The Register has some interesting speculation about the iPod. Since the MP3 player uses Firewire, it can copy several gigabytes worth of MP3 files very quickly — but it could also transfer those files back to another computer just as quickly, making it ideal for people to use to copy and trade large numbers of MP3s (“here, have a copy of my record collection.”) But since the iPod requires people to use Apple’s iTunes 2 prorgram, Apple could disable such downloading in the final version of the product. From The Register,
MP3 is popular because it’s compact and makes swapping and sharing music easy. So does iPod. With its capacity to hold around 1000 songs, all of which can be installed on the player in around ten minutes, it could be seen as a copier’s dream. Upload 150 CDs worth of songs then download them to another Mac in another ten minutes.
That certainly seem possible with the pre-release version of iTunes 2 we looked at, but since Steve Jobs hinted that such duplication may be made impossible, we wonder if the ability to copy MP3 files back off the iPod will be removed from the shipping version. Either that or some sort of watermark will be added to the files to ensure they can only be used with the source Mac. Apple has made no such announcement officially, so we’ll just have to see.