I fired up my Mac Mini today which has a 2nd gen iPod Nano attached to it. iTunes automatically loads and syncs when the desktop comes up. I got the message that the computer wasn't authorized for iTunes and that my purchased songs would not be copied to the iPod.

When I did an authorize for the computer I kept getting an error stating that there was a problem with the iTunes store. After about 10 minutes of trying I decided to upgrade to the latest version of iTunes and guess what, the computer was once again authorized without me having to do anything.

Is this typical of Apple? Upgrade your software the day that the update is released or your older version will not function completely.

Seems like an Obama socialist policy

I've had that happen every once in a while. It has nothing to do with a new version being out, usually just a temporary communication problem on Apple's end (I think... actually, I'm not sure if it phones home occasionally or not for authorization, but it seems reasonable). I don't have a whole lot of music that's protected, so it's not a huge problem for me even if it completely blows up.