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You may have heard the news that Apple embeds your name in music that you buy from the iTunes Store, even music without digital rights management. The company's fiendish approach prevents you from even knowing what happened unless you look, and prevents you from removing the information unless you try.
Clearly a company this devious wouldn't limit itself to merely writing your name on your digital underwear. A closer look at Apple and iTunes reveals even more insidious tactics.
- Apple embeds your name into the actual lyrics of "88 Lines About 44 Women." (Assuming your name is Deborah, Carla, Mary, Susan, Reena, Cathy, Vicki, Kamela, Xylla, Joan, Sherry, Kathleen, Seattle, Karen, Jeannie, Mary Ellen, Gloria, Mimi, Marilyn, Julie, Rhonda, Patty, Linda, Katherine, Pauline, Jean-Marie, Gina, Jackie, Sarah, Janet, Tanya Turkish, Brenda, Rowena, Dee Dee, Debbie Ray, Nina, Bobbi and/or Bobbi Sox, Eloise, Terri, Ronnie, Jezebel, Dinah, Judy or Amaranta. Or Norman Rockwell.)
- You know how at a party, sooner or later someone will ask you, "So what kind of music are you into?" Total Apple spy.
- Apple sells a number of songs that are designated by the World Health Organization as "pathologically catchy." Songs like "We Will Rock You" get stuck in your head, thereby guaranteeing that at some point you will hum them out loud, at which point Recording Industry Association of America goons and/or thugs swoop down and take you away while Steve Jobs stands in front of his iPanopticon and says, "Yes! My customers are being arrested, just as I planned all along!" He may, at that point, throw back his head and laugh cruelly. Reports vary.
- Apple chooses one song every week to give away for free. Don't you see? It's like drugs!
- Eric 10011010110 of Norfolk, Virginia, claims that his last name has been embedded in nearly every song sold on iTunes.
- The iTunes Visualizer is actually a subliminal hypnosis device that sends messages directly into your subconscious, messages like, "Don't make mix tapes" and "LimeWire gives you herpes" and "If you buy a Zune nobody will invite you to parties."
- Remember HyperCard? That was awesome, man. I made this HyperCard stack with, like, these girls in bikinis. They were in black and white and all pixelated, so it was kind of weird, but still! Awesome! Apple used to be cool, man.
- Apple continues to sell the song "Good Times Roll" by The Cars, even though the company is fully aware that it contains the lyric, "Let them brush your rock 'n' roll hair."
- Many people report that the song "You're So Vain" is probably about them.
- You know that Mac commercial where the lady throws the hammer at Big Brother? Well, now Apple is Big Brother! Come on, you can't argue with irony like that!
- Have you even actually seen an employee leaving an Apple Store? No, and you never will, because the employees are actually grown in vats of pure hipness, and are stowed in hermetic containers at night to keep their fauxhawks glossy.
- Apple releases iPods in a variety of sizes and colors, forcing collectors to buy all of them. Ha ha! Screw you, collectors!
- Apple and Google are conspiring to get you in trouble for music piracy. While your name associates you with the iTunes music file, the Google Maps Street View camera peers directly into your window and catches you in the act of uploading the song. Sinister synergy!
- The iTunes Store terms of service require that "you agree to comply with all local, state, federal and national laws, statutes, ordinances and regulations that apply to your use of the service." If that's not fascism, I don't know what is.
- Sources report that Apple may be involved in some sort of music-for-money exchange. Troubling, if true.
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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to embed his name in everything he owns, even fresh produce.
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