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EU Officials Cautious on AntiTrust Issues
An anonymous reader writes "News.com has a piece up looking at reactions from EU officials to the iTMS antitrust case. The individuals involved are wary of cracking open the DRM that protects the music sold at the iTunes Music Store." From the article: "One of the most outspoken government advocates on the issue is Norwegian consumer ombudsman Bjorn Erik Thon, who said he would act soon depending on how Apple responds to a letter the government had sent the company. If Apple can require an iPod for songs via iTunes, then music, book and film companies might restrict their products to specific players too, he said."
One more time and all together now:
You don't have to use an iPod to play iTunes Music!
Options:
1. Play music on your computer (Windows or Mac)
2. Burn CD and play on your stereo
3. Re-rip to MP3
The main difference is - Apple won't license FairPlay to anyone. They will build a little itunes app that can run on a phone, but it's heavily crippled. Let's see Creative or Sandisk get a license to use Apple's DRM - won't happen unless a government body forces them to.
However, with CSS, they will license the technology to just about anyone willing to spend the cash. That's why there are so many cheap no-name DVD players at Wal-Mart and such.
Er, Norway is not in the EU, so frankly what Bjorn Erik Thon thinks is of no importance whatsoever to what the EU competition officials might or might not do.
No, it's not. What Microsoft did in the 90s was leveraging a monopoly, and I'll explain below.
You don't explain how exactly Apple's DRM is more strong-arm than Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer. To use an iPod or iTunes, you don't even have to ever touch FairPlay, and just listen to your own MP3s. Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer was targeted because it was a part of a series of behavior that included:
1.) Coercive OEM deals that threatened Windows license removals if manufacturers included rival software on new systems, including Netscape. Because of Windows dominance, a license removal would be commercial suicide.
2.) Vaporware announcements designed to lure customers away from buying existing competing products.
3.) Purposeful incompatibilities designed to make competing products appear as malfunctioning.
The big one is #1, and every time someone compares the iPod/iTunes tie-up to Microsoft's monopoly abuses of the 90s, I have to call them on it and point out Apple is doing absolutely no such thing. Apple is not calling up retail stores and telling them that if they don't remove all non-Apple music players from their shelves, Apple will no longer sell iPods through them. Apple doesn't really do anything about competing products. They, for the most part, completely ignore them and just let their own product design shine through.
This is ridiculous. There is no abuse of customers going on. You're not forced to buy music from Apple, and if you do, it is of your own volition. You may also be disappointed to learn that if you buy an XBox 360, you can only play XBox games and not Playstation 2 games, even though they both use the same DVD format. Nobody is forcing the customer to do anything they don't want to do.
You haven't explained how anybody's choice is being limited. You have free choice to buy music from Apple, with the implications that their service works only with other Apple products, as is their right. Or you have the free choice not to buy Apple's music, and just use MP3s you rip yourself. You also have the choice to buy any one of the myriad of competing music players that use PlaysForSure and other services. I fail to see what consumer choice is being limited here.
iTunes is specifically designed as part of Apple's vertical solution strategy, a medium for interacting with the iPod, and the iTunes Music Store specifically exists to provide music for people who have purchased the iPod. Apple is simply providing services to increase the value of an iPod to potential customers, just as they ship iLife only for Macs. It's adding value to a hardware purchase, just like when Nintendo releases first-party games to increase the value of a Nintendo hardware purchase. I may want to play New Super Mario Bros. on a PSP, but I'm not going to consider it monopoly abuse that I can't.
"Sufferin' succotash."
This is stupid. DRM and free competition are fundamentally incompatible.
First they want DRM, now they whine that it's not *their* DRM? Tough luck.