What a dumb PR move. He's dropping himself squarely into the same hole a Steve Ballmer with his iPhone comments.

As far as music goes, Sony shot themselves in the digital music foot by continuing to release products that only supported Sony's proprietary music format, ATRAC (?), while Apple supported file format standards. By the time Sony figured out their error, it was too late.

Sony continues to make some excellent TVs, a few good consumer cameras and some decent looking laptops (crippled by Windows), but that's about it. The Sony of old is long gone. I knew people who worked for Sony and refused to buy Sony products at the company store, even with pretty good employee discounts. That says a lot!

Universal and Sony CEO's have something in common these days. It's called Stupidity and ignorance! They can't adapt to the changing world around them. There so into themselves and trying to copy protect everything they sell they can't see why people are turning away. Why copy protecting everything isn't helping, it's hurting there business. There will always be pirates out there but accusing everyone of stealing isn't the answer and certainly isn't the way you entice customers to buy your products. Maybe someday there board of directors will smarten up and get rid of the OLD baggage and get younger smarter CEO's who can adapt to a modern world.

Someone alluded to Jubs "eating food." Not true... he eats nuts, sticks and twigs, hardly what anyone would call "food." A nice 2" thick grilled steak, some lemon sole, coq au vin, those items are "food!"

Of CORSE he's greedy, just like every other CEO of a Fortune 500 company, these guys think nothing of mowing down your grandmother to make a buck... makes sense because they rake in big bucks by being... greedy.

And don't give me this dollar a year salary c***, explain how he is one of the richest guys in the country if he gets essentially no salary? All that shows is that he's better at hiding where his money is coming from than the other corporate titans!

I'm sure Jobs will forgive this childish outburst. I'm sure - like me - he just feels pity for the guy. The precious gifts of a human body, mind, and soul, and this is what it has reduced to... it's just sad.

Being myself a vegan I can assure paulc there is more to eat than twigs. I just had an amazing pizza cooked by a masterful vegan chef, home-made beer made by the operator of a local collective, and frozen fruit freshly slurried through my food processor with "raw" chocolate mousse on top, and it was utterly delicious. And I did almost no harm to myself and the world in consuming it. No sentient beings suffered at all except you, paulc, which makes me feel quite a pleasant afterglow.

..and we are the ones getting screwed.

I am screwed. I just got myself an iPod.

Not really. It is fairly well known and reported that he receives a great deal of his income from Apple stock/perks, and other "non-Apple" ventures.

Greedy? Probably. But as has been stated, "Pot. Meet Kettle."

But at issue is the glaring lie put forth that Steve Jobs doesn't want to let the music companies get paid. Pure, and utter c***.

Apple worked with these companies to arrive at a price model that all agreed to. If they want to renegotiate (not necessarily successfully), or take their business elsewhere, then they certainly can.

Personal attacks are not a good faith negotiation tactic, if I understand it correctly.

waaaaah! waaaaah! waaaaaah!

"yes, I am kicking Sony's fat a** in the marketplace. By the way, have you checked out Apple's market cap lately? $143 billion vs $51 billion for Sony. Thanks for the acknowledgement of my success."

I don't think The Steve (or anyone, really) begrudges the record labels the right to a profit. I interpret his criticism to pertain to the labels' tendency to resort to "rent seeking"--specifically, to put "police powers" into hardware, and/or desire a portion of the revenue from the sales of hardware, on the presumption that we are all thieves.

This is like a pedophile calling a kindergarten teacher "too interested in children."

is more like it.

There is no specific record company tax. They are not taxed specially because they are record companies, any more than a clothing retailer is taxed specially because they sell clothes. Nor specifically a tax on clothing buyers, for their purchases

There does appear to be a tax imposed by the music industry, through bought legislation, on the end user.

He usually has something "clever" to say. Surprised he isn't here defending Sony

hey isn't capitalism based on greed?

(it sure isnt based on altruism)

viva greed I say