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I've always wanted to be an Apple customer, since their products have such a nice fit and finish. The problems I have, though, are always with their excessive lock-in - and the FairPlay DRM is the least of it. As a person who likes to customize my technology, the lock-in really chafes.

Example: I [stupidly] bought an iPod without realizing how it would interface with my Windows machine. I assumed that it would work just like the cheapo $20 MP3 player I had bought for my 10 year old niece. But no, dragging files to a mounted drive is much too plebeian for Apple. Apple requires iTunes, since it's better at "organizing" my music, even though I have never bought anything from the iTunes Music Store. I tolerated iTunes as long as I could, but I eventually needed my own podcatcher software and iTunes was getting in the way of dumping files onto the MP3 player. One of the most satisfying days in my life was when I installed Rockbox on my iPod and was then able to remove iTunes from my system.

I'd like to try an iPhone as well, but I don't think that I could stand the constraints on that either.

I'm not sure what anybody expected to have happen here. There's no truly legitimate use for Hymn: if you don't want to use DRM-encumbered tracks from Apple's proprietary iTunes store, don't buy tracks from iTunes. I don't understand why people believe they have the right to force Apple to sell things on terms other than Apple's.

This is nothing at all like attempts to shut down BitTorrent. Legitimate use is a fig leaf with BitTorrent as well, but it's a real fig leaf: you can download a Linux kernel with it. You can't "rescue" any legitimate content with Hymn; you promised Apple you'd abide by their license when you downloaded the tracks.

You do get into an odd legal area, though, when that license allows you to burn the music to a CD. Once the music is on a CD, can the license extend to say that you can't then rip the tracks, which is otherwise covered under fair-use? (Remember the controversial "Rip, Mix, Burn" slogan that Apple itself used to sell iMac's?)

I know that the legal system doesn't operate under mathematic principals, but if I can legally transform from A to B and from B to C, why should it be illegal to directly transform from A to C?

Apple's terms are that you can burn limited copies to CD for personal use. Their imperfect ability to enforce those terms with technology is irrelevant to the iTunes Terms of Service and the Usage Rules.

If you don't want to deal with encumbered media, don't buy it. The original Hymn was a cool technical hack, and I salute it on those grounds. The "modern" Hymn tools are less cool. In neither case were they a "good idea"; it's hard to lament their passing.