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."

Comments

Re:Brand == market?? Huh?

[danaris]

After reading some posts here, I think the idea is that there's a tight integration of iTunes and the iPod. The only real way to buy music legally online (for the vast majority of music) is through iTunes. IIRC music from iTunes will only play on iPod music players. Sure you can burn it to CD, and then re-rip to mp3, but I think that's really missing the point. The vast majority of consumers just aren't going to go through all that hassle

1. You can buy music online from other music stores--Rhapsody, Napster, etc (I don't know all of them, 'cause I don't listen to mainstream music, but they're there).
2. You can play iTMS music on any Mac or Windows computer (I think they've got iTunes running on Linux under Crossover Office, but I'm not sure), as well as on any iPod.
3. You can also burn it to CD to listen to it on any ordinary CD player.
4. There are also programs available to strip the DRM, but, as you note, most people aren't going to bother.

The only reason that there's seen to be a problem here is that the iPod is the most popular digital music player, by a long way. If it held only, say, 35% of the market, with (for example) the Nomad taking another 30% and the other players splitting the remaining 35%, no one would be complaining about this. The iPod has become most popular purely through marketing and good design, not through any shady underhanded deals, like telling OEMs they won't be getting any more iPods if they sell other music players. Apple has leveraged nothing but its aesthetics (and a certain amount of cool-factor) to gain this spot in the market.

Which is still only a monopoly if you define the "market" to be the iTunes Music Store.

Dan Aris