The Small Print Project                            

A collaborative document of experiences with agreements in the digital age.

October 30, 2006

Don’t Go Breaking My iTunes 6

Posted to DRM by Andy Sternberg




Cory bought a new iPod Nano and boy is he sorry:

I bought a new Nano today b/c my old one died and I don’t have time to wait for warranty service before heading to France.

It’s a next-gen Nano. I plugged it into my Powerbook and iTunes 6 said, “I can’t manage that kind of iPod. You have to upgrade to iTunes 7.”

iTunes 7 takes away features I got in iTunes 6 — it breaks the music I’ve paid for.

I’ve seen iTunes updates forced by OS updates, but this is the first time I’ve seen an update forced by buying a new portable player.

iPods/iTunes DRM and related issues may be well documented but I *do* want to hear directly from you. What’s your biggest beef with Apple and the iTunes service. Alternatively, do you just roll with it and accept the standards set by Jobs as you accepted the standards established last decade by Gates? Bring it on! form | e-mail.

* Comments(8)

  • Hobbes

    So let me get this strait, you are complaining that you have to upgrade your music-library program so that it can properly interface with the newest iPod model? I think just about everyone else simply calls that a necessary-evil of the forward march of progress.

    What features does iTunes7 take away that you had in iTunes6? How does it break your music? I have a few albums I bought off iTunes5 that work perfectly in iTunes7, so I really don’t understand what you are going on about here…

    FairPlay DRM still sucks, I’ll admit.

  • Kaci

    When I upgraded to iTunes 7.0 (something I mindlessly clicked YES when it was suggested because: Hey, it’s Apple, they aren’t like Microsoft who release backsliding upgrades) I found that I could no longer listen to any of my coworker’s iTunes (everyone shares out on our network), can’t play the few tunes I bought and it just doesn’t work as well as it used to- a vague complaint but the intuitive wonder that Apple normally brings to products seems to have escaped them this once.

    I don’t even own an iPod. I can only surmise the havoc this “upgrade” has caused for those that do. I went to the Apple store this weekend with some friends who wanted to know if their was a better upgrade. Not yet (the Apple salesfolk knew that there had been a fair bit o’ bitchin’ about this) but hopefully soon.

  • http://del.icio.us/pacovila Paco Vila

    Whenever it works for this 2nd gen iPod, I would strongly recommend you to substitute your iPod’s firmware for Rockbox.org. You do not lose your original iPod’s one so it is fully reversible. The smallprint here is that it comes absolutely without any kind of warranty because it is free software. The “bigprint” is that it works and makes it to play freely any MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack, FLAC, AAC, ALAC, AC3 and WavPack you have in its USB-flash-memory-directory-structure. No need of iTunes.

    A real pity 2nd gen nano is not yet supported.

  • Iris

    What bothered me more was another way they tried to force the peons to update:

    I live with 120 other college students, and most of us have iTunes, leading to a massive library of shared music. Over the few weeks after the release of iTunes 7, most of my housemates updated. I didn’t. Suddenly, one day, I discovered that iTunes 6 can’t connect to iTunes 7 shared music.

    I used to like Apple. These days I like them more than Microsoft, but they’re getting more and more annoying and shady.

  • Ben

    It’s more likely that iTunes 7 will not connect to iTunes 6 to share music. Most likely a ploy by Apple to get everyone to upgrade and break such fair use tools as jHymn.

  • marcus

    Oh boy am i pissed off, like a twat i upgrade from 6 to 7,
    now i can’t see any of my lovely music that i painstakingly aquirred, my pc ain’t new enough to hold every bloody album i ever bought, and the only option i get is to sync and loose litterally very album under the sun, well all i have to say is thank you apple you cock sucking arse fucking mother fucking i pod raping bastards , and reinstalling itunes 6 wont work, i’m fucked now

  • http://Downatthemoment Sparky

    For good work at work I received a Video iPod. I am prompted that I cannot interface at all with iTunes 6+. I must go to 7+. I will not do this. I have way too much invested in my library to endure this needless upgrade designed to prevent me to freely use my musiv. How can I hack around this. Can I retool the bugger?

  • melinda

    so i have had an ipod for a while to take riding with me and such. and i recently got my dad one but it says that i have to update itunes to 7.0 osoe shit in order for it to work. its been working ALL this time with mn on 6.0. and it wont even download 7.0. so this is pretty gay. ive tried everything. any suggestions? im not good with comps.