Apple is not “duping” anyone

Brad over at the Digital Music Weblog
thinks that Apple is duping it's iTunes Music Store customers because, as he puts it, "they must stick with Apple players [when their iPod fails] because their iTMS-bought music collection won't work with any other ones."

Saying that music purchased from the iTMS won't work with anything but the
iPod is very misleading and patently untrue. Buy it, burn it, play it back or copy it to wherever you please. Re-import it as whatever music format you want and dump it onto any other inferior digital music player you'd like. It's that easy. No one will prohibit you from doing so. Will the process be lossless?
No. But most people buying cheaper imitations of the iPod aren't exactly audiophiles, and even my highly evolved ears can't tell much difference between a first generation, high-quality audio file and a 3rd generation medium-high-quality audio file.

Apple's iPod is here to stay – and so is the music you're buying from the iTMS.