This story on iTunes, music swapping, and the iTunes Music Store contains a fundamental factual error; the same fundamental error that all of these stories contain. They reason as so: given fact 1, "people have figured out how to copy the streaming data from iTunes 4" (which is true) and fact 2, "iTunes Music Store-purchased songs can be streamed" (which is also true), they then conclude that you can use this to steal music bought from the iTunes Music Store.

What the analysis fails to take into account is that even if you did copy one of these AAC files in this way, it still has DRM protection, and it still can't be played on the remote computer without authorizing that computer. Which means that all of the subsequent hand wringing over how this is devestating to the iTunes Music Store is just that -- hand wringing. Songs bought from the Store are better protected, not more vulnerable.  3:52:25 PM  (comments [])