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The negative press will far outweigh what Apple makes off this stupid fee.

Cheeky bastards!

Hooray for lawyers. :\

Well, that clarifies everything.

A big thank you to Enron, WorldCom and all of those whose actions precipitated Sarbanes-Oxley.

It will be hacked very quickly. But Apple's fee is low enough to keep most of its customers honest.

Unless the fee is a nominal $5 or less, Apple will be bombarded with negative press for the move. And if they charge a substantial fee, then you know the shareware community will provide the tools for free or a nominal charge.

On a recent TWIT podcast, Dvorak spouted out that SOX is a total disaster.

Could it be possible that Dvorak is going to be proved right?

The $5 is nothing but a hassle.

Then how did Microsoft get away with SP2, which did include a few new features in a addition the myriad of security patches and bug fixes?

That really SOXs.

Unfortunately, this is true about the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley, and the subsequent legal decisions based upon that law. This says little about Apple, although I'm sure everyone will bitch to high heaven about it. Rather, it shows exactly why good lawmakers are critical to the continued success of a country. We've had a Congress of lazy, uninterested-in-genuine policy, hacks running the US Congress for years, and laws like Sarbanes-Oxley are the result. A law was needed to hold corporate executives accountable for fraud and illegal activity, but Sarbanes-Oxley is a sledge-hammer approach, when all we needed was a small screwdriver, and craftsmen with some craft.

So, what's MDN's take?

Sarbanes-Oxley is BAD LAW. It imposed massive accounting regulations upon business indiscriminately. It's the old fourth-grade tactic -- a small number of companies screw up, so let's punish all companies. And it's sadly typical of what happens when you get government into the business of micromanaging business. If the problem was crime, then the answer is enforcement, not legislation. An even better solution to accounting fraud would be revival. That's right. If people have internal checks and balances, then the problems of crime, legislation, and punishment are all headed off at the pass. I'll bet all those who hailed Sarbanes-Oxley as punishing those bad, evil businesses never thought there'd be any personal repercussions for them.

I tried a hack to enable Front Row on my iBook G4, but it froze my system and I had to re-install. Apple, for 4.99, tear down this wa...I mean, enable my Front Row. I will gladly pay it.

I don't understand (am not familiar with) the law in question, but it seems impractical and unreasonable. Adding new features means your product was not complete at the time of sale? What an antiquated, pre-tech era way of looking at things. I realize the cost of developing the new feature has to be accounted for, but you can always assign it to marketing cost, R&D;, customer support, etc. Our good buddy MS gives away free goodies and added features all the time, as do lots of other vendors (Adobe and many others). This really strikes me as a run-around. I'm not saying they don't have a right to charge for it, but the offered explanation seems inadequate.

Apple should be sure to include a PDF with every download that explains in a paragraph just why the user had to fork over $5.

Does the MacPro have the 'n' card?

Sarbanes-Oxley sucks moose balls!

Man, I missed the boat with all the little upgrades on the Mini. I bought the duo core but mine came with a dvd+rw super drive not the +- and now I find out about this! I've got the Rodney Dangerfield of Mac Mini's...sheesh.

Its well worth $5.00. If you want it pay it. Big deal.

What? An upgrade that I didn't know I had, that can make my network faster is gonna cost 5 bucks? And if I don't pay it all I get is what I paid for originally? Yet for 5 bucks I can upgrade to the 21 century?

Where's the line to get in to bitch? It's how long? Well fine! Nobody's gonna keep me from griping about paying 5 bucks for anything. I think I'll stop by Starbucks on the way to the bitch line...


WHAT? My Core Duo doesn't HAVE the damn thing? It only came with Core2Duos? I gotta get in a different line to bitch about that?

Damn Republicans!

MW:girls, as in 'Wow, thank you!'

A really good all-round deal could be --

1 Apple comes out front and says we gotta charge because of this stupid law: here's a link to complain on.
2 Apple charges a nominal fee that's high enough to keep the lawyers away.
3 Apple donates equivalent sum to a respected charity or applies a discount to future purchases.

This is baloney. By that reckoning, any software update that increases functionality should be charged for. The updates to iTunes that enabled video downloads, or audio books, for example, should have been charged for.
Whomever is writing for iLounge should stick to technical writing and leave accounting to people who understand it.

I don't know much about the law either, but my guss is it does more good than harm.

My guess is there will be a free patch out before you can say "Free Patch".

A measly $4.99 fee to increase speed 5-fold? Big whoop, sure its a hassle but from what I understand its not Apple's fault but some moronic law. I will happily fork it over.

I agree with DJ that Apple should, for PR purposes, tell everyone about the stupid law and to smooth things out, donate a whack of cash to some orphans or something or other to show that they are not doing this for the money.

That would be a winning situation for them. Hell Steve cvould do that with the loose change in his wallet.

Why not just give everyone a $4.99 coupon to the Apple store when they purchase this fee?
Bottom line - it costs the consumer nothing.
That would solve the P.R. problem.

Another way they could have dealt with it was to put somewhere in small print, something about the fact that at some future date, the card could be updated to N. Then they would have officially "advertised" it.

Regardless, this is the most idiotic law I've ever heard of. Politicians are about the the lowest level of filth in the sewer. What a world we could live in if they actually attempted to do GOOD WORK!

Bittorent should be busy...

Since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has no force or effect in Canada, the UK or anywhere else in the world other than the US I have to assume the upgrade will be free for Canadians, Brits, etc....right? Whatever. If it is just about some obscure piece of legislation than why not make the fee $0.50 - it will not cost Apple $5 per customer to collect this fee - there is no delivery charge, no packaging, no fees of any kind other than a credit card processing fee for which Apple cannot be paying more than $0.10 - $0.25. Why the five dollar charge then?

Also since the hardware already shipped with this ability included - and this is just a software upgrade how is this any different than any other software update that has the net benefit of extending the features of something already in the market. For example newer versions of iTunes have improved users ability to manage their iPods through the iTunes window does this require a restating of all iPod income for the past five years?

This is a cash grab pure and simple. This is rubbish Apple pure rubbish...

fine then apple should make it a $.99 download from itunes.

Leave it to the politicians to punish consumers for the trangressions of Enron and Worldcom.

Hmmmm,
Don't you guys get it. Apple is shoving the whole SEC thing back at them. The back dating scandel is only a scandel because the SEC decided to get tough on something that was sort of OK many years ago. OK you want to play tough, we have to follow all the rules of your stupid rules, $4.95 for features per your rules. Now if you do not force everyone else to do the same thing you will be guilty of only inforcing the rules you want.

"Because of Sarbanes-Oxley... It’s about accounting. Because of the Act, the company believes that if it sells a product, then later adds a feature to that product, it can be held liable for improper accounting if it recognizes revenue from the product at the time of sale, given that it hasn’t finished delivering the product at that point."

The backdating scandel hit over 200 companies because it was not really against the law until the SEC decided to re-interpert their rules. So if the rules are fixed, you have to follow them, right?? In fact, everyone should have to follow every letter of every law, or....... maybe fix the laws????? Just a thought.

Its one of the few ways you can get the government to back off on stupid rules.

N.

This smell fishy, but, IANAL, nor am I a SOX expert.

I have a funny feeling that Apple is using SOX as an excuse to collect revenue, but, in fairness, I have no proof.

This is poor customer service, regardless; surely they could have found some way around it.

Apple has, up to now, been really great about stuff like this. I'm particularly pleased about their free upgrades to orders in the pipeline.

Yet, isn't this the same thing: the new stuff wasn't advertised, and the customer got something they didn't expect. This isn't trivial: my daughter got a free upgrade from an iMac Core 1 duo to an iMac Core 2 duo and a lower price. And she even got the free iPod that came with the iMac Core 1, even tho that wasn't offered with the iMac Core 2 duo.

I'm getting a bit concerned about Apple getting a bit too full of themselves (its early, to be fair). My other data point is the iPhone name: I don't understand why Apple is being so aggressive with Cisco over iPhone - this is tacky and pushy. I expect better from Apple. Particularly after they renamed iTv to Apple TV.

TowerTone? "Damn Republicans!"? SOX sucks in this case, but it was voted in favor of, 99-0, by a DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED SENATE in 2002.
And believe me, given the political tone of the day, the Democrats would have crucified Bush had he not signed it into law.

To those who love big government, congratulations, you've got it.

Maybe Apple can add new features to iTunes 'for free' because they don't charge money directly for iTunes software. They already have accounting in place to covr that. The ongoing revenue they receive for song downloads and iPods can and does offset the cost of adding features to iTunes and can probably be accounted for from that continuous revenue stream.

I'm not at all sure about the in's and out's of SOX but I do know this: I don't like like this repercussion of it!
I really wonder what this might mean for using software to add functionality to the iPhone down the road!

So this means it'll be free in Canada and the rest of the world, right?

I don't see Apple actually increasing their revenue with this kind of small fry, especially compared to the overhead it will generate.

Bob: I'm going to wager the cost of the unlocking fee that TowerTone was being sarcastic. Want in?

OBill-Wan Kenobi, what mac mini upgrades are you talking about? I have a 1.66 Core Duo with a DVD+RW as well. Did I miss something?

so now tha means that ALL software updates will be either delayed until new mac os x version..( so we can pay for it) or we will have to pay 5 bucks to get the next increment in the Itunes software for example...I'm right here..or what...cuz that would suck big time....although you can't blame apple...just covering it's ass

TowerTone: If you stop at Starbuck's, you won't have enough left over for the unlocking fee. You've been warned. And would bitch lines form to the far left or the far right?

stupid law !

does anybody in the USA know that NOBODY has credit cards in Belgium ? (unless u have a boring job for some institution), u need a salary to have one, if u are free lance, or work in a bar, an artist, a musician, u can't get one !, even if u make millions.

we can't use iTunes Music Store, we can't buy stuff from the internet, and we can't get this stupid upgrade !

@ poo:
I work at a broadcaster in Canada, and my login password at work needs to be changed every few weeks. When I asked if the amount of time the password needs to be changed could be lengthened the IT guy said no, they have to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. I don't know if the companies adherence is voluntary in Canada, but there you go.

Canada--no. Sorry, Apple is a US company and has to abide by US law, regardless of where the product is shipping. Even if the law blows. Maybe this will make some Macheads understand that it matters who you elect, or allow to be elected through innaction. This law might have some arcane purpose, but I agree that it was probably innacted because of a handful of bad apples working a loophole in the tax structure. So every company has new regulation and new forms to file every quarter. This law is most likely a NET loss to the economy.

They start at the left AND the right and go towards the middle-where people are just trying to work...

Hey Bob

My name is TowerTone,
And I am a sarcastic conservative.

Please don't tell my parents.
They hate sarcasm...

oh, and Bob

The left is gonna crucify the President no matter what.
They hate Bush.
Especially Barney Frank

easy does it guys, easy does it...

We are so ashamed. <heavy sighs and eyes roll>
And he had the nerve to ask us for the money for some "unlocking fee." Yeah, right. He probably just wanted to buy more W stickers. He sneaks out late at night and slaps them on the bumpers of VW buses covering up their "May the Fetus You Save be a Black Gay Wiccan Democrat" stickers.

This just points one truism that has been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years:

Kill all the lawyers.

If this act was passed in 2002, how did Apple get away with updating Aperture to 1.5 for free?

About this law applying in other countries, well if the company is american or is listed on the american stock exchange (NASDAQ or NYSE) it has to follow SOX rules, I live in Mexico and even some other laws do apply here. There is a Hotel (I think it was Sheraton) that couldnt host some Cubans, because of an american law, the government here fined this hotel for not respecting the reservation and giving them lodge
Its a mess,and extraterritorial application of laws in one county in another..