Posted the evening of 3/28 in the U Tell Us forum by PaisleyPark9 regarding the WMP files and Mac OS X:

Doozer said:

Wow, and as a Mac user, I say "Thanks for nothing." What a screwed up thing for them to say.

I posted about this at the club, but then deleted my own post and decided to wait until it opens and see what actually happens in the remote chance that they dropped the planned DRM. But from what they posted tonight, it sounded like while they said they would support Mac users, they lied. They also are apparently not supporting iPod owners.

alandail said:

I believe you are 100% right, my friend. We may be better off waiting for a concert and getting the CD. (I'll be at the Dallas show Friday, so I'm lucky in that regard.)

I also just recently discovered that WMP 9 for Mac OS doesn't support CD burning, either, so if we buy the files and are lucky enough to have them work, we won't be able to do a thing with them (legally) other than listen to them on a computer.

I posted a comment at NPGMC to seek clarification. I still say the whole thing is crazy. The whole uncompressed album is already on the net - before the online store even opens. Yet the store is using a format and a DRM scheme that will prevent paying customers from buying the music. It does nothing at all to prevent the music from being illegally downloaded.

whats the matter with mp3 format files. they work on windows or mac formats. Windows media player is crap!