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Microsoft's Take on iTunes for Windows
Skruffy writes "The Register has an amusing article about Microsoft's reaction to the launch of Apple's iTunes software on Windows. It seems that Microsoft is very keen to warn its users of the dangers of using a service that would restrict them from accessing music from other sources... Oh the irony."
Unless they pull an Internet Explorer and give the software away with Windows (even then, the next version of Windows is years away), I don't see how they could steal users away from Apple's service without actually making their service better than Apple's - which would actually be a great thing. Two huge corporations battling to make music services better and cheaper - nice.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Hey, I'm not supporting Microsoft's argument, just trying to explain it. As I said, I think Microsoft is at best criticizing Apple for precisely what they [microsoft] are doing, just because Apple is doing it better.
Incidentally, as to circumventing the AAC DRM: if you burn to a CD [which you can do unlimited times with AAC files] you can then re-rip it to either DRM -free AAC files or MP3 or whatever. Obvioulsy, a loss of quality incurred whenever you recompress, but from my tests thus far [going from 128 AAC > CD > 128 AAC or 192 MP3] I've yet to notice any actual difference [although file size sometimes varies].
"Stumble before you crawl"
You have fewer rights with iTunes than with buying CDs
Not of you burn them onto a CD and rip them again. And that is the major difference between Apple and Microsoft: Apple provides a legal way to "circumvent" DRM when the user is willing to spend some time to burn a CD and rip it again. That is real fair use, IMHO.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Apple needs to fight this with some powerful prime-time adverisements. (Like they did for the "Switch" campaign, except without the annoying chick). They need to remind users that iTunes can play any MP3s (and WAV files), and their iPods can be used to take their entire CD collection on the road with them - not just purchased music from the iTunes Music store. (Heck, that was one of the major reasons why I bought one - you can easily press "Next track" on the iPod while driving, but it's hard to change CDs, and CD changers are expensive and only hold 6-10 CDs).
Apple also needs to do more plugging on the fact that users can burn any number of plain vanilla audio CDs containing their purchased tracks. (You can only burn the same _playlist_ 10 times if it contains purchased tracks, but you can burn the tracks themselves any number of times. The playlist restriction is to prevent you from downloading an album, making a playlist of that album, and burning 50 copies and selling/giving them to your friends. And really, that's not unreasonable - would you do that with CDs you purchased?)
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
...yet with iTMS, you have far MORE rights than you do with any other major online music purchasing site. The whole point is that the masses want a method of buying music without either a) going to the store and dropping change for a physical disc, or b) buying a CD online and waiting 1-7 days for delivery.
The iTMS restrictions are a) no more than 10 burns of a playlist containing an iTMS track (fine, make a different playlist), b) sharing iTMS tracks with no more than 3 (or is it 5) other computers on your local network, c) no sharing over external networks, d) no direct conversion to another format (gotta burn to disc, then re-rip in another format). What about that is so awful? No, it doesn't allow for wholesale piracy, I mean sharing. Yes, the tracks are in protected AAC/MPEG4 format. How is this better/worse from protected WMA format? Have you looked at the restrictions on tracks from buymusic.com? Many (most? all?) of the other sites restrict your use of the purchased tracks to the machine to which you originally downloaded the tracks. That's it...
Checking a select few sites:
napster.com (pressplay.com is a redirect here) requires Windows, requires IE5+, requires WMP7+.
buymusic.com requires IE5+ and Windows (not using IE, I don't get any further than that requirement page... I'm sure WMP is required).
iTMS requires iTunes. Now, there is no restriction to Mac only, and an external browser is not needed at all. This seems less restrictive than other sites (fine, bitch all you want about no linux/*BSD/etc. support).
I do wish the quality was a bit higher, since the price of an full iTMS album is relatively similar to the price of a CD, but it's a trade off. You get (almost) what you want, when you want it, and you have more control over iTMS tracks than any legally downloadable music.
Blockquoth the poster:
Burn everything to a CD and then rip it.
Seriously, it's time to reconsider your expectations. It's an online music store -- the RIAA would not allow it to exist without some form of DRM. So be thankful for the loophole.
Which is curious, considering the fact that the AAC format is an industry standard, while the WMA format is purely a Microsoft format.
I don't think I've ever seen someone actually call Apple a monopoly, and seriously mean it, before reading this article. Is he serious? Apple a monopoly?
I think that's the first time I've seen a monopoly with something relatively insignificant like 10% of their given market. Didn't I recently read that even linux has a higher market share than Apple?
The fact that apple has good products, and has a very exclusive set of products that interact with each other well, has nothing to do with being a monopoly, directly.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I can see your point, and I agree to some degree.
The difference is that you don't have to use AAC if you don't plan on buying from the iTMS.
You can use iTunes with mp3/aiff/wav with no problems and it works with just about any portable music player out there. My friend uses his Rio with iTunes on the Mac for example.
If you want to buy music from the store then you're limited to iTunes (or Quicktime) and the iPod but how is this different from buying DRM-ed music in WMA format? You're limited to Windows Media Player and a portable machine that supports it (ok, so there are more of those available).
I couldn't play WMA music with DRM on my Mac becase I don't have a version of Windows Media Player that supports it (Microsoft delightfully decided not to update the Mac version of WMP so we can't play any videos or music encoded in version 9 format - how's that for choice?!).
Any competing service is going to contian some limitations as to what you can and can't use and can and can't do. It's the nature of things. Remember, both Apple and Microsoft are out to make money. The iTunes Music Store and iTunes exists primarily to sell iPods - Apple are a hardware company first and foremost.
You only use Apple software if you want to use their hardware, that's the way it's always been. iTunes for Windows is there as a resource for owners of iPods who use Windows and not Mac OS. If you don't have an iPod you have three choices:
1. Use iTunes but don't buy any music from the iTMS, ensure you rip in mp3 format and use any portable player on the market.
2. Use iTunes with an iPod - buy music from the iTMS and rip in either mp3 or AAC format.
3. Don't use iTunes. No one is forcing you, and it's not the law to do so (although the way things are going it might soon be illegal to use anything but WMP... just kidding)
WMA is supported on more devices and players than Apple's AAC (w/DRM) and the iPod.
BUT
WMA support is IRRELEVANT if the Digital Restrictions Management that infests Microsoft products doesn't allow me to play it anywhere else anyway. I once had a free offer to download WMA files from some music service and found that once the files were copied to any other computer, they were useless anyway. Copying to a player which did play WMAs was fruitless as well.
So the DRM (remember it's Digital RESTRICTIONS Management) is the overriding limiting factor, and not whether WMA is supported or not.
All the other online music services are music RENTAL right? If so, I won't participate regardless of the format.
Microsoft's argument is irrelevant until the WMA-supporting music services offer more lenient restrictions. I don't want my music to stop after I stop paying $19/month, I don't wanna have to worry if I bought the correct license to burn to CD for every single track I buy!
Plus, Windoze users seem to have taken to iTunes like a duck to water.
I know I have. I've been spending the past few days sorting and cataloguing my music. Normally I didn't give a shit about ID3 tags but iTunes has changed all of that.
Its just so insanely powerful and simple. I think most of the Apple bitchers at the moment are having trouble switching from a "Now Playing" style playlist to the library style of iTunes. It eventually grew on me and now I can't live without my Library and my Browse button.
It's as stupid as calling BMW a monopoly because only BMW makes BMWs.
Or perhaps Orlowski is thinking that Apple is in a monopoly position as regards the suppliers of software. Actually, because their market share is small, the opposite is the case. They have to provide reasons for suppliers to support them. The fact that some applications may be subsumed by Apple is a fact of life: every manufacturer has to make make or buy decisions all the time. Currently conventional wisdom is that everything is better subcontracted out, but eventually if you go far enough the subcontractors own you.
Personally, I suspect that the ITMS may be too small to survive: if revenue is around $30 million and none of that is profit, there is no real budget to promote it. But at least it's a try, and Apple should be given full credit for trying.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I find it pretty interesting that Microsoft would have the gall to make such ridiculous statements.
Not just ridiculous, outright false.
If iTunes only works with music from the tTMS, whatever have those Mac people been doing with the program for the last 4(?) years? And I guess those people walking around with iPods have just been listening to static.
Yep competition is a good thing. The problem is that when you have a company that is a monopoly in a market and it uses that monopoly position to create a barrier to entry into that market then any other company will find it too difficult to enter into competition.
Take cars for example. Suppose Ford has a super engine that runs only on fuel made by Ford. Now Fords sell like crazy and take over the market. Years down the road the gas stations only sell Ford fuel because there are so many Ford cars. What are the chances of a new car being made that runs on Ford fuel? None, because Ford engines are the only ones that can. What are the chances that new cars come out that don't run on Ford fuel? None, because there are hardly any service stations that sell non-Ford fuel. The net result? Only Ford cars and Ford fuel are produced.
Yes, this is a simplistic example and might not be 100% real-world but it does highlight the basics behind monopolies. Right now Microsoft has a monopoly because it is the predominant operating system. If it uses that monopoly to drive out competitors in related markets, say web browsers, then it is abusing its monopolistic position.
The same thing goes if Microsoft decided to release a security update that breaks Apple's iTunes without telling anyone. Boom, iTunes starts working crappy and people blame Apple when the fault is all Microsoft. Don't think this can't happen, it has happened before with Quicktime. It was shown in internal memos that Quicktime was broken on Windows for a while because Microsoft deliberately changed a few libraries without warning.
As long as there is fair and open competition the consumer, and the companies, will benefit. If any company is allowed to squash its competition entirely then the consumer will suffer.
Sapere aude!
This bit of demogoguery is over the top. To say that a company who goes to the trouble to create the first practical, usable on-line music store for digital content, and does so completely in the context of the current laws and business climate we find ourselves stuck with, is "in league with RIAA" is like saying devlopers of WINE are in league with Microsoft or developers of a x86 Linux kernel are in league with Intel. Apple took all the tools they had to work with and made a solution that seems to work for all parties involved. Unless you can propose a more appropriate, successful, and LEGAL alternative, you should go peddle your conspiracies and new world orders elsewhere.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!