This is the kind of thing for which the saying, “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” was coined:

Internet failure hits two continents – CNN

I break out into cold sweats just thinking about it.

*shudder*

We have this inside joke about our lawyer (who, it turns out, reads this blog). He’s famous for saying, “Well, I’m no <fill in the blank>, but I think, yada, yada, yada.” The blank is often filled in with words like “accountant”, “marketing expert”, and “large animal veterinarian”.

In any event, I’ll take a page from his book and say I’m no lawyer, but with Sony’s recent announcement that they’re joining the other big three labels in selling DRM-free content on Amazon’s nifty MP3 store, and in the face of Universal Music’s chief Doug Morris’ public assertion of his intent to create an alternative to Apple’s iTunes by allow others, but not Apple, sell DRM-free content, and with nobody but industry-leader EMI currently allowing Apple to remove the DRM, it all sounds an awful lot like collusion. Unfair business practices, at least.

If I was Steve Jobs, I’d sic my pack of legal Dobermans on the lot of them. Of course, if I was Steve Jobs, I’d spend most of my time flying around in my private jet playing Xbox and wouldn’t have time to bother with any of this crap.