According to the CEO of The Big Monopoly, all of us iPod owners are digital thieves.

Billing Microsoft as the good guys and Apple the villains of the piece – at least as far as corporate America, rather than users, is concerned, Ballmer said: "We’ve had DRM [Digital Rights Management] in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is ‘stolen’."

Ballmer is pissed because even the music and movie industries, as much as they want to restrict the distribution of their products and squeeze out more profits, don’t want to climb into bed with his constricting, user-hostile view of DRM. But considering how many ideas the BM has flat-out stolen over the years, not to mention their long history of monopolistic business practices, Monkey Boy has no room to talk about stealing.

Update (10/8/04): Ballmer explains himself – sort of: "I don’t know what I said exactly, but it was baaaaaaaaad."