Slashdot Mirror
BusinessWeek on Opening Apple's iTunes DRM
hype7 writes "BusinessWeek is running a very interesting story on Apple's foray into music, with a different bent to everyone else's. BW suggests that, instead of opening the iPod up to the world, Apple should instead license its DRM - 'Fairplay' - to anyone who wants to start up a music store. The upside is obvious: it would mean that Apple's music format, AAC, would become ubiquitous; Apple could quite feasibly make money on licensing fees (say 1 cent per song sold); and, it would just happen to stick it to Microsoft and the Windows Media Format. As the iTunes Music Store isn't running at a profit (or forecast to make a big one), having the Music Store clones eat into Apple's existing market share wouldn't be a problem; all these stores would be doing is building a bigger potential market for the iPod."
Then again, why bother with DRM at all? My Dell Jukebox cost me less per GB, has a longer battery life, doesn't have any DRM, at least none that I'm aware of, it lets you use it for data storage if you want, and I don't get my sexuality questioned every time someone sees me use it.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Therefore Jobs will not go for it. This has been Apple's history. Didn't they used to go after people selling legitimate apple ROMs just because they weren't running on Apple's computers (Emulators and such - go Amiga). It would make a lot of sense, but it would be a real departure given Apples history.
Basically what you're trying to say is that Apple has stuck to the AAC standard 100%, and anyone wanting to make an online music store for the iPod family would only need to encode the tracks to that standard ?
That does not sound like anything Apple would do, they have a known propietary background.
--
Feh, the iPod sucks anyway. Who cares about fancy colors or buttons. It is heavier than most and has a bad battery.
you come her? you mean you come to her? in her? up her sweet, wet pussy as she pants and gasps in pleasure.ooooooooooooh yeeees yes yes oh yes
Whatever, AAC is doomed to be less popular than WMA and Mp3 until it becomes 100% free for me to write a player that supports that format. WMA is a distant second to Mp3 and is only catching up because MS allows companies to make their devices WMA compatable for zero dollars and ZERO cents thuas making it compatable with portable players. It still can not touch MP3 in popularity though. AAC is a horribly distand almost last place near FLAC and OGG and is only growing because Apple themselves is offering content in that file format. if they were not offering content in AAC then it would be completely dead...
apple as the opportunity to create a standard in a way that they tried with quicktime (which is still a distand third and being displaced with xvid/divx into fourth with Real Media)
Steve Jobs historically makes bone-headed decisions.. Apple would be king right now if they made the decisions to open up their goodies years ago...
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it mister troll.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Design (beautiful things work better see Donald Norman)
Usability (because if it's not brain dead simple I'll have to think about how to do stuff instead of just doing it.
Ummm yeah. No offense, Mac OS x UI looks nice, but i think it's absolutely overrated. i hate the animated progress bars, just a waste of CPU. many users aren't obsessed with making their interface looking pretty and glamerous, they just want speed, and sorry, the mac osx UI LACKS speed. Usability? there are SO many options that should be configurable but they are not on mac os x. you suck dong, bitch
Yay, you paid a substantially more money for a different, metro-looking USB HDD that plays music than he did. Congrats, you're an idiot.
I find it rather pathetic when everybody jumps at everything that might offer some sort of alternative to a M$ product/format. Esp. when it is Apple. I daresay that had M$ not been as successful as they are today, it would be Apple getting it in the arse everytime they incline themselves at angles greater than 5 degrees. I'm no M$ flag-carrier, but I find it annoying when people dislike Microsoft, but support another company full of equally insitutional techno-babble :S
Apple make way too expensive computers that usually are more hype than anything else.. Their software is very expensive, ugly and buggy.. They too take their customers for a ride, and can be just as obnoxious a company as their lost brethren over at M$..
There's no need for yet another propietary (?) format in the market (esp. one associated with Quicktime :S), and those who invest in it for the sole reason that it is not a M$ product need to be tarred and feathered .. :S People should plainly not support anything even remotely associated with DRM - boycott 'em all, just the same way as everyone should boycott anything vaguely associated with biometrics..
Where are open standards when you need them? </rant>I wish Apple would get it's finger out and bring quality computing to the masses but they've never even tried.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
As for it being a standard, every company calls its implementation the standard (Sony- Betamax). As a consumer, I decide what is the standard.
I wiped my arse with one the other day... The logic board died.