There is a simple solution for those who, like me, disagree with Apple’s approach to selling music online and that is not to buy any. ”

This argument on contract law is based on the obviously false assumption of a perfectly competitive, fair market which grants both sides equal power for negotiation.

This is not the case. People either buy from these stores, buy even more restrictive “lockdown cd’s”, or get sued and possibly jailed for using the true competition. There is no competitive market for music.. it’s a monopoly granted by copyright, so there is no fair competition to guarantee reasonable contract terms. They know they can sue anyone else who offers the same songs along with anyone who purchases from them.

Why ON EARTH would they bother caring about “market forces”.. why on earth would they lower prices or reduce restrictions when they already have enough people to hold these services up before congress and proclaim “we’re reasonable enough for these idiots, it’s the other 99.9% of the population who don’t use this store who are evil”.

This is like those people claiming it’s perfectly ok to attach terms of use to physical objects like the XBoX. Microsoft bans you from paid for services such as xbox downloadable content and xboxlive if you mod your xbox. The modchip is nothing more than an upgrade, like more ram or a better video card would be to your computer, or a supercharger would be to your mustang. Yet, ford doesn’t refuse a paying customer service to their car to “penalize” them for modifying their own hardware, and PC gaming servers don’t ban you for upgrading your gateway, yet microsoft is somehow “reasonable” for refusing you paid for services which, with many games, represent greater than half the consumer utility of the game?