers today announced that Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system is nothing but a suit full of bats.

“We were examining the code to find weaknesses in the new DRM [digital rights management] system… um, mostly so we could cheese Microsoft and the RIAA off.. and we discovered that there was no there there,” said Professor Ed Felton.

When Felton and graduate students working closely with him looked behind a closed Vista window, they first saw a shadowy form they assumed to be Vista’s underlying code. On further decompiling, however, the form collapsed into a suit full of bats which flew shrieking away from the computer, escaping over the Internet.

“Nosferatu takes many forms,” Felton said. “Our close work in examining the music and film industry has revealed many of them, including the bag of mice, the box of insects, and former MPAA head Jack Valenti – who, interestingly enough, turns out to be voles operating a marionette.

“Kinda… creepy.”

Further evidence that Vista is simply a suit of bats came during a press conference with Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, together in a rare appearance at Vista’s launch in New York. When a reporter innocently produced a boxed copy of Tiger to ask if it was the model for Vista, the large X – a cross – on the cover, caused Gates to shriek, emit noxious fumes, and sink into the stage, disappearing from view.

Ballmer, meanwhile, began wailing, “Master, oh Master!” and then ate several cockroaches. The Microsoft CEO was put in a straitjacket and incarcerated in a padded room in the Bellevue Mental Asylum in New York.

Felton said, “The accidental unearthing of an ancient evil was certainly only slightly beyond our expectations. We had hoped to find a timing error that revealed encryption keys, but a suit of bats confirms our worst fears.”

Felton then threw on a cassock, grabbed a vial of water that had dripped from the cooling system of a Linux box, and summoned his students, striding forward into the night.

The Federal Trade Commission said that while consumers who purchase Vista may be unhappy to receive an operating system that contains a suit of bats, the licensing agreement clearly states “Microsoft warrants Vista contains a suit of bats,” and thus returns cannot be forced under federal law.