Thank You, Apple, For Making Sure I Can't Play the Music I Paid For
Several years ago, I bought a Mitch Hedberg album on iTunes. That was during the days when the only music they sold was encrypted with their required digital rights management (DRM) method.
At the time, it wasn't a big deal. I only used Windows and iTunes was my music player. Fast forward to now. Now, I'm on a Linux machine and I use Rhythmbox to listen to my audio files. I'm also on a different e-mail account than when I signed up for iTunes many years ago. Suffice to say, I've not used iTunes in years. I (thought that I had) transferred all of my files over years ago. Somehow I missed the Mitch album. Last year, I had to load Microsoft Office onto my machine. It was a pain in the tookus, requiring a complete reload of Windows (MS Windows didn't want to recognize MS Office. Go figure.) and a lot of effort on my part. I have Windows 7 dual-booted on my computer here. I just finished booting into Windows, loading iTunes, then trying to "authorize" my computer so that I can listen to the music which I paid for. Guess what? Somehow, I managed to mangle my password. Only happened once, but I received the "This is the third time you've entered the incorrect password. You must now retrieve your password before continuing." Did I mention that I've changed e-mail addresses? Yes, I did. Which means that, if I want to get this music, I'm going to have to work with Apple, convince them that I am, in fact, me, and then create a CD of the album so I can import it into my Linux system.
Nope. Not going to do it. Instead, I'm going to just buy the album somewhere that does not put it under stupid, asinine DRM. I'll take the monetary hit as a lesson. The lesson is to be extremely careful with those things I buy with DRM. I'm thinking my DVDs and Blu-rays will be the lengths that I will allow DRM to go. For now.