Wednesday, January 11, 2006

WSJ.com - Personal Technology

WSJ.com - Personal Technology: "First, you cannot use an iPod, out of the box, to copy your music collection to multiple computers you may own. Millions of iPod owners have more than one computer, and it's perfectly legal to copy the music you own to more than one computer. But the iPod won't help you do this.

Second, in families with multiple iPods sharing a single computer, the iPod's companion software, iTunes, doesn't allow you to have multiple music libraries. With multiple libraries, each user could see only his or her own music, and could synchronize his or her iPod with that personal music library.

Apple is aware of these shortcomings, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it solve the second one, multiple libraries, this year. But the first, the inability to use the iPod to copy music to multiple computers, is tougher. Apple was forced to cripple the iPod in this manner at the insistence of the record labels, which feared that it might be used to copy music too widely. So a fix probably requires negotiations with the labels, whose obsession with piracy has caused them to treat their own customers like criminals.

Luckily, there are solutions to both problems available today, through third-party software or workarounds. Here's a guide to those solutions."

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