EASY2PANIC wrote:

Hmmm... I might be interested if only I had an iPod big enough for it all.

Apple released the first iPod in 2001. It was 5 GB. Six years later, in 2007, they released a 160 GB iPod. That means the iPod's maximum capacity has been doubling approximately every 1.2 years. If Apple keeps this up, they should be releasing a 40 terabyte iPod some time in 2017, which should be able to hold all 6 million songs with room to spare. (Assuming 3 minutes per song and a bit rate of 256 kb/s, the 6 million songs will require about 35 terabytes.)

I was thinking about signing up for this, until I read their privacy policy:

We may share the information you provide with companies that are related to Macmillan through common ownership. We also share information provided by our website visitors with service providers we have retained to perform services on our behalf. In addition, we may share information about you with non-affiliated third parties whose products or services may be of interest to you. These third parties may contact you about their products and services. We will not share your information with these third parties for their own marketing purposes if you request that we not do so. We may, however, engage in joint marketing activities with selected third parties and may share personal information about our website visitors with them.

Does “we may share information about you with non-affiliated third parties whose products or services may be of interest to you” translate to “we will sell your email address to every spammer in the universe”? Maybe not, but I don't feel like taking a chance.

There is nothing inconsistent in believing that owners of individual sites should have the right to control what is posted on their site, while at the same time believing that providers of access to a general purpose network like the internet should not be able to arbitrarily dictate how their customers use that access.

In providing internet access AT&T is providing access to a resource that they neither created nor control. Because they are only providing access, they are not held legally accountable if their users use their access for something illegal. But now they want it both ways. They want to keep their legal immunity from being prosecuted for their users' crimes, while at the same time they want the power to terminate those users if they express opinions that AT&T doesn't like. Do the people arguing for AT&T believe that the power company should be able to cut off my electricity because I used it to power a computer on which I composed letters criticizing said power company?

Some people will say, "well, if you don't like the terms of service, move to another provider." There are a few problems with this, the most notable being the lack of broadband internet providers in the US. Where I live, I have two options (neither of which is AT&T), and only one of those works reliably.

Unlike an ISP Boingboing is a publisher of original content. They choose to make that content available, for free, to anyone with an internet connection. They have also recently begun allowing their readers to leave comments, but reserve the right to edit or delete those comments as they see fit.

Unlike ISPs, which are scarce (at least in this part of the world), there are millions of blogs and internet forums. If I'm unhappy with the way posts are moderated at boingboing, I can go somewhere else, or even start my own blog.

Finally, even if you believe that AT&T should be allowed to terminate their customers service for posting opinions that AT&T doesn't like, it doesn't follow that their customers should shut up and not complain. I don't believe it should be illegal for companies to be rude to their customers, but that doesn't mean their customers shouldn't complain if they are treated rudely.

Well, it's nice that we can finally get DRM-free MP3s of major label content legally. Still, it annoys me that when you buy an MP3 from Amazon you're not really buying the MP3, you're just buying a "non-exclusive, non-transferable license" to use the MP3 (according to this Arstechnica article). The Artechnica article also points out the in some cases MP3 albums more expensive than the same music in CD form.

This reminds me of some work I did in an old school building. We were remodeling the one of the offices when I noticed that the electrical outlets, rather than being wired into the walls, had their electric cables run along the trim at the base of the walls. These cables were the kind have two insulated copper wires stuck together, so that there is a visible indentation between the wires. On closer inspection, I saw that the cables were attached to the trim with metal tacks. About every 6 inches someone had carefully inserted a tack trough the insulation between the wires.

Re #7:
It's only illegal if the purpose of the has was to prevent copying.