i approve. :)

We've seen, for lack of a better term "little roll-y bits" on pen clips before, so that's not all that surprising, and I have to agree that it *does* look kind of cool, inspire of its weirdness.

My one thought is that, why on Earth would you want to pay that much for such a pen that was *still* a ballpoint, and therefore, despite all prettyness, writes like crap? Sigh.

Not to be a huge apologist, because I agree that this sucks, but...

I have to imagine that this is the kind of thing that will be broken or worked around in under 90 days. Apple seems to have a pretty good history of doing things that require a hack, and then not covering up the hack (cite: Apple TV; the iPhone, though of course they could at any time), because they're contractually obligated to do things by content providers (like the network and ATT above).

What are the chances that the labels bullied Apple into this? It doesn't make a lot of sense for apple, if only because, (and this is common consensus) apple's real money in this game is on the iPod hardware, not in iTunes sales (not that they mind the later, but the iTunes store seems the best way to sell iPods)...

I think you, Cory, have said this before, but this "ebooks-for-free, paper for money" notion is dependent on a couple of things:

1. the experience of reading on screens sucking.
2. our ability to produce paper books inexpensively enough for authors to generate enough on their sale to be profitable...

While I think the industry is getting better about number 2, I think that we (writers/readers) are loosing ground on number 1. If implemented correctly, the new ipods might make really good reading environments. Not the same clearly, and I'm all about screens getting better, but at the same time, this could hinder "business models" like yours, so I'm interested in seeing what happens next...

I can see the benefit of--and even sometimes think it's a good thing--to put the onus of enforcement on the originator of the content, but probably only when the originators are big companies. When it's people like me, or even you, Cory, it seems like less of a good idea.

I can respect the way that having the originators of the content be responsible for sending take down notices means that spaces/areas of the internet, means that website owners can do what they do best: making websites, rather than policing copyright.

At the same time, the implementation sucks, of course, and there's no real good counter for assholish (I use the term generally) content owners/originators, who are fixed on riding a horse.

Speaking of which, it strikes me that SFWA isn't really a union, and thus shouldn't *really* be taking this kind of action on behalf of it's members, but I could totally be wrong about that.