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iTunes User Sues Apple Over Lock-In

Posted by michael on from the good-luck-you'll-need-it dept.

GregChant writes "It seems like Apple can also be at the receiving end of a lawsuit, too: Californian Thomas Slattery filed suit against Apple because 'Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice'. With over 200 million songs sold, and Apple controlling over 80% of the hard drive digital audio player market, is this just a case of someone just trying to cash in on Apple's success? Or is this genuinely an issue of buyer lock-in and monopolistic practices?"

5 of 975 comments (clear)

  1. The answer for apple. by Blapto · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The clear solution for apple is to stop being so damn secretive over what they do. Stop locking up DRM etc, please, it kind of defeats the point.

  2. Yup. by northcat · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    With over 200 million songs sold, and Apple controlling over 80% of the hard drive digital audio player market, is this just a case of someone just trying to cash in on Apple's success?

    Yup. When Apple sues someone, Apple is right. When someone sues Apple, again Apple is right. This is guy is just trying to make a quick buck, while, when Apple sued Think Secret, Apple was only doing the right thing.

  3. I'm going to go out on a limb... by spamfiltertest · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    ...and say the following:

    • This guy goes to iTunes, buys tracks thinking he can switch them over to mp3 with no issues.
    • This guy flat out ignores the legal info when he signed up for iTunes.
    • Was go to pirate the music, but couldn't figure out how so is now tryin to play the system on itself.
    • Has a small penis.
    Except for the small penis, those things are the comments I've heard from others who tried to do the same thing but got to laze once they realized Apple covered their tracks.
  4. It's no different than other lawsuits. by the+web · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The only difference is that apple is fuckin awesome at what they do. 80% share is a result of this factor, rather than monopolistic practises.

    Besides, you can convert any .acc song into .mp3 through iTunes. .mp4 is the open standard anyway, not .acc. It's not like apple has stolen mp4 from the world.

    --
    __
    Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
  5. Re:Nobody "forced" anybody by dubiousmike · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    in which case, we are all free to choose something other than Microsoft, so why would they get sued for forcing Windows users to have IE on their machines. They could have used OS X or a Linux flavor, right?