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iTunes User Sues Apple Over Lock-In
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?"
It's not illegal until they start bundling features people want and expect as a convience
No. It is not illegal until a company leverages their monopoly to prevent others from fairly competing. If your monopoly is fairly maintained because you have the best product and consumers simply prefer to purchase your product, then all is fair and no laws have been broken.
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Oh, and of course the other obvious alternative this guy could choose is to burn the songs he purchases to CD and then... ..rip the newly made CD into a more widely compatible digital format, such as MP3, then get any bloody Digital portable he wants to play his songs...
Apple didn't sue ThinkSecret you mouth-breathing retard, they're sueing people that broke their Non-Disclosure Agreements by talking to ThinkSecret and AppleInsider, the only reason they were mentioned is that Apple had subpoenaed them to get information on the leak.
Way to rage against the machine.
Enter Real Audio software upgrade for iPods: Stiffled by apple illegal practices.
If Real had reverse engineered Apple's software and wrote their own code to run on the iPod (or any facsimile), that would be one thing. The problem was that Real cracked Apple's Fairplay code and violated the license. This is what got them in hot water and how Apple (like any other company) would have protected themselves from somebody else wanting a free ride on their back.
This is an almost IDENTICAL practice to what microsoft did to DOS and started it all way back when.
Read your history. IBM licensed DOS from Microsoft....Compaq reverse engineered the chipset and BIOS thus setting in motion the Wintel PC industry......Microsoft licensed DOS to any and all people who asked. Where Microsoft did wrong with DOS was to insert code into Windows that made it incompatible with other flavors of DOS from folks like Novell.
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It's the other way around.
They are not forcing you to buy music from iTMS but they are forcing you to buy an iPod if you want to play music you've bought from iTMS on a portable device (without burning to CD and ripping of course).
Better flight searching coming soon.
Had Apple chosen, it could have made the iPod a straightforward MP3 player like any other (iRiver, Creative Nomad etc.) Mount as hard drive, copy files, unmount, listen.
Do you even have an iPod? Because that's exactly how mine works. True the copying takes place inside of iTunes, but since that's where all my music is anyways why would I want to use the Finder?
Instead, Apple choice to "prefer" AAC encoded files and create the ITMS could be seen as a market limiting choice, as could it's decision to link iPod & iTunes. Any number of consumers could choose to buy iRiver's products instead, and have a theoretically "open" product.
What are you talking about? AAC wasn't even added to the iPod until the third generation of players (and subsequent firmware upgrades for previous models). Before that the iPod "preferred" mp3 files, and the majority of the files on *my* iPod are mp3s. Also, AAC is an open standard and can be added to ANY player out there if the manufacturer so chooses. On top of that, the iPod will play mp3, wav, and apple lossless files. Now I know ogg isn't included, but that's pretty open to me.
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
Considering that the iPod came out first and allowed you to play any format of music you wanted form any online music service where is the monopoly? iTunes came out later and has always been designed for use with two products - your computer and the iPod.
Now Apple entered the market late in the online music game and had to guarantee for the RIAA that they can protect music with DRM - something that, really no one else has been able to effectively do, even Apple's isn't all that effective. But at least they guaranteed to the record companies that the music will only be stored in two places the iPod and your computer. And that sharing of files wasn't going to be easy since you can only copy songs about 5-6 times before the copy sounds bad.
If he bought his music player prior to iTunes getting into the market then that was his choice and there were other places he could get his music just like other iPod owners but iTunes has always been specifically designed for the iPod. Not the other way around.
Who he should sue is RIAA for putting the restrictions in place first. How else would Apple have been able to offer music? Plus has Apple made any money on iTunes - not really because it wan't designed to be a money maker the iPod was.
The iPod is just a piece of hardware but it doesn't lock people into any music format. iTunes was designed to be the application for the iPod and your computer to use that music and it doesn't lock you into any format. You can rip CD's into MP3's or AAC - your choice! But in offering music Apple had to adhere to what the RIAA wanted else no record company would have entered into an agreement with Apple in offering music.
If they own 80% of the music downloads it's obiviously due to the fact they sold all those iPods but no one is locked into any format that they don't want. Don't want DRM AAC then buy CD's or purchase MP3's from a different source don't use the iTunes Music Store. Again consumer choice.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
"slashdotters" are never unanimous about anything ever. There is no hive mind.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Do people on /. even know what it means to be an illegal monopoly?
It doesn't just require a company to have 80, 90 or even 100 percent of the market. Just having a large markershare is not wrong or bad. If you have a great product that is holding marketshare on it's own merit then you are not an illegal monopoly.
For it to be illegal you have to use illegal tactics and your dominant position to hold that monopoly, or to use your monopoly in one area to gain a monopoly in another. Just having a popular product is not enough to be considered a monopoly, you have to abuse that position to maintain it.
Apple is surely not a monopoly in digital music, and they definitely have not done anything to this point to indicate an abuse of a dominant position through illegal means. They are using DRM just like every other device manufacturer and music distributer out there.
Microsoft on the other hand knowingly and intentionally used their position to maintain said position and to also branch into other areas.
Don't be ridiculous. Apple doesn't have even a remote monopoly on the online digital music market. I recently got about 50 songs from a different service (eMusic) and they even work on my iPod.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
> but I fail to see how a direct transcoder is going to do anything different.
Encoding twice causes the MP3 you create to be _much_ lower quality. AAC and MP3 both work by removing information from the sound stream that you can't hear; if that information has already been removed by an AAC encoder, the MP3 encoder's job becomes much harder, and so to fit the song into the desired bitrate it has to take more information away from the song. You will hear a lot more compression artifacts on songs that have been compressed twice.
This is why Apple needs to offer losslessly compressed songs. I personally would be willing to pay up to a quarter more (to cover the extra bandwidth that it would take to transfer them), because AAC is useless to me.
No, they were "convicted of" forcing PC manufacturers to buy Windows regardless of whether Windows was installed.
They may have settled a civil suit with Caldera, but that's a totally different matter.
I'm a pragmatist. Microsoft's monopoly resulted in bad products. Apple's "monopoly" results in good products. Apple's "monopoly" is, therefore, good (for me) and Microsoft's is bad.
Do you understand?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Yes, Apple can say that iTunes songs only work with th iPod. And create a .iPod format, or whatever. But thats not what they do, they say you get great high quality music. As it turns out, when you use one of their features(music burning) to do something that they advertise(burning music) it degrades the product you purchased.
I don't know if you're trolling or what, but burning the music to CD doesn't degrade the quality. You lose quality if you burn to CD then re-rip to some lossy format.
When you buy the song from iTMS, the quality has already been "degraded" from a CD. Burning to an audio disc yields the same music as playing it any other way.
The issue is that Apple will not license their DRM to play on anything other than apple computers and apple ipods.
Ummmm...you do know that iTunes runs on Windows too, right? Which means that their DRM will play on non-Apple computers?
It doesn't matter if a way around it is secret or not. Everyone knows that you can download Mozilla or Firefox, it didn't stop the courts from determining that Microsoft abused their monopoly by bundling IE with Windows (or Windows Media Player with Windows).
Where is the abuse of Anti-Trust laws?
Tying iTunes downloads to the iPod is anti-competitive, it is not possible to create a competing player to the iPod in regards to iTunes music because Apple won't license Fairplay to any other device makers.
But as I said in my first post, whether that is a violation of Anti-Trust law or not, depends on whether a court determines that iTunes or iPod enjoy a dominate/monopoly position in the market, and whether the court determines that that position is being abused. In short, it's up to the courts to decide.
What may be perfectly legal behaviour for them when they are not a monopoly, can become a violation of Anti-Trust laws once they are determined to possess a defacto or real monopoly. That's one of the things that makes Anti-Trust law so tricky.
This script is readily available on the internet. This is part of the hymn project, which is LEGAL. I DID NOT write this script!
.m4p files onto this script, and out comes mp3 with all your personal credentials deleted. You can play this anywhere, and share at will without worry.
Just download hymn.exe, faad.exe, lame.exe in the same folder as this VB script. Name it something.vbs. Drag your iTunes
'coded by man on street
Set oFs = CreateObject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set oShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set id3Options = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
binDir = oFs.GetFile(WScript.ScriptFullName).ParentFolder & "\"
workingDir = binDir & "working\"
decodedDir = binDir & "decoded\"
id3Options.Add "title", "--tt"
id3Options.Add "artist", "--ta"
id3Options.Add "album", "--tl"
id3Options.Add "date", "--ty"
id3Options.Add "track", "--tn"
id3Options.Add "genre", "--tg"
makeDirectory(workingDir)
makeDirectory(decoded Dir)
For Each arg in WScript.Arguments
walkArguments(arg)
Next
removeDirectory(workingDir)
Sub convertFile(fileName)
Set protectedFile = oFs.GetFile(fileName)
albumName = protectedFile.ParentFolder.Name
albumDir = decodedDir & albumName & "\"
makeDirectory(albumDir)
protectedFile.Copy(workingDir)
trackName = oFs.GetBaseName(protectedFile)
return1 = oShell.Run(quote(binDir & "hymn") & " " & quote(workingDir & trackName & ".m4p"), 1, TRUE)
return2 = oShell.Run(quote(binDir & "faad") & " " & quote(workingDir & trackName & ".m4a"), 1, TRUE)
Set LaunchedApp = oShell.Exec(quote(binDir & "faad") & " -i " & quote(workingDir & trackName & ".m4a"))
tagInfo = LaunchedApp.StdErr.ReadAll
For Each tag in id3Options.Keys
tagSwitches = tagSwitches & " " & id3Options.Item(tag) & " " & quote(getTag(tag, tagInfo))
Next
rem return3 = oShell.Run(quote(binDir & "lame") & tagSwitches & " " & quote(workingDir & trackName & ".wav") & " " & quote(albumDir & trackName & ".mp3"), 1, TRUE)
return3 = oShell.Run(quote(binDir & "lame") & " --ignore-tag-errors " & tagSwitches & " " & quote(workingDir & trackName & ".wav") & " " & quote(albumDir & trackName & ".mp3"), 1, TRUE)
End Sub
Sub walkArguments(arg)
If oFs.FolderExists(arg) Then
Set thisDir = oFs.GetFolder(arg)
Set subDirs = thisDir.SubFolders
Set theseFiles = thisDir.Files
If subDirs.Count > 0 Then
For Each dirName in subDirs
walkArguments(dirName)
Next
End If
For Each fileName in theseFiles
walkArguments(fileName)
Next
ElseIf oFs.FileExists(arg) Then
If oFs.GetExtensionName(arg) = "m4p" Then
convertFile(arg)
End If
End If
End Sub
Sub makeDirectory(dirName)
If Not oFs.FolderExists(dirName) Then
oFs.CreateFolder(dirName)
End If
End Sub
Sub removeDirectory(dirName)
If oFs.FolderExists(dirName) Then
oFs.GetFolder(dirName).Delete
End If
End Sub
Function quote(myString)
quote = Chr(34) & myString & Chr(34)
End Function
Function getTag(frameName, tagString)
Set oRegEx = New RegExp
oRegEx.Pattern = frameName & ".+\n"
frameNameAndValue = oRegEx.Execute(tagString).Item(0).Value
frameValue = Mid(frameNameAndValue, InStr(frameNameAndValue, ":") + 2)
getTag = Left(frameValue, Len(frameValue) - 2) 'Strip CR/LF
End Function
You can buy a license to thw WMA DRM format and build a player that supports it. There are several players on the market, from different manufacturers, that support protected WMA.
On the other hand, all the players that support FairPlay come from one manufacturer, and this manufacturer actively refuses to license FairPlay and combats all attempts to build interoperable devices.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
Sure, in the rosy colored picture of the world, we'd somehow get uncompressed audio with no DRM
try Audio Lunchbox
not only are they high-quality mp3s and oggs, but they actually have good music that doesn't come from the RIAA.
Wrong. Any conversion you make to or between lossy formats lowers the quality of the music.
Lossless formats do not suffer this problem. You can go from FLAC to SHN an infinite number of times without losing anything at all. CD audio also falls into this category ("for absolutely all practical purposes," just to please you pedants).
Good job getting modded insightful for a load of horseshit, though.
Game... blouses.
Ahh yes, common wisdom. IOW prejudice without any proof. I'm sure you can point me to any study actualy supporting that claim.
AAC and MP3 both work by removing information from the sound stream that you can't hear; if that information has already been removed by an AAC encoder, the MP3 encoder's job becomes much harder, and so to fit the song into the desired bitrate it has to take more information away from the song. You will hear a lot more compression artifacts on songs that have been compressed twice.
See, there is your problem. A decoder doesn't just drop the information the encoder leaves out, it puts back something close enough that most won't tell the difference.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck