It's not Apple's fault with the restrictions, Steve Jobs hates them, hence the deal he made with EMI as Cookie mentioned.
iTunes is now a great media player. It is so user friendly, it takes so many things into account when using features which makes the player so much easier to use than others It also has a very modern approach, other media players are becoming bloated, Apple has tided up the program for 1.7 and I can see why it works. It's now my favourite media player
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