Pig pile on Apple, everybody! Now that it's five months out of the gate, the iTunes Music Store is attracting scores of copycats and coattail-riders like swarms of dumb, lazy moths to a flame. You may recall that BuyMusic.com was the first such forgery on the scene, but we're not entirely sure it counts, because despite Scott Blum's shameless attempts to pass off his service as the Windows version of the iTMS, because of its many, many inherent flaws it was no closer in execution to Apple's intuitive and customer-pleasing creation than Rodin's "The Thinker" is to this painting of a monkey on a toilet.

Now, though, things are really starting to heat up a little. MusicMatch, the company that makes the player software that currently ships with the iPod for Windows users, has just launched its own pay-per-download music service-- and lest you think that MusicMatch Downloads is going to be just another wart-ridden BuyMusic.com, we've got to say, it looks like a far better photocopy of the iTMS than BuyMusic could ever hope to be. If you were waiting for a time to start panicking over Apple's continued absence from the Windows music downloads market, now is probably as good a time as any.

Only a few days and the experiences of actual customers will tell us for sure, of course, but right now, it looks like MusicMatch has indeed swiped just about all of the iTMS's finer points that BuyMusic left out. First of all, just as the iTMS is a feature built into iTunes 4, MusicMatch Downloads is fully integrated into the latest version of MusicMatch Jukebox-- no need to download songs via a web browser, as with BuyMusic.com. (The fact that MusicMatch Jukebox is already used by some 40,000,000 Wintellians probably makes Apple a little squeamish, especially since that includes every Windows user who bought an iPod.) Songs are a uniform $.99, most albums are $9.99, and unlike BuyMusic.com's ludicrous nonuniform content usage restrictions, MusicMatch Downloads allows all songs to be played on up to three different computers, burned to an unlimited number of discs, and transferred to a portable player an unlimited number of times... just like the iTMS.

Okay, so that's all pretty depressing. How about a little bit of Bright Side to spread some cheer over your Monday? For one thing, Apple's still got a slight advantage in that the iPod won't play MusicMatch's Microsoft-format WMA files, so if Wintel users want to use the most popular portable player on the market, they'll be going iTunes instead. And better still, since MusicMatch's new iTMS ripoff offers usage rights that are suspiciously identical to those previously pioneered by the Mac-only iTMS, you can bet your sweet bippy that iTMS for Windows is awfully close to release. Remember, the single major hurdle with Apple's plan to take its service cross-platform was that only two of the five big record labels had agreed at the time to allow broad usage rights on the Windows platform; imagine if songs purchased via the iTMS for Windows had usage limitations like BuyMusic.com. Eeeeewwwwwww.

But since MusicMatch now has use-on-three-computers, activate-and-deactivate-computers-whenever, burn-all-you-want, and transfer-to-players-all-you-want rights available for all songs and its service is Windows-only, and since BuyMusic.com is reportedly also about to inherit those same usage rights, that means that the big labels have finally agreed to Apple's terms. It's just a shame that Apple did all the work and others are going to benefit from it first, but hey, since when is that unusual?

Rumors placed the actual port of iTunes for Windows at "darn near finished" a while ago, so we bet that it was primarily license negotiations holding back its release. In face, we're betting that Apple will ship iTunes for Windows any minute now.

Yup. Any minute.

(cough)

Well, we'll let you know.

Meanwhile, what about that Dell Music Store that was pre-announced last Thursday-- when it finally surfaces sometime "before December," is it going to be another dud like the loathsome BuyMusic.com, or will it approach the iTunes Music Store end of the spectrum, like MusicMatch Downloads seemingly will? Well, while we personally would never want to bet on the quality of anything coming from a company whose entire business model is predicated on using the cheapest parts possible without killing more than 3% of its customer base, we're pretty darn sure that when it arrives, feature-for-feature, the Dell Music Store will probably be the equal of MusicMatch Downloads. Mostly because it'll be MusicMatch Downloads.

Yes, faithful viewer Bill Brown shatters yet another youthful illusion today; apparently not only is there no Tooth Fairy, but also Dell isn't building its own music download service to compete with the iTMS. Instead, as reported by CNET, Dell's offering will apparently be "a separately branded version of the MusicMatch service." Which kinda makes you wonder why Mike Dell claims that he's "had discussions with a number of major music labels in the course of building [Dell's] new service," since reportedly all Dell is doing is slapping its name on MusicMatch Downloads. Then again, Steve Jobs did meet with the major labels to wrangle licensing deals for the iTMS, and as we're all too painfully aware, anything Steve does, Mike has to copy. How long do you think the label execs humored him before calling security?

And guess what? Not only is the Dell Music Store just a re-branded MusicMatch Downloads, but the Dell Digital Jukebox is also reportedly just a re-branded MP3 player from Creative Labs. At least, that's what The Mercury News is reporting, though while there are clearly some iPod ripoffs in Creative's stable, none of them looks quite like Dell's doohickey, so that bit may be apocryphal. Still, given that Dell is all about cheap, and re-branding is certainly cheaper than developing a new player from scratch, we assume that the DellPod is probably a Creative player that just isn't on the market yet.

Apple, for its part, actually deigned to comment publicly on Dell's decidedly familiar-looking music strategy: "It appears that Dell is re-branding one of the second-tier music services that will be announced soon, just like they are re-branding Creative's MP3 player. There is little original here." True-- of course, Dell, almost certainly takes that as a compliment, since the company admits that its winning strategy has always been to wait and see what new stuff catches on, and then move in and do it cheaper. Of course, this time around, Dell has outdone itself; now it's not even copycatting existing Apple products and services. Instead it's re-branding products and services from other companies copycatting existing Apple products and services.

In fact, you know what? Screw innovation! Apple could save a bundle on production by cutting a deal with Dell to re-brand its stuff. We hereby propose that next spring's 4G iPod be an Apple-re-branded Dell-re-branded Creative Labs iPod knockoff. Why, the stock would probably go through the roof!

Gather 'round, kiddies, and we'll regale you with a cautionary tale designed to illustrate how not tuning in to AtAT on a daily basis could well cost you millions of dollars. You have probably long since come to the conclusion that, in recent years, Motorola has apparently become the most incompetent processor manufacturer since Shemp from the Three Stooges joined forces with a one-armed Weird Harold from "Fat Albert" and the two started making chips by whacking small piles of sand with a mallet. (That chip would later go on to become the original Intel Celeron, but we digress.) The thing is, you may have entertained the notion that just because Motorola's processor business isn't exactly stellar with the delivery deadlines, that doesn't mean that the company's bread and butter-- its mobile phone business-- is run the same way.

Oh, you poor, trusting fools. See, as faithful viewer Thomas Brady pointed out, CNET reports that Verizon Wireless, Cingular, and AT&T Wireless all thought the same thing, and now they're about to pay for their naïveté in the form of missed opportunity. Just last July Motorola told analysts that it'd be shipping camera phones "by the fourth quarter," so all three wireless carriers ordered and were expecting shipments of camera phones from Motorola in time for the imminent holiday shopping craze. The thing is, the fourth quarter starts in two days, and Motorola still hasn't even set a formal date for the phones' release. In other words, the odds of those phones making it to the wireless carriers in time for the holiday rush are about the same as the odds of Motorola shipping 20,000 1.3 GHz G4s to Apple by, um, last May.

The point here is this: if you were running a major wireless service carrier, would you have put the fate of your holiday season revenue in the hands of Motorola? No, of course you wouldn't, because thanks to our patented method of pummelling deceased equines, you know all about how badly Apple's been burned by missed Motorolan delivery dates on multiple occasions, and you'd have rather lit your company's cash reserves on fire and stuffed the flaming wad down your own pants than bet the firm's future on Motorola actually making a deadline for once. It's clear that the CEOs of Verizon Wireless, AT&T Wireless, and Cingular aren't faithful AtAT viewers, and now they're all suffering the fate of the woefully ignorant. Remember, to be forewarned is to have forearms.

So if you were thinking about leaving us behind and maybe just getting your drama from one of the other daytime soaps, you should probably reconsider. Stay tuned for additional cautionary tales in the days ahead, illustrating such points as how not watching AtAT could leave your hair flat, lifeless, and devoid of body; how skipping even a single episode of AtAT might lead to heroin addiction and a penchant for collecting little ceramic horses; and how not sending us all your money and worldly possessions could well lead to your messy demise by accidental exposure to poison ivy and the Ebola virus.