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Apple Antitrust Case Gets Green Light
SuperAlgae writes "The recent antitrust suit against Apple regarding iTunes and iPod has been approved to go forward. This is only the beginning of the process, but it does bring up some interesting questions about what defines a monopoly." From the article: "Slattery claimed that Apple's system freezes out competitors, and while one antitrust expert called it a long shot, another antitrust law professor said that the key to such a lawsuit would be convincing a court that a single product brand like iTunes is a market in itself separate from the rest of the online music market."
There is a difference between monopolies. The ones that are reached using innovation (and marketing) and the ones reached using illegal (and unethically) means. Of course, there is a blurred line inbetween.
Animoog.org
It should be "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot". International word for "W" is "Whiskey". WILCO is a military abbreviation standing for "Will Comply".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Actually Monopolies are illegal only if they adveresly affect the consumer due to detrimental behavior that prevents innovation in the field. So you could have a total monopoly but if you are still innovating and allowing others to innovate in the field, and not removing the chance for others to compete but you are just that darn good at what you do.. it's not illegal. If all consumers bought nothing but Total Cereal for a breakfast cereal, and nobody ever wanted anybody elses you couldn't break up Total(or whatever company makes the cereal) simply because everybody else wanted it. If they then used that fact to lower the price on Total any time anybody else came out wiht a cereal, to run the other company into the ground(even taking a loss for a time) then it would be an illegal monopoly.
Actually their warranty service treated me pretty well. Ten months after I bought my iPod it started acting funny. I sent it in to Apple, they sent me a new one for the price of shipping.
That seems pretty damn anti-competitive to me.
Supporting Real's products is not Apple's perogative nor does blocking it make them "anti-comeditive". If Apple starts signing big labels to exlusive contracts, then we can talk.