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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?"
Bogus. One has to wonder if this is an effort by some company to force Apple to open up the iPod without having to pay Apple to license it like HP has. Somebody somewhere is always trying to get something for free.
.mp3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4 and AAC along with an Apple lossless format.
The reality is that Apple has placed copy protection on the songs sold through the iTMS as the mandate of the record industry just as Napster and Microsoft has with their music formats. If you will remember, iTunes came out before the iTMS and any songs sold through the iTMS. Therefore, if you obtain your music somewhere else other than the iTMS, if you chose to use iTunes (nothing that says you have to use iTunes either) you can use any portable hard drive music source that runs OS X or Windows. There is nothing saying that you cannot do this on any device you can find that will runs those alternatives. Apple is not forcing anybody to purchase songs from the iTMS. Quite the contrary, they have made iTunes flexible enough that it can play
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"Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa," the lawsuit said.
Mr Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who "was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod" if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to.
While I cannot comment on the legality of them bundling and tying the device to their store I can certainly say that the less tech savvy are forced to use an iPod if they would like to listen to their iTunes music on the go.
The second you download your first album and you realize that you can't play it on a portable device other than a CD player you wonder if you shouldn't just go out and get that iPod so that you can continue to get your music legally... Most people would think it really sucks to pay $10 for an album and then not be able to listen on the go without burning to a CD and then re-ripping to WAV>MP3.
It's not that I didn't expect this to happen with Apple though. They have always promoted lock-in. For now it is working as a benefit. Will they continue to be the leaders in the market though? Only time will tell if people begin to shy away from being forced into using their formats and their hardware. Sadly, in this day and age I have little faith in the consumer and their knowledge and desire to have freedom of choice.
I know it is bad form to go against Apple on Slashdot (especially with the editors apparently being paid off to put iPod on the front page at least once a day) but why can't we all be against them promoting a format that locks you into their hardware? Aren't we all for open standards that works across multiple platforms? Just because their device is sleek, sexy, and "the in thing" we should all just stop and pay homage? Maybe once MSFT opens the DOC format or switches it over to XML then Apple can open up AAC and we can all be happy?
Me? I'm going to stick to downloading and listening to my *free* and *legal* music from etree, FurthurNET, etc, and convert it over to MP3 to listen on the go. I just wish that everyone else would too. At least I know I am not supporting *multiple* monopolies when I listen to the freely distributable music that I do.
YMMV.
If you feel limited by the choices offered by the iPod, why not get a different portable media player?
If you feel limited by the choices offered by the iTunes Music Store, why not use a different online music store?
This would only be a "lock-in" if, say, the iPod was the only portable media player that ran on a Mac, or if the iTunes Music Store was the only way to buy music online through a Mac... but I don't think it would even be then, because if it's that important to you, you could always go buy a Windows box.
Love the Third Amendment?
You mean like how if you want to run OSX, you're stuck with their overpriced (yet sexy) hardware?
SURPISE people: Apple makes its money through hardware. OSX is only there to bring in sales for the computers, and iTunes is only there to sell the iPods.
What'd he expect? Its not like they don't make it clear that the iPod and iTunes go together.
no comment
Hmmmm...what's next? Suing all of the major record labels because they release their music on CDs? After all, I'm *forced* to buy a portable CD player of I want to take my music with me. Hmmm...maybe Sony should be implicated in this as well!
So I download musinc from iTunes, burn it to a CD, then rip it as an MP3. That doesn't sound like lock-in to me -- it sounds like Apple had to accomadte the demands of the labels in order to even begin to sell the music in the first place!
What is monopolistic is not even being able to burn a CD or even change the encoding of a particular piece of music because of DRM, such as WMA.
What exactly do you mean by "Don't touch this button?"
Sorry, but the problem isn't with Apple. I'm sure they'd love to be able to do that and keep these dumb lawsuits from appearing. The real problem is the music industry, who probably told apple they couldn't do that (i.e. export to mp3 from iTunes).
If you have gripes with the iTunes store, you need to take it up with the music industry, they're the one calling the shots. It's amazing Apple was able to get cd burning in there, don't be an idiot and ruin it for the rest of us.
IMO this guy reminds me of the idiot shining a laser at a plane flying over head... You get way more attention than you were expecting.
The only way the iTunes store could possibly export audio from it is to convert to wma, but then they'd have to license Microsoft technology, and that's just... wrong.
"Locked out Real after Real cracked Apple's Fairplay code violating the license. Sure, any company would have done the same."
Same old arguments man... As if microsoft didn't have a "license" to protect DOS back when they illegally changed the API's.
Don't get me started. Real didn't break any legally binding "licenses" if any at all. They simply allowed their music to be played on the iPod. Period.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
RIAA will not allow Apple or anyone else to sell music distributed by RIAA member corporations in digital form online without DRM. In the United States, or anywhere else copyright law will let them prevent it.
Are you honestly suggesting iTMS could be successful if people couldn't buy the latest Britney Spears single from it? Independent music is all well and good, but people want the music RIAA owns. Their sales may be down, but they're still huge.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
They could license their implementation of Fairplay to other portable MP3 player manufacturers like iRiver and Creative.
But they won't do that, because iTunes is designed from the get-go to drive iPod sales through this AAC/Fairplay lockin.
To get the best experience you need iTunes, an iPod, and a Mac. You have to jump through hoops, degrading the audio quality of the music in the process to use the music you've purchased through iTunes on anything else.
These barriers are in place specifically to drive people to get an iPod. They are anti-competitive by design. Whether the iTunes/iPod combination provides a sufficient market dominance to be ruled a monopoly and subject to Anti-Trust law, is a matter for the courts to decide.
What nobody seems to realize is that Apple wants to take on the role of 'the [music/show/media] business' by providing next generation tools and services to link artists with consumers. They BELIEVE in DRM, but they believe they can mediate the degree and kind of DRM better than the music/film giants.
If you look at how the puzzle is taking shape, an artist will be able to create art using Apple tools (Garage Band to Logic), market them using Apple services (iTMS), and sell them to Apple customers (which is just about EVERYONE when it comes to music and iPods). This is all planned to be COMPLETELY independent from the music industry. What works for music now will work for video later. Apple is a product development company via VERTICAL INTEGRATION. They find basic components that aren't being fully exploited (like DSPs), and they cobble together whatever else is available to force that component to serve user experience in (hopefully) some life-altering way. That is what "Insanely Great" means to Apple in practical terms.
DRM is a tool to incite artists to want to put their work out through iTMS instead of the traditional routes.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
They use monopolistic and unfair market practices by tying the use of the iTunes Music Store in to owning an iPod. Two different markets, really. One is online music sales, the other is portable music players. Both of these have competition in other fields, but tying them to each other such that using one means you almost have to have the other is indeed illegal.
This could be avoided entirely by Apple simply licensing their implementation of Fairplay to other portable music player manufacturers. They have thus far refused to do that.
I don't expect them to sell non-DRM'd music, and I don't expect them to sell anything other than AAC. But players like iRiver and the Zen and such would love to support the iTunes Music Store. Building in AAC support they can do on their own. Building in Fairplay and DRM support they must license from Apple. Either that or they have to go the Real Player route and DIY the thing. Which leaves them open to Apple breaking compatibility at any time.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
A google search for "Apple Fairplay licensing" gives quite the opposite impression, one that Apple is on the verge of licensing FairPlay to Macrovision for copy-protected CD's, and Motorola for use in certain cell phones, for instance.
There is never once, in any of the articles I found, any mention that Apple is contractually obligated NOT to license Fairplay.
Perhaps you could site something to back up your assertion.
If they used un-DRMed music, they would not be able to get deals with any major record labels. And Apple didn't just "not consult" with Real, they deliberately and maliciously broke what Real had done as soon as they could. Though it goes against my very nature to be supporting Real, especially against Apple, they are in the right here.
I am trolling
No argument here. But I don't think all the complaining is "fair". Some is. Some is just sour grapes. Tough luck for now, I seyz.
The iTMS is an optional service offered to users of iTunes and/or iPod. That's it. Users of iTunes and/or iPod have a myriad of non-Apple ways to load music into the app and/or device.
If you want full control over your digitally downloaded media, you'd better go knock on the RIAA and MPAA's doors, not Apple's. It's been well documented that Jobs brought the music industry to this point kicking and screaming. Requiring Apple to police the use of their DRM iTMS files on every 3rd-party device is asking way too much (at least for now, likely). What happens if a licensee of FairPlay slips up and allows the DRM to be more easily defeated that it is now? What happens if they do it deliberately?
You'll have to cite a similar MS situation that we non-MS users have yelled and screamed about. I can think of many non-similar situations:
* Marketing a supposedly "compatible" office suite on another platform when said company is in full control of the closed document standard and having it not be 100% compatible. They certainly work better together now, but the damage was done long ago when they didn't so well. Should we fault them? Maybe not as a money-making company. But Apple offers no deception about how you can get music on your iPod and what the optional iTMS works with (and doesn't).
* Leveraging OS dominance in the browser wars coupled with poor standards adherence. This would have never been a big issue if they would have bothered making IE feature compatible cross-platform or make it render emerging standards *well*. They didn't. Should they have? Well, this year certainly will tell with Firefox on the rise. Compare to iTunes. Apple made them *identical* on both platforms. iPod works *identical* on both platforms. If people switch to Apple machines because of using iTunes and iPod, it's not because of enhanced features or performance on OS X vs. Windows.
* There are plenty of other examples where the dominance of Windows is guaranteed in the near term because of exclusive, closed apps/file types/"standards". Access and Outlook come to mind immediately, but I'm sure others can cite many others from the enterprise sector. You can't compare this to an optional service that is "locked" into using Apple's technology.
And yes, even as an iTunes/iPod user I'd like to use my music purchased from iTMS more freely than I can now--*legally*. I'd like to share my iTMS albums over iTunes with my co-workers, for example, but I can't right now. Their machine would have to use up one of my authorization slots. I'd like the option to convert to other formats without going to CD.
But the fact is, I can't grouse about the way Apple has implemented all this. Technically, it is fantastic and nearly bug-free. The features provided are innovative and have lead me to use my music in ways I never did 5 years ago. I haven't usually found MS technology to work this well or be so inspiring, even when I'm using Windows.