Antitrust Suit Filed To Halt Apple 'Music Monopoly'

Dotnaught writes with word of an anti-trust lawsuit filed against Apple late last month. Information Week has the story, a suit charging the company with maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market. "The complaint goes beyond software licensing politics and charges Apple with deliberately designing its iPod hardware to be incompatible with WMA. One of the third-party components in iPods, the Portal Player System-On-A-Chip, supports WMA, according to the complaint. 'Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format,' the complaint states. 'Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as crippling a product, and software that does this is known as crippleware.'"

Comments

Spluh

[Dixie_Flatline]

Another lame lawsuit. :/

Re:Spluh

[The_Fire_Horse]

I'll say it's lame.

I hate propriety formats and limitations but now they want to FORCE companies to build in features or supporting a format - get bent.

Re:Spluh

[Romancer]

And kinda funny since the Zune shipped without support for Microsofts own "Play for Sure" music.

Where do these people get this stuff?

Shipping a product without support for a desirable format? WTF? This is the whole reason we have the choice to buy hundreds of other brands of mp3 players that support both wma and ogg and mp3 as well as iTunes. I see no monopoly here.

Re:Spluh

[treeves]

You do have a choice not to buy an iPod, however, you can't use AAC format files on some other players, so you can't put music from iTunes on them.

Re:Spluh

[Beardo the Bearded]

I don't really see how that's a problem either.

If your mp3 player doesn't load as a "mass storage device" and let you just swap the materials back and forth, then

YOU BOUGHT THE WRONG PLAYER.

End of story.

(Sorry about shouting, but the iPod people may not hear so well anymore.)

Re:Spluh

[mrsteveman1]

Being unable to put iTunes music on another companies player doesn't make Apple a monopoly.

Re:Spluh

[HTH NE1]

You do have a choice not to buy an iPod, however, you can't use AAC format files on some other players, so you can't put music from iTunes on them. So choices have consequences? What a revelation!

iTunes does have music in file formats other than AAC.

Re:Spluh

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

If your mp3 player doesn't load as a "mass storage device" and let you just swap the materials back and forth, then YOU BOUGHT THE WRONG PLAYER.

Yeah, because every time I turn on my device I really want to wait while it scans the ID3 information from 40 GB of MP3 files before it can display a menu of available tracks... that kind of logic worked great in the days of 128 MB flash players, but doesn't keep up with current tech very well...

Re:Spluh

[EveLibertine]

It seems the post you're replying to was worded in such a way as to cause some confusion.

The posters problem isn't likely that he cannot place the files on his mp3 player, as would be the case if you took what he was saying literally. He likely can place the files on his player just fine, but can he play them? The problem our dear poster seemed to be getting at is that the only mp3 player that will play songs protected with Apple's DRM scheme is the iPod. He would likely only run into this problem if he had the "correct" music player (for the sake of this argument, it can be anything that isn't an iPod), that would load as a mass storage device, allowing him to place whatever he pleased on it. Then he might later discover that his fancy new music files from iTunes wouldn't play on it, since it has been fucked by DRM. So the correct response would be: "You bought the wrong music."

This isn't the simple case of buying a DVD player so you can watch DVD's. This is the case of "Buy our brand's DVD Player so you can listen to our brand of DVDs". This type of behavior makes me get stabby. (Sorry for not shouting)

Re:Spluh

[dangitman]

Why would I want to load my player in that fashion? I thought technology was supposed to make tasks easier and quicker, not more difficult and slower?

Re:Spluh

[jedidiah]

1985 called.

It says that there is this newfangled thing called "multitasking". You might want to give it a try.

Re:Spluh

[shellbeach]

If your mp3 player doesn't load as a "mass storage device" and let you just swap the materials back and forth, then YOU BOUGHT THE WRONG PLAYER. True. I've been idly looking for an mp3 player for some time, that would allow me to transfer music files as a mass storage device, but which would also give me music database management options based on the id3 tag.

The funny thing is that I finally found it all in a bog-standard Nokia phone. Only a 2Gb storage limit, it needs a 2.5mm to 3.5mm headphone adapter, and you have to manually tell it to rebuild the id3 tag database if you change the files. But still -- this is exactly what mp3 players ought to do, and its certainly closer to what I was looking for than the standalone options that I've seen. Why couldn't the big players -- Apple, Microsoft, Sony -- make something that works as well?

Re:Spluh

[vux984]

If your mp3 player doesn't load as a "mass storage device" and let you just swap the materials back and forth, then

YOU BOUGHT THE WRONG PLAYER.

Err... I bought an ipod precisely for the extra features, like smart playlist syncing, collecting play stats, being able to rate songs on the ipod itself, create multiple playlists with overlapping songs but only have one copy of the song on the disk, etc, etc.

All that pretty much requires the ipod style 'database'. I don't -want- to swap the materials back and forth manually. TYVM.

I -do- agree it sucks that music is sort of hidden on the ipod, and can't be played if its not in the ipod's database, and would welcome the ability to rebuild the ipod database on the fly as a feature addition. And there are other features I'd add too.

But between choosing manual song and folder management vs ipods way... I choose the ipod. No question.

Re:Spluh

[Arthur B.]

Shhhhhhs of course not. The companies are the one forcing you to use their proprietary format because the alternatives don't look as good, silly you. Please get a lobotomy, and you'll look at antitrust laws like a good /.er

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, but that's not what this suit is claiming. They claim that not being able to put WMA music on an Apple iPod means Apple is abusing their monopolistic powers.

First they have to prove that Apple is a monopoly (WHAT?!?), then they have to show that Apple is abusing those powers.

Re:Spluh

[Toonol]

My own experience is that the cheaper the electronics, the more off-brand, the more useful it is. Apple? Sony? Microsoft? They do what they can to squeeze you into certain formats, certain online stores, etc...

But the $20 mp3 player from a chinese manufacturer I've never heard of before or after... well, that can play almost everything. Drop files into the drive and it'll play them. Same holds true for DVD players and video formats.

Re:Spluh

[donut1005]

I get so tired of people asking which iPod they should get. I always suggest trying another brand besides Apple. People don't understand the limitations of the proprietary package they are buying into, and usually end up not caring even after my lecture. (I promise, it's a gentle lecture) I don't think there is as much a monopoly as Apple's marketing has worked. So it can't play some other company's proprietary file format, your loss for buying in!

Re:Spluh

[Duhavid]

"My own experience is that the cheaper the electronics, the more off-brand, the more useful it is."

Sure. Because the small/offbrand/ etc company has to worry about getting you to buy
the product, and they do that by making it useful to you. The larger company does
not have to worry so much about this, their main worry is in
A: their bonuses,
B: the investors/wall street,
and so, work to extract the last penny from the buyer, without worrying about providing commensurate value.

Re:Spluh

[Angostura]

You might be right, but my own experience with cheap off-brand media players is that the menu/command structure is usually so arcane that I can't get it to do a bloody thing,

Re:Spluh

[Nullav]

Forcing a company to add something is one thing, but it's completely different to let a company actively disable something.
Not that it matters though, consumers are sheep; if I bought an iPod on name alone, I'd either get it 'free' or buy it from iTunes. "Oh, MS has cheaper songs? Well I just spent $250 on my iPod Super-Hyper-Pico Plus."

Back on the topic of actively disabling WMA, how about requiring manufacturers doing more to point out supported formats? Maybe a spiky red bubble on the front of the box saying what's supported? That way, it would look like some marvelous extra, like 'batteries included' or 'one free song download'.

Re:Spluh

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

You do have a choice not to buy an iPod, however, you can't use AAC format files on some other players, so you can't put music from iTunes on them.

But you can play AAC files on some other players. So long as their are others where you can or there is nothing stopping a manufacturer from implementing AAC, that is not an antitrust issue. The Zune, for example, supports AAC. Now the DRM is another issue, but it is mostly mitigated because of Apple's push to remove it and because it was not Apple's choice to add DRM, but a requirement of the RIAA (cartel repeatedly convicted of antitrust abuse). Further, none of this matters at all unless someone can show Apple has monopoly influence on the online music download market, which no one has shown.

Re:Spluh

[Run4yourlives]

Huh? What proprietary format? I've been playing mp3's on my iPod for years.

Re:Spluh

[Run4yourlives]

Damn, I just realized you were being sarcastic. Douh.

Re:Spluh

[Neil Hodges]

You could just organize your music in a meaningful way. I'd suggest Artist - Album/# - Title.Extension.

I've been doing this for ages with 25 GB of music on my iPod, and just use Amarok to generate playlists (plain M3U), and Perl scripts to adjust them accordingly.

Re:Spluh

[Neil Hodges]

This makes me think someone should sell iPods with RockBox pre-installed, and with an easy-to-use updater for those who can't figure out how to extract a zip file. Though, the new iPod Classic and later won't work with RockBox...

Re:Spluh

[LionMage]

you can't use AAC format files on some other players, so you can't put music from iTunes on them

Minor clarification/correction: Apple's iTunes tracks are sold as AAC files, true, but the non-plus tracks (the ones that have DRM in them) are actually AAC files inside a DRM wrapper. Since it's technically illegal in the United States to circumvent the iTunes DRM (or at the very least illegal to possess or disseminate the "circumvention tools" necessary to liberate your iTunes tracks), these DRM-encrusted files won't play even on a 3rd-party player that supports AAC.

The iTunes-Plus tracks should be bog-standard AAC (though they still have personally-identifiable meta-data in them, so don't share them); such tracks should be playable on any AAC-capable player on the market. AAC is actually gaining some momentum outside Apple -- some DVD-Audio discs include AAC versions of the tracks in their data folders, and the PlayStation 3 rips CDs to its internal hard drive in AAC format by default. More portable players support AAC as an alternative to MP3 every day. This will accelerate once some of the key patents expire, but the licensing fees don't seem too bad right now.

There's nothing preventing you from changing iTunes' settings to rip your CDs into MP3 instead of AAC; those MP3 files can then be put on any portable player that supports MP3. I'm guessing, though, that when you wrote about "put[ting] music from iTunes on them," you meant tracks purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

Re:Spluh

[Flipao]

Yeah, because every time I turn on my device I really want to wait while it scans the ID3 information from 40 GB of MP3 files before it can display a menu of available tracks... that kind of logic worked great in the days of 128 MB flash players, but doesn't keep up with current tech very well...

I'm sorry but that is just not true: My player has a music indexing system, it only checks for changes and adds/removes data as required. I'm yet to have a single problem with it and takes 5-10 seconds to update after adding/removing a few dozen tracks. It seems "that kind of logic" works all too well nowadays.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

1998 wants its joke back.

Re:Spluh

[treeves]

Yes.
Thank you for clarifying.
I can burn a CD of tracks I purchased from iTunes, encoding as mp3, and then rip and transfer those to my mp3 player, but it's a hassle, wastes CDs and time, and degrades the audio.

Re:Spluh

[Toonol]

Yeah, they can be lacking a lot of polish. I guess that I like them because they're like the type of device _I_ would build. Versatile, but with an interface that makes a Commodore 64 look cool.

Re:Spluh

[GigG]

I can't play my VHS tapes on my DVD player. Damn those bastards.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

> This makes me think someone should sell iPods with RockBox pre-installed

Yeah, Apple's lawyers are going to have noooo problem with that, nosiree...

Re:Spluh

[badasscat]

You could just organize your music in a meaningful way. I'd suggest Artist - Album/# - Title.Extension.

I've been doing this for ages with 25 GB of music on my iPod, and just use Amarok to generate playlists (plain M3U), and Perl scripts to adjust them accordingly.

That sounds so much easier than just dragging my mp3's into iTunes and, well, being done.

Oh wait, no it doesn't.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have tried a car analogy.

Re:Spluh

[Lars T.]

You do have a choice not to buy an iPod, however, you can't use AAC format files on some other players, so you can't put music from iTunes on them. That would make sense if you had no choice not to buy from the iTS - alas ...

Re:Spluh

[CleverBoy]

But you WOULD be forcing a company to ADD something.

You may want to note that the chip allows the real-time decoding of WMA. This is so that WMA doesn't need to rely on the software to do all of the decoding work (which in essense makes playback on an otherwise less capable CPU possible or cuts down the CPU cycles necessary thus conserving power use).

In order to take advantage of this capability, you need to write software that accesses it. Moreover, if you introduce support for that format, you'll need to support it long after you decide not to use a particular chipset and lose the extra advantages that it supplies.

Before you go around believing the nonsense you read in a frivolous lawsuit (that not supporting all the features of a chipset is tantamount to DISABLING said features)... you should stop and think whether it even makes logical sense.

Right? You're mixing up SOFTWARE with HARDWARE.

Re:Spluh

[mfnickster]

> This isn't the simple case of buying a DVD player so you can watch DVD's. This is the case of "Buy our brand's DVD Player so you can listen to our brand of DVDs".

So basically it's no different than what Sony did with their MiniDisc format?

Re:Spluh

[Malevolyn]

Actually, that's exactly what iTunes does, except much faster because... well, let's face it. My computer is probably a lot faster than your phone. Sure, it takes a few seconds to send the database to the iPod, but if you're so busy that you can't afford the time to do that, you probably can't afford the time to listen to music, either.

And then there's Rockbox, which mounts as a mass storage device, then lets you rebuild the database. Of course when you've got a fat drive in your player, this takes a while. My 80 gig iPod with over 14000 songs took about 30 minutes to rebuild the database, as opposed to the 30-45 seconds to just copy it from my computer to my iPod. Basically, if you want a lot of storage, you need a prebuilt database. And since people dropping $340-400 on a portable music player probably have a good reason to want 80 to 160 gigs, I don't think it's be good business practice for everyone to try and "simpler" model. Sure, there's a niche that likes to manage their music manually. But now that we're in the future and tiny hard drives are holding more data, manual is simply not an option. At least, not a painless option.

Re:Spluh

[Lars T.]

1985 called.

It says that there is this newfangled thing called "multitasking". You might want to give it a try.

So how does "multitasking" make scanning the ID3 information from 40 GB of MP3 files before it can display a menu of available tracks any faster? No, being able to play a round of Solitaire isn't the answer.

Re:Spluh

[catwh0re]

My favourite part is Apple's own website detailing which 3rd party players work fine with iTunes: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93548

You can't even encrypt your own music even if you wanted to.. unlike say Windows media player which used to lock your music to your computer by default.

Re:Spluh

[Lars T.]

I find it odd that people like you never complained that those "cheap" WMAs couldn't (and still can't) be played on Macs, neither can you even purchase them from most of the stores when you dare use a Mac. Typical monopoly behavior by Apple.

Re:Spluh

[xigxag]

I suspect that some of the reason the small off-brand manufacturers devices are so useful is because they don't bother with such insignificant details as licensing (and the requisite fees). So they don't have to disable features the content "owners" don't want you to have. Really, they're hardware versions of allofmp3.com

And let's be fair. The iPod got huge by being useful to a hell of a lot of people, namely the vast majority that wants a round-edged managed experience. If the $20 player was useful to the masses, it would be #1 on the market. But, in cutting corners, they also tend to cut out things like english-language manuals, product testing, ergonomics, etc. You might not be able to drop a XviD onto your iPod, but download a video from iTMS, and you know it will work, period. Meanwhile, your XviD might or might not work on the off-brand player, even spending an hour with the conversion software.

Re:Spluh

[Malevolyn]

Adding WMA support to the iPod will only lead to more antitrust suits because it will give Apple an even greater hold on the digital music market. Why buy any other music player when the iPod supports MP3, AAC, and WMA? It's a pretty slippery slope and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the aim of this suit.

Re:Spluh

[Egdiroh]

This isn't the simple case of buying a DVD player so you can watch DVD's. This is the case of "Buy our brand's DVD Player so you can listen to our brand of DVDs". This type of behavior makes me get stabby. (Sorry for not shouting)

Ummm, DVD is a brand. There are lots of optical drives that can read "dvd" media but can not play movie DVDs because no one paid to be part of the DVD brand. So it's a bit ironic that you chose DVD as the basis of your example.

If the suit is about not being able to play DRM'ed WMA, then unless the chips come with the DRM secrets and licenses to distribute them as DRM'ed WMA players that apple has not crippled anything, as that is they only have one of the 3 things required in their product as provided by their suppliers. Also since they have not always and may not always use that chip then I think they are more in the clear. I think they'd get in more trouble if they supported the format then dropped it when they switched to a chip that didn't support it any more.

There are also 2 things that I think puts apple really in the clear. their store sells some DRM free music, and there is another store (amazon) that sells digital music that can be played on iPod. I think those two things put the blame for all digital music not ubiquitously playable at the feet of the stores that universally chose formats that can't be played ubiquitously, and at labels that require that the gets sold be sold in a format that is not ubiquitously playable. After all amazon sells songs that can play on the ipod, and DRM-free songs from itunes will play on the zune.

There might be a genuine hurt to society here, but apple are not the ones that are ultimately to blame. Sue the music companies for stripping away your fair use.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

Also kind of funny since:

Most other players ship only with support for protected WMA
Many other options for music content exist that ONLY distribute in protected WMA or also wide open MP3 (amazon)
Users who burn their music cannot do so in the protected AAC format
Many other players support the AAC non-protected format

And:

Microsoft arguably maintains an illegal monopoly with items such as exchange. There is no option, at the present moment, that integrates any non-PC or non microsoft email/calender/addressbook to integrate with exchange. You always lack features like free-busy time as example. Microsoft has about as much of the email server market as Apple does the ipod market. Sounds like Microsoft sour grapes.

Microsoft arguably maintains an illegal monopoly in their office suite in 2008 when they lock out alternate platforms from using vbscript....upon which things like macros function and many other popular features. What about that linux version? Still waiting?

Reality is there is plenty of choice, and DRM music is going the way of the dodo. Who gives a rats petute if WMV/A isn't supported...in time it will be irrelevant.

Re:Spluh

[Malevolyn]

I find it strange that everyone's saying that Apple is actively disabling support for WMAs, like it supports them natively. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not like the iPod is using fmod. Therefore, the more accurate description would be that Apple is actively not adding support for the WMA format.

I don't see the 360 supporting Wii software anytime soon, and I don't see how that's much different.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

You use a cache and display what's in the cache. You use a background thread to go through the 40GB (and you can heavily filter what you check based on new directory entries and changed files) and have it update a copy of the cache. When you're done with the cache update, you signal the display to refresh the list from the updated cache. Alternatively the background thread sends cache update notices to the GUI thread as it finds changes and the GUI thread updates the cache and display at the same time. Or you have a separate DB thread from both the display and change scanner threads.

It used to be web browsers wouldn't display a page until all component files were downloaded. Now IE, Firefox, and others let you read part of a page even if a 20MB Flash advertising monstrosity is still loading. No solitaire needed.

Re:Spluh

[treeves]

Of course I have a choice not to buy from iTunes store, and in fact I've made that choice, but I still have a right to comment about it. It's not like I'm suing Apple or something.

Re:Spluh

[Duhavid]

"because they don't bother with such insignificant details as licensing"

Maybe, maybe not.
In my recollection, though, the first to start offering combination DVD/VCR
units where the smaller players. They may have skipped licensing to keep
costs down, they may not have. I would expect not, though, as they could
have been kept from market if they had. The guys putting a hard drive
in a recording unit look to be the smaller players ( panasonic comes to mind ),
not small enough to skip licensing, I would expect.

And none of this reflects on the idea of what master is being served, wall street
or the end buyer. Which explains ( perhaps ) the iPod success, namely, a
correct focus on what people want, rather than on what the company can
produce.

Re:Spluh

[__aaqvdr516]

You could have bought a Creative Labs: Zen Vision M(or W) which does all of those things you mentioned. It also supports WMA, divx, and xvid (no ogg or ogm though:-/ can't beat em all). Oh, it also mounts as a mass storage device so that those of us who actually manage their music instead of dumping it all in one folder have just as easy a time doing the old copy/paste as importing via management software.

Re:Spluh

[RossumsChild]

Err... I bought an ipod precisely for the extra features, like smart playlist syncing, collecting play stats, being able to rate songs on the ipod itself, create multiple playlists with overlapping songs but only have one copy of the song on the disk, etc, etc.

All that pretty much requires the ipod style 'database'. I don't -want- to swap the materials back and forth manually. TYVM.

Wait. . .what?

If all that's true, why can my instance of Rythmbox running on an Ubuntu desktop machine, looking at an external hard drive. . . do these things?

Maybe because the necessity for what you call an "ipod style" database doesn't preclude the use of manually swappable materials and the use of sorted folders. They're not mutually exclusive, and whoever convinced you they are is a liar.

Wake up: you bought into the hype without doing your research, and now you're defending a product that arbitrarily limits your flexibility to manage your own music collection.

Re:Spluh

[Dutch_Cap]

Duh, it could dynamically expand the menu as more files are scanned. Also, thanks to the modern marvels of caching, only new files would have to be scanned.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally own an MP3 player than conveniently allows me to switch between MTP and MSD so that I can connect the device as a mass storage device or use Windows Media Player to synch my music.

Even using the mass storage device method, it is still possible to create playlists that overlap the songs included on the device without needing mulitple copies of the song.

The advantage of using the device as a mass storage device is that I can use my MP3 player, which I pretty much have on me at all times, to store anything I want. I can also connect my MP3 player to any computer with a USB connection to transfer data and songs to and fro. This comes in handy at work where I cannot install something like iTunes on my computer.

I honestly see no usefull advantage to being forced to use iTunes to transfer music to my MP3 player, but this is probably likewise for people who use iTunes. Either way, you would think that the "best" MP3 player in the world would at least give you the OPTION of connecting via MSD.

Re:Spluh

[vux984]

Even using the mass storage device method, it is still possible to create playlists that overlap the songs included on the device without needing mulitple copies of the song.

The difference is that with an ipod its trivial, transparent, and effortless.

The advantage of using the device as a mass storage device is that I can use my MP3 player, which I pretty much have on me at all times, to store anything I want. I can also connect my MP3 player to any computer with a USB connection to transfer data and songs to and fro. This comes in handy at work where I cannot install something like iTunes on my computer.

An ipod does actually let you mount as a MSD. Its a trivial feature to enable, right from within itunes, and once enabled it mounts as an MSD from anywhere. So when you need to transfer files back and forth to work or something, your ipod can do the job ably. I enabled MSD the first day I got it (one checkbox to set in itunes) and it was good to go.

However, because files transferred this way aren't in the "ipod database" on the device, they aren't playable on the ipod. This is a deal breaker for someone who wants to manage their own playlists and music... but an irrelevant limitation for someone who just wants to use the ipod to move files around.

Re:Spluh

[vux984]

Alright, I'll bite...

So if I set up rythymbox, and have it sync to a 'mass storage player' like, say, a Sansa. I can set up a smart playlist that will rotate songs based on the songs 'star rating', 'play count', 'last played date', and 'skip count'?

-and- (and *this* is the important part)

When I go off and listen to my "mass storage player" for a few days, and plug it back into my rythymbox, all that play data will sync back into rythymbox, so that it can update the playlists based on:

a) what, when, and how often I listened or skipped a track *ON THE DEVICE*
b) any ratings adjustments I made to the song *ON THE DEVICE*

The last time I tried a non-ipod, the above features, which I now view as critical, were not even close to available. And according to the research I -did- do, these features -require- an itunes like 'database' because a lot of that meta information I base my smart playlists on is not stored in the actual songs.

Now, I'm sure a 'rythymbox' type program could create its own meta-data databse, while still letting me move songs around 'manually'... but unless the player itself updated that database of meta-information as I used it, there wouldn't actually be much point.

I'd welcome finding out I was wrong... but as far as I know, only the ipod can currently do this.

Re:Spluh

[Latinhypercube]

The Ipod got huge because it was marketed and sold to people who did not know any better.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

www.rockbox.org

Re:Spluh

[Divebus]

The Ipod got huge because it was marketed and sold to people who did not know any better.

Huh? All of the people I know who bought a 1st or 2nd generation iPod did so because they tried it and said "now, that's how a music player should work". The alternatives were nothing but klutzy, clumsy pieces of junk. The iPod relatively felt like a giant Swiss watch.

Couple that with a relentless improvement of function, capacity, alternate form factors and integration options - all in the face of almost NO competition - it's quite a remarkable device. Had it been any other company, once they achieved market dominance, development would have stopped and music prices would have shot through the roof.

This is only a case of competitors being unwilling/unable to innovate and compete in a market where consumers absolutely know better.

Re:Spluh

[Divebus]

Adding WMA support to the iPod will only lead to more antitrust suits...

Now THAT is the smartest thing anyone has said here.

Re:Spluh

[LrdDimwit]

> Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as crippling a product (TFSummary)

Okay, I'll bite. Deciding not to build in a capability is "deliberately disabling" it. Sure, it doesn't play .WMA files. It's not a very good arc welder either (man was that an expensive mistake). And its automatic translation software is much worse than Babelfish. They've got illegal market segmentation agreements! Oh noes!

I suppose that the lawsuit was filed is news, but this suit is going nowhere. It'll get laughed out of court almost immediately.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

Just love this kind of lawsuits.
It's always like this:

I'm too stupid to understand why iPod won't play my wma's so, i won't ask WHY it doesn't, i'll just suit Apple. ( and maybe get a free wma compatible player)

I wonder if Apple will give $THAT_MAN_OR_WOMAN_OR_COMPANY a zune :]]

Re:Spluh

[shellbeach]

Actually, that's exactly what iTunes does, except much faster because... well, let's face it. My computer is probably a lot faster than your phone. Sure, it takes a few seconds to send the database to the iPod, but if you're so busy that you can't afford the time to do that, you probably can't afford the time to listen to music, either. The point is that you can't use a current Apple player without iTunes, which (a) screws me over because I use linux, and (b) stops you from drag'n'dropping your music collection in and out of the player. All my music is organised into folders already, the way *I* like it -- I don't need or want third-party software to move it to and from my player.

The sole reason for iTunes is to prevent music piracy by preventing the user from directly accessing the files on the player.

(Incidentally, I wasn't praising mobile phones as much as condemning mp3 manufacturers. Although the fact that I don't need to carry around an extra bit of hardware by using my phone to play music is certainly a bonus!)

Re:Spluh

[Malevolyn]

There are plenty (very easy to use) of alternatives around. Songbird and Yamipod just to name two.

Re:Spluh

[unapersson]

There's no reason at all that Rhythmbox couldn't do something like that. All it takes is for the device makers to make their database format open. It's a bit disingenuous to somehow suggest this is a fault of Rhythmbox, whereas really its an issue with proprietry lock-in.

Re:Spluh

[thatblackguy]

but download a video from iTMS, and you know it will work, period. Meanwhile, your XviD might or might not work on the off-brand player, even spending an hour with the conversion software. Yeah but most of the videos I want on my iPod aren't on the ITMS so I've to spend time converting them manually anyway. And no they don't always work.

Re:Spluh

[vux984]

There's no reason at all that Rhythmbox couldn't do something like that. All it takes is for the device makers to make their database format open. It's a bit disingenuous to somehow suggest this is a fault of Rhythmbox, whereas really its an issue with proprietry lock-in.

1) The point is that generic-sync-to-mass-storage is unable to meet the feature set of the ipod database system. Whether the format is open or proprietary is irrelevant. The fact remains that a database system like what the ipod's got (or an equivalenet to it) is needed to get those features.

2) Its true that there is nothing stopping the OpenSource community from creating an OpenStandard, implementing it in Rhythmbox, and convincing Sansa et al to implement device support for the standard.

3) IF the OSS community did such a thing, created an open standard, got device support, and so on. The generic-sync-to-mass-storage group would STILL be pissed because they'd STILL need a 'dedicated music program' like rhythmbox that would sync the meta-data back and forth to get the full feature set. generic mass storage devices are not sufficient to meet these features.

Re:Spluh

[GaryPatterson]

While you clearly disagree, I use my computer to reduce the amount of mucking about I have to do to get simple things done.

The iTunes database does this for me.

Dragging and dropping music doesn't scale either. What is a neat system on a 256MB device is a huge pain on a 60GB device, once you factor in ID3 tags, changes, etc. It also lacks the control with auto playlists based on how often I play or how high I rate the songs. These are solid features that make a real difference. To do it your way we'd have to manually update our playlists whenever we wanted to change them.

If you're doing the work of a file system, you bought the wrong metaphor!

Re:Spluh

[Hal_Porter]

Bullshit. You could easily make a player than uses an m3u playlist to get song names like Winamp does. 40GB is about a one megabyte m3u file. You can generate it easily in Windows too, it's just dir *.* /s /b > playlist.m3u

The player should have a keyboard so you can type a few characters and then select songs with those characters in the title just like Winamp does. I still find that scheme much easier to use than scrolling through thousands of album titles on an iPod. Especially as ID3 data is just text anyway and so not that reliable. E.g. if I search by Artist I albums by "Damned", "The Damned", "Damned, The" since people enter it incorrectly. Unless you're dumb enough to let iTunes 'manage' your mp3 files by renaming them to random 16 byte hex strings the title is a lot more reliable. Even if they are a bit wonky if you put them in a folder with a sensible name you can search for that. It's primitive as hell, but it works a lot better than having iTunes build a huge database out of ID3 data that is probably worthless to begin with.

Re:Spluh

[tuxic]

I actually know of a 45-something dollar DVD player which can't read certain copy-protected DVD movies. I know this because I know someone who didn't listen to my advice on buying something with higher quality and more features. I suppose that the low price point made it hard to get revenues on the units if they had been properly licensed for decrypting certain copy protection techniques? In any case, it means buying DVD movies is more to it than just looking for your favourite films - it also has to work with playback.

Re:Spluh

[Lars T.]

It used to be web browsers wouldn't display a page until all component files were downloaded. Now IE, Firefox, and others let you read part of a page even if a 20MB Flash advertising monstrosity is still loading. No solitaire needed.
You almost had me - until you mentioned Firefox, which for me will regularly stop in its track for far more than 10 seconds on a dual 3 GHz Pentium IV. Actually, it just did it again when I switched languages in the spell checker.

IOW, multitasking is not a panacea, and everyone who thinks it is also believes in fairy tales.

Re:Spluh

[Lars T.]

Duh, it could dynamically expand the menu as more files are scanned. Also, thanks to the modern marvels of caching, only new files would have to be scanned. So how does either have to do with multitasking, and how does the first make waiting for the last song that gets scanned any less long?

Re:Spluh

[squabsy]

Install Floola ON TO the Ipod and you can have the best of both world use Itunes when at home and Floola when away. If you install the Mac and Linux versions as well you can manage you Ipod on any computer you visit

Re:Spluh

[LKM]

MP3 players which organized their own database were the reason why the iPod was such a success in the first place.

Re:Spluh

[gstoddart]

I don't really see how that's a problem either.

If your mp3 player doesn't load as a "mass storage device" and let you just swap the materials back and forth, then

YOU BOUGHT THE WRONG PLAYER.

Only if I wanted that functionality.

Personally, I don't give a flying fsck that my iPod doesn't look like mass storage. It doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the product at all.

By all means, apply your own standards to your own purchases. But, allow us our own. I've been completely happy with my iPod -- if I want a USB stick, they currently cost about 30 bucks. If I really need to move a bunch of data, I have an entire USB hard drive I can carry around with me.

Having iTunes and an iPod doesn't preclude me from having my MP3's ripped on a FreeBSD box and managed on a UNIX file system shared by Samba into iTunes. Me, personally, I like the way iTunes works in terms of what it syncs and all that. Different people, different needs.

Cheers

Re:Spluh

[Lally Singh]

um... open up iTunes and check the 'enable disk mode' box.

Your music is in a folder prefixed with a period (.). Real tough, hmm?

Re:Spluh

[Lally Singh]

Correction:

[lally@LS-MBP ~]$ cd /Volumes/Lally\ Singh's\ iPod/
[lally@LS-MBP Lally Singh's iPod]$ ls -al
total 128
drwxr-xr-x@ 19 lally staff 714 Jan 4 09:51 ./
drwxrwxrwt@ 4 root admin 136 Jan 4 09:50 ../
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lally staff 6148 Jun 20 2007 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 lally staff 102 Nov 14 12:33 .Spotlight-V100/
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 lally staff 102 Sep 20 23:50 .Trashes/
-rw-rw-r-- 1 lally staff 35065 Jun 20 2006 .VolumeIcon.icns
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 lally staff 4096 Jan 19 2006 ._.Trashes*
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 lally staff 82 Jan 19 2006 ._iPod_Control*
drwx------ 4 lally staff 136 Jan 4 09:51 .fseventsd/
drwxr-xr-x 13 lally staff 442 Oct 19 10:55 Calendars/
drwxr-xr-x 5 lally staff 170 Jun 20 2007 Contacts/
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lally staff 1024 Mar 17 2006 Desktop DB
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lally staff 2 Mar 17 2006 Desktop DF
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lally staff 0 Dec 31 1969 Icon?
drwxr-xr-x 3 lally staff 102 Oct 22 2006 Notes/
drwxr-xr-x 4 lally staff 136 Jan 4 09:51 Photos/
drwxr-xr-x@ 9 lally staff 306 Jan 19 2006 iPod_Control/

where iPod_Control/Music has my music in it.

Re:Spluh

[The_Quinn]

This is exactly why anti-trust law should be struck down as is. Because it is often impossible to know in advance whether you are breaking it or not. Any law that you don't know whether or not you are breaking should be struck down and rewritten.

Re:Spluh

[ZorbaTHut]

Your point (1) is simply incorrect - there's no reason whatsoever that the player couldn't use a sideband database, recognizing songs by some provided metadata and storing with those as the keys in a separate file. Nobody has done this yet, but there's no reason the set of features you want requires an iPod-like database. It could all be done perfectly adequately on a classic mass storage system.

Also, while I personally don't want any dedicated music managers that move files around or change them, there's no reason you couldn't write - again - a sideband music manager that did all that processing next to your file database, rather than on top of it. I don't need (or want) a music manager to own my files, I merely need it to be aware of their existence, and this can all be done reasonably efficiently without needing to muck about with my collection.

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

Im glad Apple is getting sued. -

There business practices are a disgrace.

Re:Spluh

[ThePhilips]

[...] but this suit is going nowhere.

I second.

What I find most staggering in the "discussion", that people dumbly say that "iPod's chip allows WMA decoding". That's *LAMEST* thing of century to say.

For Apple to be able to include WMA support into iTunes/iPod, they would have to (1) fork some money to M$ and (2) sign restrictive licensing agreements.

Have you noticed that WMA players rarely support anything but WMA and MP3? Right, only few companies (e.g. Sony for their Walkmans) managed to secure deal which allows them to support other audio formats. Semi-official info I had about SanDisk's Sansa and Philips's GoGear players is that they can *NOT* support MP4 nor OGG/Vorbis because licensing agreement with M$ prevents them to.

In all the heated IP discussion, everybody forgets that technical side of story != legal side of story. Apple cannot support WMA w/o M$ blessing.

On other side, I fully support Apple's brave decision to support standard audio format - and *NOT* invent/buy another proprietary format. On ironic side, one can always respond to dumb question "Apple doesn't support M$ audio format" with "But it does!! MPEG4 audio was developed in greater part by M$!!"

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

Im glad yew kin spel gud

Re:Spluh

[mstone]

You're mistaking Apple's FairPlay DRM for the AAC format.

AAC is an open standard and most digital music players on the market today support it. As long as you have non-FairPlay AAC tracks, you should be able to use them on almost any player.

And by a strange coincidence, you can buy non-FairPlay AAC tracks from the iTunes store (at a higher bitrate than the DRM'd ones) for exactly the same price as the DRM'd ones. At least, you can as long as the label that owns the tracks has agreed to let Apple sell the tracks without DRM.

Even if you do have a library of FairPlay tracks, you have multiple options for converting them. The easiest is to burn the music to CD and then re-import it, but some people don't like that because the decode-and-reencode shuffle reduces the quality of the music. So there are free programs out there that will strip the DRM off any track as long as you have a legitimate key. Those produce non-DRM'd AAC tracks with no loss of sound quality.

Apple isn't the company demanding DRM on every track.

And getting back to the point of the original article, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't Apple have to pay licensing fees to play tracks that use Microsoft's DRM? I mean, plain non-DRM WMA is all well and good, but how much non-DRM WMA is out there commercially? This is an antitrust lawsuit after all, so 'tracks I ripped from CDs I already own' don't count. There's no commercial interest competing with the iTunes store, there.

Only sales outlets that supply non-DRM WMA would have standing to sue, and even then, they'd have to show a compelling reason why they only sell non-DRM WMA and not non-DRM AAC.

For that matter, since I'm not an audio-format-licensing geek, can Apple even use non-DRM WMA without paying a licensing fee to Microsoft? Sure the chip has the capacity to decode WMA, but that doesn't automatically mean Apple can use the capacity without paying for it.

Re:Spluh

[Vokkyt]

There are many programs which convert fairly easily to iPod videos. Off the top of my head, visual hub is an amazing converter which will convert to iPod format and even has options to optimize for the iPod model you have (in terms of screen size). The only video files I can't get to work on an iPod are .rm and the newer .rmxx (I forget the other two letters) format, and that's only because I don't have the full real player program to convert them to something else. Otherwise, everything converted just fine and dandy.

Re:Spluh

[tomthegeek]

Windows Media Player on my Windows Mobile phone does this. Each song has a star rating that I can adjust on my phone while I'm listening to it that will be updated in the library the next time it's synced. It might not do the what, when and skipping statistics but only because MS hasn't decided they want it to do that yet.

Re:Spluh

[Vokkyt]

Meh, no offense, but it sounds like you're not as good of a salesman as Apple. The reason that people end up not caring is because the things you are telling them are truly don't matter. They want something that plays mp3s, that can play music they rip from their CDs, and so on. I don't think that it's "buying into hype" if they are getting exactly what they wanted. Your preference of a more open non-proprietary locked player is your preference, which just doesn't sell to the basic consumer. The simple premise of "I want to rip from CDs easily and be able to play MP3s with a simple interface" is what makes the iPod sell. Not being able to play proprietary files that the consumer probably wouldn't use anyways is not really an issue even.

Re:Spluh

[Sciros]

It's a tradeoff in convenience and depends on the player! I have a LOT of music on my computer and keeping the id3 tags in order is next to impossible at this point. Having a player that *does* load as a mass storage device, let me swap stuff back and forth, and *preserves the directory structure that I gave it, allowing me to navigate it the way I would my music folder on my PC* is for instance exactly what I want. My Cowon A2 lets me do that because it doesn't organize music according to id3 tags. It uses a basic directory structure and for my purposes that's far more preferable (it also loads fast enough). I *can't* keep id3 tags organized; iTunes leaves me with a mess of thousands of songs that I cannot use in the least.

Re:Spluh

[vux984]

Your point (1) is simply incorrect - there's no reason whatsoever that the player couldn't use a sideband database, recognizing songs by some provided metadata and storing with those as the keys in a separate file. Nobody has done this yet, but there's no reason the set of features you want requires an iPod-like database.

Hate to break it to you but a sideband database *is* an ipod like database, all you did was move it to the side.

The -only- effecitve difference is that your device apparently will inefficiently scan, say, 160GB worth of hard drive to find out what songs are on it each time you use it, and then build or updates the sideband database on the fly, instead of just referring to the database as the authoritative source of information. I'm not sure how that's progress.

I think a MUCH better approach would be to do it the ipod way making the database inband, but build into the the device a feature to re-building the database by scanning itself -on demand-. The ipod itself could be improved thusly.

Granted that moves the database "inband" from "sideband", but the performance advantages are pretty clear. And then all you need to do is update the database when you actually move songs or sync metadata.

  It could all be done perfectly adequately on a classic mass storage system.

Re:Spluh

[vux984]

You sort of missed the point of the discussion. Floola is a tool that supplants itunes, but it does things the ipod way using the (reverse engineered / cracked ) ipod database format.

The premise of this argument is that we can achieve ipod's feature set without going the ipod route. And I'm arguing we can't. We can certainly improve on the ipod by opening the database format, and removing silliness like mangling the filenames, but we can't get ipods features on a 'generic mass storage device' unless we implement an ipod like database to track metadata that the device will use and update, and use a utility to sync that meta data back and forth.

At which point, its not a 'generic mass storage device' system anymore, its a cone of the ipod system.

Re:Spluh

[pxuongl]

if you enable disk mode on your iPod (in the preferences), then plug in your ipod, you can copy all the mp3's you want onto it, and it'll play them just fine. i've done it with my 3rd gen ipod.

Re:Spluh

[pxuongl]

awesome comment. kinda invalidates a lot of the lawsuite's claims

Re:Spluh

[catwh0re]

I do quite a bit of sourcing from China, I can assure two things: China isn't a counterintuitive country where they sell everything below cost, you get what you pay for (and often quite less); and one such item are those cheap chinese "MP4 players", they are anything but an MPEG4 video player - they usually use a proprietry format called AMV and include a piece of software to convert AVI to AMV(most product documentation will say you can play AVI, then state that you need to use the included software to convert AVI to AMV.)

As these products aren't sold to major retail chains they've managed to get away with using name "MP4 Player" without actually having to play any mpeg video formats whatsoever. So don't expect xvid or any other mpeg 4 like content on it. Expect an audio track synced to a rapidly re-addressing frame buffer.

Here is a popular one that sells for around $20 (and unsurprisingly it looks like a 1st gen ipod nano) http://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/dellking/product-detailPqSnYWHcaEVi/China-1-8-Inch-Nice-Design-Mp4-Player-Super-Slim-OD-1-8-.html

Here is the wiki article on AMV if you're unfamiliar with just how dodgey a video format this is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMV_video_format

Re:Spluh

[Latinhypercube]

Yes, Apple was ahead of the curve. But to say there is no competition is naive. Apple has a monopoly, pure and simple. This is anti-competitive and has lead to the spread of drm and the incorrect notion that the ipod is 'the best'. Any usb stick with a headphone jack is capable of the same music performance as an ipod. But most housewives and teenage girls are too blinded by the apple hype machine to notice.

Re:Spluh

[gnuman99]

After many, many years I finally got an "mp3" player for $17. It is a Nextar MA933A with 1G flash. It doubles as a flash drive (bootable too) - maybe a little larger than a flash drive. Uses *regular* rechargable AAA battery and seems to get 12-16 hours per charge. Heck, it plays WMA, MP3, and even OGG ("unadverised" feature). Sadly, their website still lists old models while the manual lists them as up to 8GB size.

http://www.nextar.com/frontend/proddetail.asp?pn=MA933A&co=10000309

Sorry, but in comparison, something like iPod is unwieldy, expensive mess with a 2 year lifetime unless you want to pay apple $60 for a new battery. iPod only got its name going for it now. Technically, it is nothing special anymore.

Re:Spluh

[Divebus]

But most housewives and teenage girls are too blinded by the apple hype machine to notice.

A little bitter about something, eh? What the fuck is the problem here? Apple wasn't ahead of the curve - they actually came several years late to the game. The competing music players at the time were junk and many still are. You didn't absorb one thing out of my previous post.

The iPod and iTunes have provided more choices with how the media is used than any other system. Sure, a USB stick will play music but won't do 10% of what the combination of iTunes and iPod can do. You may not like it but you've got the right to just use a USB stick if you want.

So, where's the monopoly? They've kept prices low for the consumer (for EVERY online music store), music libraries are growing including indies, they'll let you transcode the audio to and from other formats including WMA and CDs and they really don't want the RIAA driven DRM. Apple also isn't making a boatload of money off their music store - it's more of a free service for the music industry and they're not gouging the buyer. Actually, you don't even need the music store. Just rip CDs or load MP3s from Pirate Bay if you want.

Being popular and functional doesn't constitute a monopoly and the hype machine is always driven by the press and word of mouth. All Apple did was put a competent product on the shelf with a silly name and the rest took care of itself. Keeping the technology advancing isn't a crime. What's most puzzling is that real competition hasn't shown up yet. That's what you should be pissed about.

Just be glad Microsoft didn't win this round. You'd be paying $0.99 (or more) every time you played a song - with advertising in between.

Re:Spluh

[ZorbaTHut]

Yeah, you've pretty much just described the system I was thinking of actually :P

Re:Spluh

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Your point (1) is simply incorrect - there's no reason whatsoever that the player couldn't use a sideband database, recognizing songs by some provided metadata and storing with those as the keys in a separate file. Nobody has done this yet, but there's no reason the set of features you want requires an iPod-like database. It could all be done perfectly adequately on a classic mass storage system.

Yeah, fuck the iPod! Your hypothetical non-existing solution is much better!

Re:Spluh

[Latinhypercube]

I did absorb your comments but I found them vacuous and incorrect. "hype machine is always driven by the press and word of mouth" you are so deluded, Apples hype machine runs off a multi million dollar account with Shiat-day, who built an entire building to house just one advertising account, plus millions of dollars of tv and street advertising all over the world. "and they really don't want the RIAA driven DRM" yeah, they 'really don't want it' they cry every night over it, that is why any music player can interface with itunes, and itunes allows you to freely swap songs back and forth with friends as you please. BULLSHIT. They have monopolized online music sales, and only allow their player to interface with itunes ! "They've kept prices low for the consumer" are you joking ? How come their machines are the most expensive usually by 50% ? They are also helping to completely destroy normal music retail, further increase there monopoly over the industry. end of line.

Re:Spluh

[Divebus]

Ballmer? Is that you?

Re:Spluh

[shellbeach]

There are plenty (very easy to use) of alternatives around. Songbird and Yamipod just to name two. Ah ... last time I checked the current gen iPods weren't supported -- looks like most of them are now (but still not the touch, apparently).

Songbird looks really interesting, btw -- thanks for the link!

Re:Spluh

[Anonymous Coward]

All named in neat little four letter directories, with four letter files names. (Like "DWEF/LKQN.MP3")

All helpfully without ID3 tags, since after all, the ID3 information is stored in the iPod database.

I tried to restore my iTunes library off an iPod after my main computer croaked. It can't be done.

Re:Spluh

[Swift2001]

And more to Apple's point, they would have to pay huge licensing fees to MS. Would they want to? Sure, as soon a pigs grow wings.

Wow

[cbrocious]

These people need to learn the difference between codecs and DRM schemes. WMA support means the hardware can decode it, not decrypt the data. You're going to force Apple to license Microsoft's DRM? That's retarded.

Re:Wow

[Rosyna]

You're going to force Apple to license Microsoft's DRM? That's retarded.

Yup. The solution to Apple being accused of being a monopolist is to have them license DRM from a convicted monopolist. Seems simple enough.

Re:Wow

[Neuropol]

Exactly. So when is Microshaft going to hit them up with the 'Must make Apple machines run Windows' anti-monopoly lawsuit?

I really think these childish pissing matches make the people who launch these lawsuits look very ignorant.

Re:Wow

[eclectic4]

Dumbest, article, ever.

If /. became the place where all frivolous lawsuits are posted as articles, even just the ones against Apple, it wouldn't have time to do anything else.

Re:Wow

[sumdumass]

Even if it wasn't just MS DRM it is just lame anyways. Apple never represented the Ipod as having the capabilities of anything other then what it does. Crippling a chip to include it in a product for a specific purpose isn't crime is it? I mean is all those computers capable of running linux but cannot because they are sold as appliances or devices like the Tivo or a router breaking some law? I didn't think so either.

I mean it would be different if they made a claim of ti being able to do something then locked it out. Maybe saying the Ipod is the best device ever because it used chipX that can film monkeys talking might be a different story. But this doesn't seem to be the case, they made a product represented it to do some things and it does what they claim.

I think common sense means more then a couple of guys finding pennies on the street and sharing them. This concept doesn't seem to even get that far.

Re:Wow

[dgatwood]

Worse than that, "support" for WMA in a portable player chipset doesn't generally mean the hardware can decode it by itself. It means that the hardware has enough memory and enough DSP horsepower to decode it when combined with an appropriate software codec. This is a case of licensing or not licensing the WMA codec, not just the crypto. It would almost certainly have cost Apple money on every iPod to support even the unencrypted WMA. This isn't something you get for free just by using a particular piece of hardware....

I would also hardly call WMA support "highly desirable". Among Microsoft employees who have portable music players, the iPod market share is reportedly 80%. If it were so desirable, don't you think at least Microsoft employees would favor Zunes because they support WMA? I think we can safely establish that at least as far as consumers are concerned, WMA support is not desirable. As far as consumers are concerned, a WMA file, an MP3 file, and an AAC file are all the same thing as an AIFF file. Most consumers just don't care. Expecting a hardware vendor to pay extra money on every unit for a feature that few users care about is silly, and I can't imagine how much crack their lawyers must have been smoking when they took on such a frivolous case.

If they were doing something useful like suing for the right to sell FairPlay songs, that would at least make sense, but suing because Apple didn't pay to license the WMA codec is about the most asinine lawsuit I've ever heard of. This makes the SCO lawsuits seem positively sensible by comparison....

Re:Wow

[Midnight Thunder]

Yup. The solution to Apple being accused of being a monopolist is to have them license DRM from a convicted monopolist. Seems simple enough.

Not only that but even Microsoft doesn't support its original DRM with the Zune. WMA is 100% closed spec, while AAC+DRM is only closed spec for the DRMed portion, since AAC is an open spec (note open doesn't necessarily mean license free) owned by Dolby and it part of the MPEG4 specification.

This suit sounds like another money grab. The only winners are the lawyers.

Re:Wow

[ThePromenader]

I'll be the plaintiffs are hoping that the judge and jury are even more retarded... you never know. The layman-unintelligible buzzwords and jargon will abound, I'm sure.

Re:Wow

[vought]

The PP5002c used in the first three generations of iPod (and the PP5003 used in the fourth) does indeed decode WMA.

It also has a USB interface. But the first two generations of iPod don't.

The PP5002c can decode video. But no iPods until the fifth generation did so.

The PP5002c also had lots of other logic in it that wasn't used by Apple. I can't possibly see how this is supposed to be an argument that Apple was supposed to support WMA.

Another harassment suit. I hope it gets kicked out of court quickly.

Re:Wow

[S.O.B.]

So when is Microshaft going to hit them up with the 'Must make Apple machines run Windows' anti-monopoly lawsuit?

The current Intel based Macs can run Windows.

Re:Wow

[calebt3]

Apple headed that one off at the pass with Boot Camp. If MS wants to offer a Windows license to Mac purchasers for an OEM-level price, they can do that. Well, they could try selling ordinary ordinary licenses, but who would buy them at that price?

Re:Wow

[vought]

It means that the hardware has enough memory and enough DSP horsepower to decode it when combined with an appropriate software codec. This is a case of licensing or not licensing the WMA codec, not just the crypto. IIRC, the PP5002c was sold as a standalone chip to Apple, but Portal Player was trying to sell an entire OS/Chip solution. Apple sourced the iPod's first OS from Pixo, so there was no WMA built into it - and it's also why Portal never wanted to acknowledge Apple being a customer (when I contracted for them, we were not allowed to mention Apple, only the customer named "Baseband"). Because Apple didn't use Portal's entire solution, they were not someone portal wanted to talk about.

Also, if I recall correctly, the PP5002c and PP5003 were simply dual ARM7 TDMIO chips with some glue and interface logic. There's nothing there that would play WMA.

This case is baseless, groundless, and sure to get paid to go away.

Re:Wow

[SharpFang]

The nice, simple and cool alternative is if iPods were mp3-enabled. No DRM. Songs from any source can be used, except of few chosen ones that use DRM ;)

Re:Wow

[HardCase]

Dumbest, article, ever.

Clearly you weren't around during the Jon Katz era.

Re:Wow

[Revotron]

------------>>> Joke

    O
  \|/
    | You
    A
  / \

Re:Wow

[KDR_11k]

An iPod clone, the Medion Jukebox, was built using the exact same chip and stuff and indeed it did play WMA.

Re:Wow

[pyite]

+10000. Imagine if we had tags then!

Re:Wow

[Em Adespoton]

The nice, simple and cool alternative is if iPods were mp3-enabled. No DRM. Songs from any source can be used, except of few chosen ones that use DRM ;)

I agree! We need a portable digital audio player that can do this! Like, say, EVERY SINGLE iPOD EVER MADE. The DRM is in the iTunes store, not the iPod. iPods can play MP3 just fine, as well as DRM-free AAC, Apple Lossless, and a number of other audio formats. The lawsuit is arguing that Apple DRM is the only DRM the iPods will decode; they won't decode Corporation X's scheme.

In order for this to be an issue at all, there needs to be a DRM scheme that is an open standard. Currently there isn't, so the lawsuit has exactly 0 legs to stand on. Apple decided to create their own DRM instead of licensing and implementing the DRM of a convicted monopolist who tends to randomly deprecate their old DRM products. The only thing Apple has a monopoly on is DRMed tracks on their music system. Apple sells DRM-free music, and DRM-free music from anywhere else can also be loaded on an iPod in a number of industry standard formats.

That said, I don't own an iPod as it doesn't have the feature set I want. I have no problems with Apple's iPod/iTS product offering though. It might be anticompetitive, but it isn't illegal and it definitely is not monopolistic. That'd be like saying Apple iMacs are monopolistic because they won't play DRM'd WMV files.

Re:Wow

[Chyeld]

My Linksys router does a shitload of stuff more than it did with the default firmware, now that I've installed a third party version. Is this really a serious complaint?

The lawsuit was either filed by a moron or a slimeball hoping to get a moron for a judge.

Re:Wow

[clarkcox3]

Yeah, that would be nice. Good thing that the iPod is exactly that. Every single iPod (and iPhone) ever made will play .mp3 files. Get your facts straight.

Re:Wow

[peragrin]

one better, Apple is currently selling AAC files that don't have DRM. you pay more but they remove the DRM, enabling ANY MP4 player to play those files.

The solution to the suit is to remove all DRM. then you only have to have choice between formats.

Re:Wow

[Creepy]

not to mention there are LOTS of other companies that sell cripple-ware hardware. Verizon was notorious for it with their cell phones, though I believe they recently announced they will end this practice. Some of these phones had to be essentially cracked to unlock them (and yes, Apple does it, too).

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the issue that only iPods can play apples formats? Shouldn't outside companies be able to make players that can play music purchased on iTunes?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is great. Apple is completely abusing its market dominance in music players to establish a vertical monopoly across online music services and suppliers, and I hope the lawsuit succeeds.

I use Yahoo! Jukebox, which is an excellent music subscription service, and it's extremely annoying that I can't install anything that will let me play the music on my ipod.

Re:Wow

[samkass]

From Apple's page:

Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, and AIFF

Only one of the 7 formats is DRM'ed (ie. "locked"), and only 2 have any sort of Apple proprietary nature to them (Apple Lossless and the FairPlay DRM'ed AAC). They shouldn't be forced to adopt a competitor's DRM. And Amazon proved you can create an online service compatible with the iPod.

In short, they'll get thrown out of court.

Re:Wow

[_damnit_]

So when is Microshaft going to hit them up with the 'Must make Apple machines run Windows' anti-monopoly lawsuit? The current Intel based Macs can run Windows. Ahh... maybe then they should have to pay the M$ tax and Macs should come with Windows licenses since no one would really run ax x86 box without Windows.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

What needs to happen is that these "clients" and "lawyers" need to risk being fined for bringing up these absolutely ridiculous lawsuits.

Re:Wow

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

So Apple choose not to support WMA (and the DRM pays for sure) well before the market made it the "monopoly" of legal media downloads. Even before that market even existed.

Surely the lawsuit would have to be about something they did once they had a monopoly.
I'm mean it's not like they went out and broke existing support, like other convicted monopolists.

Re:Wow

[flanaganid]

An iMac clone, the Dell XPSOne, was built using the same exact chip and stuff and indeed it did run Windows Media Player.

Just because hardware is capable of something doesn't require the manufacturer to take advantage of it in the software.

Re:Wow

[someone300]

Indeed. This lawsuit is nonsensical. In addition to your above complaint, they claim that the iPod software is "crippleware" since it lacks the ability to play WMA files. This doesn't make sense. Even if one chip on the iPod supports WMA, it doesn't mean they could magically make the iPod work perfectly with WMA just by "uncrippling" it. They'd have to write the iTunes code to handle WMAs, they'd need to make sure iTunes on OS X and Windows supports WMA, they'd need to do quality assurance on it, in addition to licensing WMA and it's DRM.

I'm all for forcing Apple to open up their FairPlay DRM, but this doesn't make sense. It was the companies selling the music's choice to offer their music in WMA, knowing fully it wouldn't work on the iPod. MP3s work on the iPod, as others have mentioned. If I started selling my music in some weird proprietary format, I wouldn't expect Apple to pay me £800k year to license it, even if one of their chips had some support for it.

Apple licensing WMA wouldn't even change much. The same media is available for both suites (iTMS+iPod or PlaysForSure store/device) and there is nothing forcing anyone to choose one type of player over the other. It's not like if you buy a non-Apple player you can't use certain websites, can't connect to certain networks and can't open certain files (except the FairPlay stuff, which I said above might deserve changing). iPods supporting WMA wouldn't demonopolise anything.

Re:Wow

[Lars T.]

So Apple choose not to support WMA (and the DRM pays for sure) well before the market made it the "monopoly" of legal media downloads. Even before that market even existed. Actually, at the time the iPod came out, WMA was the only format of legal music downloads (by major labels that is). But the iPod was at first a Mac only device - and you couldn't play nor buy WMA songs if you had a Mac (not to mention all the other restriction that came with it), so supporting it would not have helped iPod users any. Well, looks like Microsoft has itself to blame.

Re:Wow

[Lars T.]

Dumbest, article, ever.

If /. became the place where all frivolous lawsuits are posted as articles, even just the ones against Apple, it wouldn't have time to do anything else. The article isn't that dumb, it's the lawsuit that is. Both the "Apple sues Fake Steve Jobs" and the "Steve Jobs forces iPod videos on DVDs for extra $" were much dumber articles.

Re:Wow

[flosofl]

Apple is currently selling AAC files that don't have DRM. you pay more but they remove the DRM, enabling ANY MP4 player to play those files.

First, I think it would make more sense to state that the AAC files are not encumbered with the DRM in the first place (rather than being removed). Second, while iTunes+ tracks used to command a 0.30 USD premium, ever since Amazon began their MP3 store, iTunes+ tracks have been sold at the same rate as the regular tracks. Competition is a wonderful thing (and would tend to undermine the whole monopoly argument).

Re:Wow

[Jardine]

Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, and AIFF

Only one of the 7 formats is DRM'ed (ie. "locked")

Audible's material is DRMed as well.

Re:Wow

[Grail]

and I can't imagine how much crack their lawyers must have been smoking when they took on such a frivolous case.

The lawyers probably realise full well that the case has no technical merit, and they're just happy to have some fools whose money needs to be parted from them. Rack up a few dozen billable hours, tell the customers "sorry it didn't fly," and get on with business.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that you can't be a "convicted monopolist"

Conviction happens to criminals. Monopolists are determined in civil trials.

And remember, too, that MSFT was found to have abused their monopoly after the fact. Kind of like driving down a road, and after 10 miles the police officer tells you what the speed limit was for the first 10 miles. Nobody can state what date MSFT became a monopoly. But now that the playbook is out there, the same thing will happen to any company with more than 60% market share. Apple is next, and QCOM will be after them.

Re:Wow

[Bert64]

Well, if support for WMA is a "desirable" feature, and Apple are hurting the market by not including it...
Surely support for Apple's DRM is an even more desirable feature, and all those other music players on the market are hurting their customers too.

Also ODF is a desirable feature, and Microsoft are hurting the market by not supporting it.

But you're right, Apple already include support for the industry standard music format (MP3).. Anything else is just a tickbox feature. When there's an industry standard for DRM'd music maybe the lawsuit would have a point, but with the current trend away from DRM that's unlikely to happen.

Re:Wow

[coobert]

I used to work on the iPodLinux project. Your claims about the PP5002 are misleading. There is no specific integrated circuits to decode certain codecs - it is all done on software on dual ARM7TDMIs. I should know, I implemented AAC decoding in podzilla using Helix's integer AAC decoder.

The PP5002c used in the first three generations of iPod (and the PP5003 used in the fourth) does indeed decode WMA.

Yes, if you have an integer based codec that runs on ARM (thumb or not), and is nicely optimised. PortalPlayer probably sell/resell/license one to go with their SoCs. Guess what, the PP5002 can decode anything an 2 ARM7TDMIs can - this includes OGG and FLAC (both work under iPL).

It also has a USB interface. But the first two generations of iPod don't.

The third has a Cypress Semi CY7C68013-56LFC USB interface - the PP5002 requires this to have usable USB. The PP5020 used in 4th gen iPods does not.

The PP5002c can decode video. But no iPods until the fifth generation did so.

What kind of video? We made it decode a special format, but you're not going to be decoding H264/H263 on those things.

Re:Wow

[Weedlekin]

"If it were so desirable, don't you think at least Microsoft employees would favor Zunes because they support WMA?"

Zunes aren't compatible with WMA 9.0 (PlaysForSure), so they can't use WMA content bought from online stores other that Microsoft's own Zune Store. As with Apple's DRM, MS won't license the Zune's WMA 9.1 to anyone else, so Zune content won't play on non-Zunes, and encrypted Windows media (audio and video) doesn't play on the Zune.

Re:Wow

[Gilmoure]

I think I'm going to come up with my own encryption scheme, that Apple doesn't support (ROT 13?), and then sue them for not licensing it from me. Because... I'm an idiot? Wah?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent -1 dumbass.

Only on /. could such a retarded post get modded +5 Insightful.

Re:Wow

[glindsey]

This case is baseless, groundless, and sure to get paid to go away. I wish I could go around making baseless, groundless claims, and get paid to go away. Sounds like a sweet deal.

Re:Wow

[Em Adespoton]

The plaintiff's argument in the case is that Apple had to actively disable WMA, which is what they consider to be a problem. However as WMA is not an industry standard and Apple had no license to use it, this argument doesn't hold water. Inventing random DRM schemes and suing because they aren't supported is a completely separate category of idiocy.

Re:Wow

[Gilmoure]

Woo-hoo! I invented new idiocy for 2008!

Man, this is going to be a great year.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

whoosh

Re:Wow

[dgatwood]

I know, but ignoring the older style of encrypted content, the Zune does play WMA files, which was my point.

Re:Wow

[nanowired]

Sooooo Apple's multitudes of monopolies(hint: try to install the Apple OS on a non apple product, watch them try to sue you.) is just fine until they too are convicted of a monopoly? Yep. Nothing to see here.

Re:Wow

[mstone]

A minor quibble: I don't know the exact chronology, but I've bought any number of Plus tracks from the iTunes store, and it seems to me that the price went down to $0.99/track before Amazon's digital music outlet became big news.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"That'd be like saying Apple iMacs are monopolistic because they won't play DRM'd WMV files."

NOOOO!!!

Thanks, you just gave those lawyers ANOTHER idea for a lawsuit...

Re:Wow

[mstone]

No. That one's been tried before. This is a different flavor of stupid.

This one is about Apple 'actively disabling' WMA on the iPod in order to (illegally) bolster Apple's own AAC format.

Trouble is, the whole argument is bullshit. First of all, WMA is a proprietary format, not an open one, so there's a question about whether could even use WMA without paying Microsoft royalties. Then there's the fact that commercially-sold music comes with a DRM wrapper around whatever audio format actually encodes the music. And we know for damnsure that Microsoft licenses its DRM.

So the only 'competitors' being hurt under the terms defined in this lawsuit are outfits that sell non-DRM'd WMA, assuming that Apple could play non-DRM'd WMA without having to license those audio codecs from Microsoft. And AFAIK, there isn't much action in that part of the market.

And even if there were companies out there selling non-DRM'd WMA, the plaintiff would have to show some compelling reason why they couldn't also sell non-DRM'd AAC (which does play on the iPod) or plain MP3s (which also play on the iPod) if selling iPod-compatible music is so important to them.

Re:Wow

[jthill]

about the most asinine lawsuit I've ever heard of

Not even close.

Re:Wow

[Weedlekin]

The encryption isn't "older style". WMA 9.0 DRM is the variant supported by current versions of Windows Media Player and all non-Zune WMA personal music systems, whereas WMA 9.1 is Zune-specific, cannot be licensed by third parties, and can only be managed on a (Windows) computer using the special software supplied with Zunes. Unencrypted WMA files can be used by most players, including the iPod via the simple expedient of dragging and dropping them onto iTunes, which will automatically convert them to AAC or MP3 (depending on the way it's been set up).

NB: one major advantage of the Zune's 9.1 DRM is much more generous usage terms than most WMA 9.0 encrypted content. Stuff that's bought rather than rented can be burned to CD several times, so Zune owners who want to remove DRM can use the same method as iTunes, i.e. burn to an audio CD and then re-import as MP3, AAC, or unencrypted WMA.

licence fees

[Hes Nikke]

If apple had enabled that feature, they would have had to pay licence fees to microsoft. the iPod is expensive enough as it is, why would i want to pay even more for a feature i'm not interested in, and have no intention of ever using?

If i wanted Microsofts DRM, i'd get a zune - and then download all the universal music i can find for free (i would have paid my piracy tax, i may as well receive my proper compensation)

Re:licence fees

[Keebler71]

Who said anything about DRM? I have hundreds if not thousands of songs from my personal collection ripped to wma. I'd consider buying a iPod if it could play them. I have no desire to play DRMed music on any music device, let alone an iPod. I would however enjoy having more format compatibility in the digital music world.... or am I mistaken and we are only to advocate format compatibility when MS is the bad guy?

Re:licence fees

[calebt3]

Why do I have a feeling that the Zune cannot play iTune's AAC? Should we accuse file suit against them too? Oh, right. Zune is not the dominate music player.

Re:licence fees

[Anonymous Coward]

Zune plays (non-DRMed) AAC just fine.

Re:licence fees

[Romancer]

"Who said anything about DRM?"

The article.

That's uh, what it's about:
"Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format," the complaint states. "Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as 'crippling' a product, and software that does this is known as 'crippleware.' "

Some side notes:

1. This was known: http://dotnet.org.za/matt/archive/2004/02/20/460.aspx
2. The wma format itself is a non issue if you use the included iTunes software that ships with every ipod: http://www.apple.com/itunes/jukebox/importing.html
      Quote "iTunes also converts unprotected WMA files to AAC."
3. If you have the rights to play it on your PC then you can convert wma files to your ipod without quality loss since it uses lossless conversion.
4. Apple created and supports a free program specifically designed to allow you to convert from wma as well as asf, wmv, wav, and ogg for the ipod: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/easywma.html

It looks to me like they just didn't want to pay to license a format that, by the complaints own addmission, isn't popular enough to hold on to 20% of the online music sales and is likely to be going down since the article even points out that DRM free Mp3 download services are gaining ground.

The second part of the monopoly isue is going to take some proving since the apple ceo posted this on the apple website:
Feb 6 2007
"Today's most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. It's hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music."

Since the ipod is left with 97% open format playback it's just a matter of deduction to see that the other cheaper players do support these open formats and some include protected wma (Zune) and could be easily puchased instead to use protected wma files directly if the consumer wanted. Free market and all that. If the feature was so desired then the players that support it would have more that a piddling share of the sales of music players.
Last note: Napster, Musicmatch, Walmart, Best Buy and Yahoo all adopted the protected WMA music format even though apple is supposed to have a monopoly on the online music industry, interesting. I would have thought that to sell more music they would have licensed formats that easily played back on the most popular music device, the ipod. You know, to make money.

Re:licence fees

[Hamilton Lovecraft]

Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format

Microsoft deliberately designed their Windows software so that it can only run a single executable program format, their so-called Portable Executable format. Clearly the Intel CPU on a Windows PC can run Mac OSX apps and Linux apps. Can I sue Microsoft for not implementing the ability to run OSX and Linux apps?

Re:licence fees

[Jeremy Erwin]

Interesting, but wrong. EasyWMA was written by Patrice Bensoussan, not Apple, and costs $10. The Apple Downloads site is simply a collection of links maintained by Apple.

Re:licence fees

[Anonymous Coward]

Last note: Napster, Musicmatch, Walmart, Best Buy and Yahoo all adopted the protected WMA music format even though apple is supposed to have a monopoly on the online music industry, interesting. I would have thought that to sell more music they would have licensed formats that easily played back on the most popular music device, the ipod. You know, to make money.

Don't think they wouldn't have loved to sell DRM'ed songs that would play on the iPod? But there's no way to do so if you're not Apple. As far as I can tell they don't license their protected AAC format to anyone, so if another service wishes to sell music that can play on the world's most popular player they have to go DRM-free or nothing.

I don't honestly know (or really care, to be honest) if that's a problem or not. But something about this does reek of anti-competitve practices.

And yes, IMANAL. I am anal.

Re:licence fees

[danomac]

3. If you have the rights to play it on your PC then you can convert wma files to your ipod without quality loss since it uses lossless conversion.

All the DRM stuff aside, point 3 is wrong. WMA is a lossy format, so you can't have a "lossless" conversion. Whenever you convert from lossy->lossy there will always be quality degradation. It's unavoidable unless you have a lossless file as the source.

Giving tools to degrade... err... convert lossy formats to lossy formats in my opinion is a terrible middle-ground instead of playing the format natively on the device (which will not have degradation from converting.)

All this aside, is there anyone that actually *uses* WMA? Nevermind the DRM-riddled WMA, even the unprotected files. I don't know of anyone myself.

Re:licence fees

[tiny-e]

In what universe does ripping songs to WMA = advocating format compatibility?

Universe A, 1, or the Fighting Mongooses?

Re:licence fees

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

The issue for those companies isn't anything to do with Player,formats or copy protection.

People don't want subscription services.
The ones still in the market are outright sales models either with or without DRM and regardless of encoding.

Can you really blame Apple if these other guys didn't choose a successful business model?

Yes that model needs DRM but do you think it would die any slower if apple licenced it's DRM or paid Mircosoft to play their DRMed files

Re:licence fees

[Romancer]

"All the DRM stuff aside, point 3 is wrong. WMA is a lossy format, so you can't have a "lossless" conversion. Whenever you convert from lossy->lossy there will always be quality degradation. It's unavoidable unless you have a lossless file as the source."

If you purchase an encoded file that has already gone through a lossy compression that's just your fault for buying it. The rest of that statement is incorrect. To convert from any file to lossless does not degrade the content since the conversion to lossless is "lossless". The ipod supports lossless file formats so this is in no way lossy->lossy as you have stated. It is the same quality as the originally purchased file, witch again, was your fault for buying in the first place.

You can read up on this at: http://www.macworld.com/article/43560/2005/03/classicalipod.html

Re:licence fees

[Romancer]

My mistake, I've never had to use the utility only found it for a friend a while back.
Should have checked before linking to it.

Re:licence fees

[Repossessed]

Yeah, but itunes doesn't convert the songs to lossless, they convert it to AAC.

And I don't know about what they do now, but when my brother first got his ipod, itunes converted his entire mp3 collection to AAC, intead of just playing the mp3s.

The lossy to lossless thing does work though. In fact, I saved a bit of space converting a couple AACs to FLAC, quality is still horrid of course, but very compact. (The songs in question were victims in the itunes rampage, MP3 to ACC compression sounds really bad).

Re:licence fees

[danomac]

The lossy to lossless thing does work though. In fact, I saved a bit of space converting a couple AACs to FLAC, quality is still horrid of course, but very compact. (The songs in question were victims in the itunes rampage, MP3 to ACC compression sounds really bad).

Of course it sounds bad when you convert a lossy file to lossless, you can't get the information back that was lost during the initial compression. That's all I was pointing out in my primary post. You can't do a "lossless" conversion from WMA->AAC (or WMA->FLAC) like you pointed out because there is information already missing. If you have the original "lossless" source (either FLAC or CDDA) then you can convert however many times you want because you still retain the lossless source. Once you convert lossy back and forth a few times it's very evident that it doesn't work. It's not rocket science...

This is /.

[elrous0]

Microsoft bad
Apple good
Linux great
Fire bad

Re:This is /.

[oahazmatt]

Microsoft bad
Apple good
Linux great
Fire bad

Microsoft + Fire neat.

Re:This is /.

[Foofoobar]

Oh I'm sorry... are you more familiar with Facebook?

Mean people R bad
Backstreet Boys good
Hanna Montana great
Parents bad

Re:This is /.

[calebt3]

Fire?

Also, there is more to the list:
Google-not evil

Re:This is /.

[Anonymous Coward]

You will never be forgiven for not including

Beer good

Re:This is /.

[MyNymWasTaken]

Tree pretty

Re:This is /.

[CptNerd]

"Werewolf!"

"There, wolf. There castle."

Re:This is /.

[GNU(slash)Nickname]

Microsoft bad
Apple good
Linux great
Fire bad Tree pretty

Re:This is /.

[geminidomino]

Why are you talking like that?

sued

[stoolpigeon]

if they form this rumored label with jay-z will they get sued by the beatles again? this is what i'm wondering.

Re:sued

[Squozen]

No, they settled with the Beatles last year and Apple can use the name in relation to music safely. The settlement specifically covered this.

Apple's response...

[ashitaka]

Sosumi

Re:Apple's response...

[calebt3]

Sosumi Areti

Re:Apple's response...

[Anonymous Coward]

    ___ NICE! ___

Boo Fucking Hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod also plays everybody's favorite unprotected format (mp3). That's what consumers want: No DRM.
If consumers wanted a device to play WMA, they would buy them instead of iPods. Make a better product (DRM-free please) or get out of the market.

Karma Whoring and Comment

[R2.0]

Antitrust Lawsuit Charges Apple With Monopolizing Online Music
The complaint takes issue with Apple's refusal to support the Windows Media Audio format.

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
January 3, 2008 03:02 PM

An antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple on Dec. 31 charges the company with maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market.
Plaintiff Stacie Somers, represented by attorneys Craig Briskin and Steven Skalet of Mehri & Skalet PLLC, Alreen Haeggquist of Haeggquist Law Group, and Helen Zeldes, alleges that Apple dominates the market for online video, online music, and digital music players and that its dominance constitutes a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The attorneys are seeking to have their lawsuit certified as a class action.

"Apple has engaged in tying and monopolizing behavior, placing unneeded and unjustifiable technological restrictions on its most popular products in an effort to restrict consumer choice, and to restrain what little remains of its competition in the digital music markets," the complaint states. "Apple's CEO Steve Jobs had himself compared Apple's digital music dominance to Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s personal computer operating system dominance, calling Apple's Music Store 'the Microsoft of music stores' in a meeting with financial analysts."

After years of government scrutiny, Microsoft was found to be exercising illegal monopoly power in late 1999. Some of its obligations under the settlement the company reached with the Department of Justice have expired; others remain.

The complaint against Apple claims that the company controls 75% of the online video market, 83% of the online music market, more than 90% of the hard-drive based music player market, and 70% of the Flash-based music player market.

A spokesperson for Apple said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

The complaint takes issue with Apple's refusal to support the Windows Media Audio format. "Apple's iPod is alone among mass-market Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format," it states, noting that America Online, Wal-Mart, Napster, MusicMatch, Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Music, FYE Download Zone, and Virgin Digital all support protected WMA files.

This is based on the proposition that music companies "are generally unwilling to license their music for online sale except in protected formats." Such assertions look increasingly tenuous as unprotected music becomes more widely available through legitimate channels. Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN).com, for example, claims to offer "Earth's biggest selection of a la carte DRM-free MP3 music downloads with more than 2.9 million songs from over 33,000 record labels." Just one week ago, Amazon said that Warner Music Group would make its artists' songs available in the unprotected MP3 format. EMI last year also began offering unprotected music online. And that's to say nothing of Web sites like Amie Street that have been offering unprotected music from independent artists for even longer.

Apple, for its part, might reasonably claim it doesn't want to license WMA from Microsoft, a cost the complaint speculates is unlikely to exceed $800,000, or 3 cents per iPod sold in 2005.

But the complaint goes beyond software licensing politics and charges Apple with deliberately designing its iPod hardware to be incompatible with WMA. One of the third-party components in iPods, the Portal Player System-On-A-Chip, supports WMA, according to the complaint. "Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format," the complaint states. "Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as 'crippling' a product, and software that does this is known as 'crippleware.' "

Attorneys for the plaintiff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The filing claims that the SigmalTel STMP3550 chip in Apple's iPod Shuffles also supp

Re:Karma Whoring and Comment

[tiny-e]

The complaint takes issue with Apple's refusal to support the Windows Media Audio format. "Apple's iPod is alone among mass-market Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format," it states, noting that America Online, Wal-Mart, Napster, MusicMatch, Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Music, FYE Download Zone, and Virgin Digital all support protected WMA files.

OR, you could say that the other services colluded to exclude the iPod by using a proprietary Windows format, unfairly, in attempt to make it fail.

My iPod doesn't play Nintendo ROMS either (OK, one of them does, but not by default)... maybe I should sue for that as well.

Really? what about mp3?

[ztuni2007]

'Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format,'... Also the unprotected, unmodified AAC format, and the mp3 format. It's not like the Zune plays protected AAC files.

Re:Really? what about mp3?

[MSFanBoi2]

But the Zune DOES play AAC files.

The iPod doesn't play ANY WMA files. Personally I find WMA files sound better than MP3 files (your milage may vary), thus I use a Zune. Plus I like to Think Different.

Re:Really? what about mp3?

[acroyear]

It's not like the Zune plays protected AAC files.

The lawsuit's point is that the iPod, by its numbers is a monopoly device that can thus restrict the sales of competing formats.

The fact that there is the Zune and a thousand other mp3 players that play one or the other format (I've had a NomadIIc that plays WMA files for years) seems irrelevant to them and they, I guess, think they can convince a court or jury that it's irrelevant.

This does, of course, effectively make their lawsuit irrelevant, since no such case could possibly hold up in today's legal climate.

Re:Really? what about mp3?

[falcon5768]

so technically you can say the iPod plays everything but Microsoft licensed formats..

Whats the US coming to when people actually file a lawsuit complaining that a company has a monopoly when they cant play a convicted monopolists licensed format... are people this daft?

Re:Really? what about mp3?

[HTH NE1]

The lawsuit's point is that the iPod, by its numbers is a monopoly device that can thus restrict the sales of competing formats. As evidenced by the number of sites hawking WMA files, i.e. everyone but Apple?

What's next, suing Walmart for not carrying Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancakes and Sausage On a Stick in every store?

Re:Really? what about mp3?

[johnlcallaway]

My wife has tons of WMA files. When she went to load them into iTunes, it merrily converted them to mp3s, then loaded them into the iPod. WTF???

Re:Really? what about mp3?

[Anonymous Coward]

nope.

It doesn't play ogg or flac either. So, no you can't even technically say that.

Re:Really? what about mp3?

[ztuni2007]

Yes, but AAC isn't a proprietary apple format that apple gets money for people using. WMA is a proprietary windows format that apple would have to pay windows to use. It'd be rather retarded for apple to PAY M$ to play its music format, when the music is readily convertible/available in other formats

Standard or proprietary

[ktappe]

The suit might have merit if the iPod would not play MP3 files or some other standard format. WMA is not a standard--hell, the "W" stands for "Windows" for crying out loud. Can Microsoft be sued for not supporting "Apple File Protocol" or some other Apple-specific protocol?

Re:Standard or proprietary

[oahazmatt]

Can Microsoft be sued for not supporting "Apple File Protocol" or some other Apple-specific protocol?

Well, if Apple is found guilty in this situation, and uses this very case for precedent, it is quite possible, yes.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Can Microsoft be sued for not supporting "Apple File Protocol" or some other Apple-specific protocol?

Sure, you can sue them for anything... it doesn't mean you'll win though. In that case there might be some real merit, since MS has been convicted of antitrust actions with regard to their media player and music format.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Anonymous Coward]

The vast majority of non-apple portable audio players (short of those that use CDs/cassets/etc - specified for the slashdot dicks that want to be overly literal even though they get the meaning, all others disregard) support WMA. Short of MP3 there is no format that is more common.

Other related thoughts to the monopoly charges:
But I'll add to that, what are Apple's fees to license iTunes DRM/AAC, and are there any other players that support this format? I've not heard of one, and last I heard they could licence it, but noone does? Why not? It seems like a good marketing move, unless the price is absurdly high or I'm wrong on them being available. That seems just as, if not more, anticompetative than the WMA issues.

Will Apple licence other vendors to let them make their players compatible with electronic iPod peripherials (including 3rd party manufacture as can be found by Belkin or Linksys), short of the obvious "it's only a mini sterio connection, of course it can work'. Obviously non-electronic periphs, such as covers, wouldn't be relative, since they would be based roughly on shape and layout, and Apple probably couldn't stop other companies from producing similar-enough products.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[ubernostrum]

But I'll add to that, what are Apple's fees to license iTunes DRM/AAC, and are there any other players that support this format?

Supporting AAC is easy. However, the specific DRM system Apple uses is not licensed to others; rumors abound about why this is, with probably the most sensible explanation being that Apple -- which is theoretically on the hook to the record labels if/when somebody cracks the DRM scheme -- doesn't trust anyone else to implement it.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Zordak]

Can Microsoft be sued for not supporting "Apple File Protocol" or some other Apple-specific protocol? Yes. And sadly, it wouldn't even be the stupidest law suit I've seen in the past year.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Anonymous Coward]

This suit has merit because you can't use any other MP3 player to download music from ITMS. If you could, then it wouldn't have merit. But since the music I pay for isn't portable to whatever device I use, it makes them a monopoly due to their market share. Same argument you bitches used against MS. Hope they win :)

Re:Standard or proprietary

[cgenman]

And Intel should be sued for lowering the clockspeed on their chips and disabling certain functionality in order to illegally prop up their price structure.

And Microsoft should be sued for cutting features from Vista that are already there so that they can sell lower-cost cripplewear versions.

And Sony should be sued for only supporting Playstation encrypted titles on their console.

And the Zune people should be sued until they stop. Just stop already.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[donny77]

If I buy a VHS I can't play it on my DVD player. I can record it an burn it to a DVD and then play it in my DVD player. Likewise, I can burn my ACC-FairPlay files to CD and re-rip them to any format I want. Transportability has nothing to do with the medium in which you buy the product.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[dangitman]

Short of MP3 there is no format that is more common.

Judging by the sales of songs from the iTunes store compared to the WMA stores, and the fact that many people rip music for their iPods in AAC (it's the default setting) - I would imagine that AAC files are far more common in the wild than WMA files. Do you have any actual research available that compares what format people use more?

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Em Adespoton]

This suit has merit because you can't use any other MP3 player to download music from ITMS. If you could, then it wouldn't have merit. But since the music I pay for isn't portable to whatever device I use, it makes them a monopoly due to their market share. Same argument you bitches used against MS. Hope they win :)

Just so you know: you can't use an iPod to download music from iTMS either. You use iTunes, which is available for OS X and Windows. As you can download DRM-free AAC audio from iTMS, it can indeed be installed on any audio player that supports drive mode. Only DRM'd tracks can't be played on a non-Apple portable player. Instead, you have to burn them to (rewriteable) CD, re-rip them in a DRM-free format, and THEN install them to the player. Sure, not all tracks are DRM-free, but that's up to the record studio, not Apple.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Mr2001]

the specific DRM system Apple uses is not licensed to others; rumors abound about why this is, with probably the most sensible explanation being that Apple -- which is theoretically on the hook to the record labels if/when somebody cracks the DRM scheme -- doesn't trust anyone else to implement it. That's the most charitable explanation. Perhaps a more sensible explanation, in light of the fact that Apple is a for-profit company and has a history of using platform lock-in to enhance their bottom line (see: OS X and non-Apple hardware), is that they make more money when their own store is the only one that can sell encrypted music for the iPod.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

The suit might have merit if the iPod would not play MP3 files or some other standard format. WMA is not a standard--hell, the "W" stands for "Windows" for crying out loud. Can Microsoft be sued for not supporting "Apple File Protocol" or some other Apple-specific protocol? The 'Windows' bit of it doesn't mean it only runs on Windows. Lots of MP3 devices support WMA, hence the dispute.

Frankly, I find your ignorance of this quite baffling.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[CodeBuster]

Can Microsoft be sued for not supporting "Apple File Protocol" or some other Apple-specific protocol? No, but neither have they prevented third parties from writing them and offering them on their platform. Apple has a history of being unfriendly to third party developers, so by not supporting the format AND locking down their platform so that a third party cannot implement WMA support (hacking ala iPhone doesn't count) Apple opens itself up to legitimate criticism. Now, you may argue that Apple locks down their platform for good reasons, but that does not exempt them from running a foul of the bundling and monopoly laws in the localities where they choose to operate.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[theurge14]

Insightful, given that right now Opera are attempting the same against Microsoft for not supporting W3C standards.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[onefriedrice]

Supporting AAC is easy. However, the specific DRM system Apple uses is not licensed to others; rumors abound about why this is, with probably the most sensible explanation being that Apple -- which is theoretically on the hook to the record labels if/when somebody cracks the DRM scheme -- doesn't trust anyone else to implement it.

I don't know about any "rumors," but Apple has already stated why they haven't licensed their DRM. From their website:

Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

If you don't want to read the entire letter, basically it says that having DRM means maintaining "secrets" which would undoubtedly be leaked if the system was available for license. This is true because the content is encrypted, but you also have the key to the encryption so you can play it. The trick of DRM is allowing people to use the key without them knowing how. Considering the rate that information is leaked from Apple (and it is mostly due to 3rd parties), I think he's probably right.

From the same page, Steve Jobs also states that he would prefer not to use DRM, but that it is a requirement to appease the record companies. I don't doubt that Apple [executives] would like a monopoly (who wouldn't), but I agree with you that this lawsuit is frivolous. So far, they really haven't shown the monopolistic qualities that has been shown through Microsoft, etc.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Space cowboy]

Apple has a history of being unfriendly to third party developers

No. They. Don't. Where the hell this comes from is beyond me...

Let's look at the Operating Systems: It's been a while since I coded on a windows box, but I seem to remember it was MS who made you pay for an MSDN subscription (the cheapest way to get the dev-tools and all the proprietary servers and drivers you needed to actually do something useful), whereas Apple gave away their (full, professional) developer tools.

Ok, so what about the music players: It's Apple who are giving away (already announced, in February) the SDK for their music-player & phone. Can you get a Zune development kit ? Maybe you can, but I've never heard of one. If you can, will it come with a hefty price tag ?

Ok, let's look at attitude: Apple have an open-source kernel, and many open-source projects shipped as standard with their OS. Microsoft are completely closed-shop unless you're a freakin' government or similar. Apple pick areas of open-source they think they can improve (eg: WebKit), and once they've delivered it back to the community, people seem to agree (witness Webkit taking over in Nokia phones, the android API, even the KHTML source-code is being migrated to it). What's MS done recently - can you imagine internet-explorer's rendering engine being made open-source ?

Microsoft are the closed-source, closed-minded company. Apple are a breath of fresh air.

Simon

Re:Standard or proprietary

[ubernostrum]

No, that's the most uncharitable explanation. Sensible explanations when it comes to DRM must be based on paranoia, and in this case Apple not trusting anyone fits the bill.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Anonymous Coward]

it was MS who made you pay for an MSDN subscription (the cheapest way to get the dev-tools and all the proprietary servers and drivers you needed to actually do something useful), whereas Apple gave away their (full, professional) developer tools. And Apple's free developer tools are archaic and professional developer-unfriendly compared to what you get with an MSDN subscription. Apple gives them away because the available alternatives for OS X aren't that great. On the Windows platform, the free developer tools are covered by 3rd parties (e.g. Eclipse and MiniGW) and Microsoft Visual Studio Express.

"Unfriendly to third party developer" also applies to Apple's developer support and API documentation, which is lousy compared to Microsoft.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[tm2b]

Motorola licensed Apple's DRM in the ROKR in 2005.

Except in some people's conspiracy theories it was an unmitigated disaster so now Apple doesn't let other companies play.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[iphayd]

That's not a rumor, Mr. Jobs is on record for saying that in an open letter.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[stewbacca]

>>>the fact that Apple is a for-profit company Ding ding ding...we have a winner! But unfortunately for the Apple haters out there, this isn't illegal. I'd argue that it isn't even a bad thing, as the end user experience is very polished.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[stewbacca]

Just so you know: you can't use an iPod to download music from iTMS either.

Yes you can. With an iPod Touch (or an iPhone) and a WiFi connection, you can purchase songs from the iTunes store using the iTunes button on the device.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Tony]

And Apple's free developer tools are archaic and professional developer-unfriendly compared to what you get with an MSDN subscription.

That's your opinion, Bub. I can't fuckin' stand developing using Microsoft's development tools. I'd rather use ed (the standard Unix editor) while a junior programmer pours lemon juice in my eye than use Visual Studio. And I am a professional developer.

"Unfriendly to third party developer" also applies to Apple's developer support and API documentation, which is lousy compared to Microsoft.

Again, I disagree. I don't know about direct developer support, but I find there's a *lot* of excellent documentation on the OpenStep API, and their SDKs come with more than adequate documentation. Their APIs are generally clean, and only minimalist documentation is required. I find Microsoft's APIs rococo, and rife with undocumented bugs that I have to work around.

I enjoy programming on a Mac. I can't stand programming on an MS-Windows machine.

But then, I also use EMACS as my IDE, and I *way* prefer Objective-C over C++ or C# or Java, and I use man as my documentation. So your mileage will certainly vary. I understand there are *professional* devs who prefer to use VS. I also understand *professional* devs often prefer vi over EMACS.

Oh, well. Just keep in mind, not all *professional* devs have your preferences. And, some professional devs are probably better than you.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Space cowboy]

"archaic"... Riiiighhht. XCode provides:

• syntax-highlighting - obvious, but it's a requirement, so I'll mention it.
  
• function/method expansion and auto-complete - again, obvious basic functionality, but worth a mention. More useful with ObjC's named-parameters than other languages.
  
• reformatting - again, basic stuff. Auto-format code according to user-defined rules. Auto-insert of braces, auto-placement of cursor, etc.
  
• block-structured folding editor - allows you to concentrate on just the code you care about at the time
  
• documentation-integration - get keyword, constant, class,whatever documentation by just -clicking on the entity.
  
• reference-integration - jump to definition of method, function, variable, ... by just -clicking on the entity.
  
• Fully-integrated dtrace instrumentation - use built-in instruments or create your own, run them automatically alongside your code and analyse the results graphically.
  
• full refactoring - move classes or variables, rename anything, do partial moves, subclass, you name it...
  
• full SCM integration - use any of svn,cvs,perforce either locally or networked
  
• full unit-testing integration - for C/C++ and ObjC
  
• fully integrated gui-driven data-modelling - provides object-relational storage backed by either XML or SQL
  
• fully integrated with the UI designer - and doesn't create some half-assed computer-generated code in your app. Generates an archived instance of the objects you created in the UI designer, much cleaner.
  
• easy distribution of builds over multiple macs on the LAN
  
• uses gdb as the debugger - allows full access to its sophisticated features
  
• completely scriptable - so common repetitive tasks don't piss you off.
  

... and that's just off the top of my head. XCode is a *great* development environment. You should maybe take a brief look

Simon.

Re:Standard or proprietary

[CodeBuster]

but I seem to remember it was MS who made you pay for an MSDN subscription

You only have to pay if you want to use their Products in your development (i.e servers, office, etc...) which you would have to do anyway, with either Apple OR Microsoft, because they are both closed source products and they don't generally give away licenses for free. However, the developer documentation, articles, and many free tools have always been available free of charge on the MSDN website for the last ten (10) years at least. I have looked at the developer information available via the Apple site and I have to say that the MSDN website, newsgroups, and blogs have more information that is more freely available. I have never heard anyone, even those who profess to be anti-Microsoft, argue that Apple has better or more complete developer support on their site than what is available on MSDN for free .

the cheapest way to get the dev-tools

They used to be pay only (at least for the full IDE w/debugger), but there have been completely free versions of very capable IDEs available for years now (Visual Studio Express). I took my first programming course on MAC Performa 570s back in the late 1990s and they were running CodeWarrior as I recall (which was also pay and not cheap). There were probably free versions of command line c compilers for both MAC and Windows back in those days, but they were probably no frills (i.e. bring your own text editor and debugger).

and all the proprietary servers and drivers you needed to actually do something useful.

Not sure about this one, the C API calls for all that you might want to do, along with headers were available without paying (although you would have been limited to the command line compiler + text editor again if you didn't want to pay for an IDE). The Apple drivers are just as proprietary as the Microsoft drivers so I don't see how Apple scores any points here.

whereas Apple gave away their (full, professional) developer tools.

There are so few companies out there doing professional Apple development that I cannot profess to have ever meet a native Apple developer in the flesh (although I suppose they do exist). However, I wonder how their tool use stacked up with other third party tools that were available. I got the impression, working on macs in my college days (where there were a few professors who used them for other work), that many Mac developers used CodeWarrior instead of whatever tools were native. It is funny, I have heard of just about every third party IDE and programming tool there is, barring the really obscure stuff, but I have never heard the native Apple tools mentioned, even in the context of Mac development, by name. Perhaps there is a reason for this? I don't know.

Can you get a Zune development kit ? Maybe you can, but I've never heard of one. If you can, will it come with a hefty price tag ?

Don't know, but who cares? How many people actually bought Zune? Maybe Steve Ballmer and his immediate family?

Ok, let's look at attitude: Apple have an open-source kernel

for many years MacOS was as proprietary as can be (although Windows wasn't any better). They both release the source code under different licenses now with strings attached, but who really cares about the kernel other than kernel and maybe driver developers? The best kernel is the one that does its job, but is otherwise reliable and unobtrusive. I don't know about you, but I really couldn't care less about the kernel as long as the APIs provided by the OS give my programs the services I want.

As for attitude Apple and Microsoft are corporations, they don't have 'attitudes' (even though their marketing people might want you to believe otherwise). They exist to ultimately provide value for their shareholders, that is it and that is all.

What's MS done recently - can you imagine internet-

Re:Standard or proprietary

[Space cowboy]

You only have to pay if you want to use their Products in your development (i.e servers, office, etc...) which you would have to do anyway, with either Apple OR Microsoft, because they are both closed source products and they don't generally give away licenses for free.

So, lets put Windows 2003 (?) Server up against OSX Leopard server. I want to develop a client application that uses web-scripting, linked to a backend-database, and calendaring/contacts. On OSX, I use Apache2, MySQL, PHP, and iCal server as foundations for my ObjC app, all of which come for free with unlimited client-side licences. I can integrate with the open-source C api's easily, and life is good.

On Windows (and I may be wrong about this, but it's my impression) the standard database is SQL Server, the standard language is now C# integrated via .NET, the standard calendaring and contacts system is Outlook (server?). All of these are designed to play well with each other when you use them together, but that means a lot of licensing, both for the developer and for the client. Do all these licences come for free with a free MSDN subscription ? If so, when you sell the application to the client, is there a cost to you (now that it is a for-profit venture) ? Life doesn't sound so good...

Not sure about this one, the C API calls for all that you might want to do, along with headers were available without paying (although you would have been limited to the command line compiler + text editor again if you didn't want to pay for an IDE). The Apple drivers are just as proprietary as the Microsoft drivers so I don't see how Apple scores any points here

My point was that all the surrounding APIs (for other services provided by the company's software) are just as proprietary within the Microsoft hegemony. Apple's use of open-source components doesn't impose the same burden.

There are so few companies out there doing professional Apple development that I cannot profess to have ever meet a native Apple developer in the flesh (although I suppose they do exist). However, I wonder how their tool use stacked up with other third party tools that were available. I got the impression, working on macs in my college days (where there were a few professors who used them for other work), that many Mac developers used CodeWarrior instead of whatever tools were native. It is funny, I have heard of just about every third party IDE and programming tool there is, barring the really obscure stuff, but I have never heard the native Apple tools mentioned, even in the context of Mac development, by name. Perhaps there is a reason for this? I don't know

For what it's worth, CodeWarrior doesn't exist any more on the Mac. It hasn't for a while - pretty much when XCode came along, Codewarrior gave up. Since you've never apparently met an Apple developer in the flesh, I don't doubt you've never heard of Xcode... It's not something you hear about while waiting in the ATM queue, after all...

Don't know, but who cares? How many people actually bought Zune? Maybe Steve Ballmer and his immediate family?

I don't know either, and I care as much as you seem to. I was replying to the parent, and pointing out that there is a spectrum of developer opportunity in the Apple sphere, then contrasting it within the Microsoft realm. A fair comparison, I think.

They both release the source code under different licenses now with strings attached, but who really cares about the kernel other than kernel and maybe driver developers? The best kernel is the one that does its job, but is otherwise reliable and unobtrusive. I don't know about you, but I really couldn't care less about the kernel as long as the APIs provided by the OS give my programs the services I want.

As for attitude Apple and Microsoft are corporations, they don't have 'attitudes' (even though their marketing people might want

Re:Standard or proprietary

[brokenbeaker]

Well, there was the time that Apple allowed third parties to sell Mac clones, and then totally screwed them when they started outselling Apple...

Hmmmmm....

[varmittang]

Does anyone know if Apple would have to take out a license to play WMA or DRM protected WMA files with the iPod?

Re:Hmmmmm....

[cbrocious]

Protected WMA, yes. They pay for the WMA licensing with portalplayer AFAIK.

Re:Hmmmmm....

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Does anyone know if Apple would have to take out a license to play WMA or DRM protected WMA files with the iPod?

Yes, it's in TFA. It claims the cost would probably be about $.03 per iPod.

Re:Hmmmmm....

[Tintivilus]

They pay for the WMA licensing with portalplayer AFAIK.

That would be highly unusual. Embedded audio solutions are almost always available on a negotiate-your-own-royalties (ie, codec X is implemented, but you need to pay royalties to owner of codec X if you want to use it) basis, and I'm quite sure Apple buys enough units to negotiate a purchase without licenses they have no intention of using.

Gadgets ship with such "disabled" capabilities all the time. IC suppliers want to have the broadest possible market, but gadget manufacturers won't pay royalties for features that they don't think will affect their sales.

Re:Hmmmmm....

[Reverberant]

Does anyone know if Apple would have to take out a license to play WMA or DRM protected WMA files with the iPod?

Yes, but it's not that simple. Remember, in addition to iPod, Apple also has another product line - Macs. If Apple's DAP's are going to play protected-WMA files and the iTMS is going to sell protected-WMA files, than Apple's own computer line will need to play protected-WMA files.

Only there's one problem: Microsoft doesn't license WMA DRM for any PC platform except Windows. So yes, even if Steve Jobs showed up in Redmond with a briefcase full of 50's and 100's, he won't get WMA-DRM files to play on the Mac.

So why should Apple be forced to support a DRM'd music format on it's players that isn't supported on it's computing platform?

Re:Hmmmmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd read what you linked to you'd have seen that what you said is false; WM DRM can be licensed to non-Windows-based portable and network devices.

Re:Hmmmmm....

[Em Adespoton]

Gadgets ship with such "disabled" capabilities all the time. IC suppliers want to have the broadest possible market, but gadget manufacturers won't pay royalties for features that they don't think will affect their sales.

So... what you're saying is that we should really be filing a class action suit against the USPTO for artificially restricting use of existing technology ;)

Re:Hmmmmm....

[Em Adespoton]

Nice try...

Only there's one problem: Microsoft doesn't license WMA DRM [arstechnica.com] for any PC platform except Windows.

Microsoft doesn't license WM DRM to competing OSes for PCs, just like the parent said. We're not talking Slingboxes and PalmOS devices here.

Re:Hmmmmm....

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

So they are really trying to prove that microsoft is out abusing of it's monopoly agian?
Sure didn't work very well.

Re:Hmmmmm....

[Lost Engineer]

They only use PortalPlayer's hardware (and maybe their kernel), but not their userland.

You can macro these headlines

[Quiet_Desperation]

$SUCCESSFUL_COMPANY sued for $OVERHYPED_REASON by $MONEY_HUNGRY_LAWYERS for $SOME_SCHLUB_WHO_AGREED_TO_BE_LAWYER'S_MARK

Lather, rinse and repeat.

Re:You can macro these headlines

[TooMuchToDo]

Someone needs to put that on a shirt at Thinkgeek (or you should do so through CafePress). Excellent, true observation. Welcome to America =(

boo-hoo

[ADRA]

Lets start suing GFX companies, mainframe, and firewall makers who use software to restrict what features are exposed to the end product. This is nothing new to Apple. If Apple advertised support for protected WMA then someone may have a ledge to grab onto, but instead they use the ploy that if a device -can- support something then it must.

I should sue Nintendo to force them to accept playing my home-brew games. They're illegally locking my right to run my own programmed games on their system even though the system has the ability to play it!! Get your torches.

Re:boo-hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better yet, lets sue Sony for not playing HD-DVDs in their PS3!

Re:boo-hoo

[thegrassyknowl]

I should sue Sony for not allowing me to play Xbox games on my Playstation2. I mean c'mon. The hardware supports it - the disks are the same size and all.

Can Apple use WMA without paying more?

[assassinator42]

If not, then I don't believe the suit has any merit. Even if the cost is 'only' $800,000. I'm guessing Apple still must license WMA playback even if the iPod contains a chip which is capable.
Where's the Ogg Vorbis support? I hear Microsoft specifies that player which can play protected WMA can not play Ogg Vorbis. Where's the lawsuit about that?

Re:Can Apple use WMA without paying more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the Ogg Vorbis support? I hear Microsoft specifies that player which can play protected WMA can not play Ogg Vorbis. Where's the lawsuit about that?

That lawsuit will come when more then 2% of the population has heard of Ogg Vorbis.

Re:Can Apple use WMA without paying more?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear Microsoft specifies that player which can play protected WMA can not play Ogg Vorbis. Where's the lawsuit about that? Maybe what you heard is bullshit? The iRiver T60 plays WMA and OGG.

Re:Can Apple use WMA without paying more?

[mabhatter654]

why does Apple like BSD operating systems (OSX) and LGPL web browsers (webkit/KHTML) but not BSD licensed audio or video codex? Apple's outright hostility to Vorbis and Theora is quite a fantastic case of NIH considering they sell software packages as a "total solution" and such support would absolutely NOT hurt them.

they just aren't paying attention, are they?

[acroyear]

When the market is demanding, and receiving, DRM-free tunes at amazon, iTunes, and a number of smaller label-run sites (Deutsche Grammophon and Naxos, for example), the restrictiveness of one product to not play another's deprecated and irrelevant format is a rather trite thing. As far as I know, there's never been a precedent for "incompatibility" unless there's a contract violation clause to attach it to.

If they really want to solve the incompatibility problem, they should go out and sue HD-DVD and Blu-Ray device makers for not making players that can read both formats. Or how about a video game maker that only makes his games on PS2 and not on XBox or WII? or the other end, how about suing Microsoft for not being able to play Sony PS2 games...

Re:they just aren't paying attention, are they?

[sehlat]

how about suing Microsoft for not being able to play Sony PS2 games... Actually, this idea should be generalized:

Sue $BRAND_NAME because $PROPRIETARY_PRODUCT_A won't play games/music/movies/books meant for $PROPRIETARY_PRODUCT_B

The number of combinations of the above that can be implemented is limited only by some lawyer's imagination.

Re:they just aren't paying attention, are they?

[dangitman]

Sue Cowboy Neal because Hot Grits won't play games/music/movies/books meant for Madeleine Albright.

pot meet kettle

[wardk]

so Microsoft's players support Quicktime? (of course Microsoft is behind this if you dredge deep enough)

Non-apple platforms are openly HOSTILE to mac users (sorry, this service does not support Safari)

it's apple's do-hickey, they can do what they want.

losers

maybe these lamers should just get real computers that import music in non-WMA format, like a MAC

Re:pot meet kettle

[cstdenis]

Windows media player used to support quicktime.

The support was removed in some service pack (windows 9x time I think) IIRC because apple sued them over it or something.

Re:pot meet kettle

[Em Adespoton]

Windows media player used to support quicktime. The support was removed in some service pack (windows 9x time I think) IIRC because apple sued them over it or something.

...and Apple, not wanting the reverse suit that would be brought by MS, isn't supporting Windows Media.

I must have been in a transporter accident...

[glindsey]

...because that's the only way I can explain this mirror universe where DRM proponents are arguing that a product barring them from crippling your ability to do what you want with your music is itself "crippleware".

Scotty, for the love of God, get me out of here.

Re:I must have been in a transporter accident...

[Zordak]

No, you're in the right place. The crazy alternative universe would be the one where Congress doesn't sell stupid draconian laws to the highest bidder and where (a) people have fair use rights in media and (b) can't be held criminally liable for exercising those rights.

Plays MP3's just fine

[Foofoobar]

My iPod plays MP3's just fine. That's the most widely supported format their is. Why do they have to support WMA as well when they already support the most ubiquitous formats like WAV and MP3??

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[bennomatic]

Forget WMA... What about my PlaysForSure songs?! I think my Zune must be broken...

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[cstdenis]

IIRC they do not play MP3. iTunes converts files from mp3 to AAC on the fly.

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[gEvil (beta)]

Please don't try to recall anything else, because your memory is clearly very faulty.

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the new standard music file format AAC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding.

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[Just Some Guy]

To amplify what gEvil said, you're smoking crack. You can mount an iPod as a USB drive and copy MP3s to it to your heart's content. iTunes will even automate this for you if you don't want to do it manually.

Seriously, where do people get these ideas? Here, I want to start my own trivially disproven but still spreadable rumor and you can help: "Internet Explorer can no longer display JPEGs." Pass it on.

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[Anonymous Coward]

"Internet Explorer can no longer display JPEGs."

Actually, Internet Explorer never displayed JPEGs - MSHTML displays and stores images as BMPs. Read: http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffdav/archive/2003/12/08/53607.aspx

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[Em Adespoton]

To be fair, iTunes *can* be configured to convert MP3s to AACs on the fly. It can also be configured to do the opposite, if you would rather have all your music in MP3 format. This, of course, doesn't apply to DRM'd tracks.

I think what all the bashers have continually tried to do is associate the first A in AAC with Apple (Apple Audio Codec) -- when we all SHOULD know that AAC is a public format included in MPEG-4 -- and Dolby holds the patents. This is probably why Apple tags AAC files as .m4a instead of .aac, to drive home the point that this is MPEG-4 Audio, not some Apple codec like Apple Lossless.

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

My iPod plays MP3's just fine. That's the most widely supported format their is. Why do they have to support WMA as well when they already support the most ubiquitous formats like WAV and MP3?? Just playing Devil's Advocate here: WMA supports DRM, MP3 (unless I'm sorely mistaken...) does not. This is why MP3 is NOT a publishing standard for most content producers. Don't forget that this is an industry that thinks every single one of its customers are thieves.

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[Foofoobar]

Publishers are now dumping DRM and publishing on Amazon and iTunes as raw MP3's. So again, why do we need anything else aside from widely supported ubiquitous standards?

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Publishers are now dumping DRM and publishing on Amazon and iTunes as raw MP3's. So again, why do we need anything else aside from widely supported ubiquitous standards? A couple of publishers are experimenting with the idea and seeing what happens. If, in a year from now, a good chunk of them have permenantly switched over, drop me a message and I'll be happy to retract my statement.

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[Foofoobar]

Actually 4 of the major publishers that form the RIAA are doing it and Sony is beginning to experiment with it. That's a major chunk of the RIAA and the people who were pushing DRM for music. So it's pretty much happening already.

Re:Plays MP3's just fine

[JoshNorton]

No, no, no - remember, it's not "PlaysForSure" any more, it's now "Certified for Windows Vista".

Meanwhile, the Zune is instead "Certified for Windows Vista". There's a BIG difference, I'm sure you'll agree.

Verizon, too?

[WoodstockJeff]

I wonder if they've filed against Verizon for all the phone features they disable, like the ability to create your own ring tones?

MS conspiracy theorists take note

[Broken Toys]

"But the complaint goes beyond software licensing politics and charges Apple with deliberately designing its iPod hardware to be incompatible with WMA."

Or, it's OK for MS to have its own proprietary audio format but if Apple does the same thing it's suddenly a problem.

Re:MS conspiracy theorists take note

[daveywest]

Yes, because Apple naturally makes easily usable products. MS cuts out the middleman and complicates them from the beginning.

Re:MS conspiracy theorists take note

[comm2k]

AAC is not an Apple format. Its part of ISO MPEG4.

Re:MS conspiracy theorists take note

[Broken Toys]

It's a conspiracy theory. Don't start mucking up things with "facts".

Who stands to gain if this lawsuit is successful? HINT: Not you.

common sense?

[teknopurge]

I am a company.

I design a product to my specs.

QED

Now seriously, why should I feel obligated to make my iPod, that I designed and developed, slice bread and change my car's oil? You don't like the features my product has, either choose another or make your own. Just because my product is popular does NOT mean I have to change it to cater to you.

Regards,

WMA

[jcaldwel]

Windows Media is a proprietary Microsoft format! How can you sue someone for not implementing a competitor's file format?

Re:WMA

[croddy]

Well, the thrust of the suit is that they are building Ipods using a third-party decoder chip, which has WMA support already, and then they are actively disabling it. It's not a matter of failing to implement the competitor's file format; the argument is that they are buying off-the-shelf hardware and disabling formats they wish to kill.

Re:WMA

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's a shitty format, too.

Re:WMA

[Hamilton Lovecraft]

The third party decoder chip has WMA support in much the same way that Intel CPUs have support for Linux and OSX executables.

Re:WMA

[croddy]

No, the comparison is not really apt, as the PortalPlayer system includes a firmware with those codecs built in. Please refer to the PP5022 Product Briefing for details. I'm not really claiming one way or another on the suit's merits, as I am not a lawyer, but OP seemed to be having some difficulty accessing the article.

Re:WMA

[jcaldwel]

Point taken. Even so, I don't think they should be obligated to provide a feature, especially if they would have to pay ROYALTIES to Microsoft on every product sold.

Re:WMA

[Urkki]

Well, the thrust of the suit is that they are building Ipods using a third-party decoder chip, which has WMA support already, and then they are actively disabling it. It's not a matter of failing to implement the competitor's file format; the argument is that they are buying off-the-shelf hardware and disabling formats they wish to kill. Is Apple actively disabiling it 'cos they want to, or is Apple just not paying for requied the WMA licenses, and therefore is legally obligated to disable WMA?

Re:WMA

[Hamilton Lovecraft]

The Product Briefing you link is very vague as to what the "firmware framework" actually contains: "PortalPlayer(TM) supports the PP5022 with an embedded firmware framework and FDK that includes robust development tools enabling custom feature sets and enhancements. The FDK allows developers to rapidly create differentiated platforms based on a complete suite of standard functions, database engines, codecs, etc." I'd be very surprised if they offer any firmware with functionality at a higher level than, e.g., block DCT. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

The law suit was filed on a computer running a Monopoly OS using an office application suite that was yet another monopoly.

Say what?

[tyrantking31]

So their argument is that the most popular music player doesn't play the most popular music file type? Then how is it still the most popular music player? Bad law suit. Worse lawyers. Good luck kids.

Rubbish

[jrothwell97]

It's no different to most WMA players not supporting DRMed AAC, and only supporting MS's DRMed WMA. Which can be said of many, many low-end Flash players.

Re:Rubbish

[Swampash]

Windows Media Player doesn't even play UNPROTECTED AAC.

Re:Rubbish

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

It's no different to most WMA players not supporting DRMed AAC, and only supporting MS's DRMed WMA. Which can be said of many, many low-end Flash players.

Yes, actually it is different. Most manufacturers of low-end Flash players don't have enough market share to come close to qualifying as having monopoly influence on the market. Apple has about 70% of the portable, digital music player market, last time I looked, which is right about borderline and if the courts rule they do have monopoly influence, several of Apple's policies would be subject to antitrust law and possibly reparations.

Of course the specific complaint is a bit different since it tries to artificially break the market into flash and hard drive based systems, and lists higher market share than even the most generous estimates I've seen. Also, Microsoft has been more than charged, they've been convicted of abusing their monopoly with regard to the WMA format, and no real action was taken to remedy that situation.

Re:Rubbish

[dgatwood]

As long as the consumer is fully in control of whether to choose the product or its alternatives, there is no monopoly, regardless of how many units are sold. What makes something a monopoly is the lack of "close substitutes". Clearly, that is not the case for the iPod. You may not like the appearance of other players, but there are plenty of them out there, and they are at least reasonably close substitutes. People choose the iPod because either they believe it is the best choice or they think it is hip or they have had bad experiences with other companies' products or... lots of reasons, but the lack of reasonably usable alternatives is not one of them. iPods aren't even the cheapest players out there, so you can't even argue that Apple's volume makes it impossible to compete well....

The fundamental flaw with any argument based solely on number of units sold is that there is no real iPod lock-in. With operating systems, you are pretty much locked in. The cost of buying new software to support another OS is huge, plus there are all the compatibility problems with files, etc. With music, you have a choice. You can choose to buy music from the iTunes Store if you want, knowing full well that you will have to burn to a CD and have a little quality loss if you want to move to a non-Apple player, but you can also choose to buy DRM-free music on CD, from Amazon, or even some selections from the iTunes Store. I could switch to any other player right now if somebody came out with a better one. I'd have to spend a few hours converting my protected AACs to unprotected AACs (burning to a CD and ripping it), but I could do it. The barrier to switching is basically zero, and other alternatives exist. Thus, no monopoly. Simple as that.

Caveat: IANALBIPOOSD.

Re:Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

You could always install the Orban AAC plugin. It's free and simple. Double click, install, play AACs. Takes 10 seconds.

Re:Rubbish

[jedidiah]

Except that isn't completely accurate.

Once you buy something from the iTunes store you are locked into Apple's product. You
are locked into Apple's product much the same way you are with Win32 software. The
only difference is that there are equivalents for everything outside the (Apple)
reservation.

The barrier is not as bad but it's still there.

An iPod still has the same "we will screw around with your freedom of choice
tomorrow" situation going on as Windows does.

Novice hostile workarounds don't count as "restoring free choice" here.

If an engineer (of the genuine licensed vareity) sees this as an exit barrier
then it's an exit barriers.

Re:Rubbish

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

As long as the consumer is fully in control of whether to choose the product or its alternatives, there is no monopoly, regardless of how many units are sold.

Legally, this is not the case. A monopolist need only have enough market share to unduly influence the market away from competing products using its influence instead of competing fairly.

What makes something a monopoly is the lack of "close substitutes". Clearly, that is not the case for the iPod.

Is their anything about an iPod's market share that would dissuade consumers from choosing alternatives? What about if they are currently an iPod user and cannot transfer their music to a new device? What about if there aren't any adapters or third party attachments for anything but the iPod so they don't have the option to use anything else for a specific use case?

People choose the iPod because either they believe it is the best choice or they think it is hip or they have had bad experiences with other companies' products or... lots of reasons, but the lack of reasonably usable alternatives is not one of them.

Or they might choose them for either of the reasons I just listed which have nothing to do with the quality of the iPod and everything to do with its popularity.

The fundamental flaw with any argument based solely on number of units sold is that there is no real iPod lock-in.

You say that as if lock-in were the only type of antitrust abuse. It isn't. In fact tying is the first category of antitrust abuse detailed, with bundling being the the most common form. Apple bundles their iPod with the iTunes program and they tie both of them to the iTunes store using proprietary DRM. Mind you, the DRM was not by choice and they've done their best to remove or mitigate it. It was thrust upon them by a several time convicted antitrust cartel, the RIAA. Even so, both of those ties are illegal under antitrust law if Apple is ruled to have monopoly influence on the market.

With operating systems, you are pretty much locked in. The cost of buying new software to support another OS is huge, plus there are all the compatibility problems with files, etc. With music, you have a choice. You can choose to buy music from the iTunes Store if you want, knowing full well that you will have to burn to a CD and have a little quality loss if you want to move to a non-Apple player, but you can also choose to buy DRM-free music on CD, from Amazon, or even some selections from the iTunes Store.

Umm, and you don't know going in that software you buy will only run on Windows and can choose to only purchase software that is cross-platform and works on multiple OS's or has a cross-licensing policy. If you just buy your games from Blizzard they come with Windows and Mac versions on the same disk.

I could switch to any other player right now if somebody came out with a better one. I'd have to spend a few hours converting my protected AACs to unprotected AACs (burning to a CD and ripping it), but I could do it. The barrier to switching is basically zero, and other alternatives exist.

Wait, you're saying spending hours performing a task most users don't understand or know they can do is "zero" barrier? It is a fairly significant barrier actually, at least for the average user.

Thus, no monopoly. Simple as that.

Sorry, that's not the way the laws work. If Apple has enough influence in a market, just like Microsoft, they are prohibited from taking actions that use their monopoly's influence to gain any advantage in another market. Just as MS was convicted of bundling IE and Windows, Apple could be convicted of bundling iPods and iTunes. The test for monopoly influence is usually just market share and most of the US and the EU use 70% as a number to start investigating. If it is determined they have enough market, then the test becomes even easier... are the

Re:Rubbish

[riceboy50]

Novice hostile workarounds don't count as "restoring free choice" here. You must not have understood what he was talking about. Burning your protected music from iTunes onto a standard music CD is not a hostile workaround, it is a feature of the system. His point remains.

Re:Rubbish

[Em Adespoton]

Except that isn't completely accurate.

I think you'll find that it actually is.

Once you buy something from the iTunes store you are locked into Apple's product. You
are locked into Apple's product much the same way you are with Win32 software. The
only difference is that there are equivalents for everything outside the (Apple)
reservation.

Wrong. As the parent stated, all data you use with an iPod/from the iTunes store can be converted to any other commonly available format (including WMA). Sometimes it is just a two-step process. It isn't a question of equivalency, it is a question of using data you own. The scenario is more akin to opening your DRM'd WMA files -- they can't easily be converted into another format, but can be played in their current form on 1 OS and most portable media players. Or MS Word documents -- which often can't even be opened correctly by MS Word.

The barrier is not as bad but it's still there.

There is a barrier, but it is not the one you outline above. Basicly, Apple products will not play documents DRM'd by Microsoft software. That's it.

An iPod still has the same "we will screw around with your freedom of choice
tomorrow" situation going on as Windows does.

How so? As the parent said, you can convert all your files, and choose to use them with another device in the future. Conversion isn't as convenient as it could be, but that's life.

Novice hostile workarounds don't count as "restoring free choice" here.

I hope you're not calling burning & ripping a hostile workaround -- it is documented on Apple's website as an approved workaround, and is also included in the help files in iTunes.

If an engineer (of the genuine licensed vareity) sees this as an exit barrier
then it's an exit barriers.

So... if another licensed engineer says it isn't a barrier to exit, does that mean it suddenly isn't anymore? How about a licensed doctor? After all, you can't get a PEng in law (or Business or Computing Science for that matter) as far as I know.

DRM'd WMA and WMV have barriers to exit -- they CAN'T be converted to other formats by legal means. DRM'd AAC can be. Not to mention that Apple sells DRM-free versions of some of its offering.

To add to the thought puzzle: Does a gasoline-based automobile have exit barriers? Yes, but these are easily overcome. It IS possible to get alternative modes of transportation, even if you have to resort to walking.

Does breathing air have an exit barrier? Depends on how you look at it....

Re:Rubbish

[LynnwoodRooster]

So then explain the whole Microsoft and Windows Media Player thing. Or the Windows and Internet Explorer thing.

Re:Rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fundamental flaw with any argument based solely on number of units sold is that there is no real iPod lock-in. With operating systems, you are pretty much locked in. The cost of buying new software to support another OS is huge, plus there are all the compatibility problems with files, etc."

Better yet, Apple makes a Windows version of iTunes. They don't use their dominance in the portable music player market to lock people into their operating system or their computer hardware. Nor is there any compelling reason to buy music from Apple other than convenience.

This suit is just a way for some third-rate lawyers to collect fees.

Re:Rubbish

[RightSaidFred99]

Haha, grandparent post scares the rabid anti-MS freaks because the arguments are directly applicable to MS, despite the feeble "but you have file format lock in!" argument (no, you don't - apps are apps, an OS is an OS). I don't care what the test is, the original intent of monopoly law was to prevent one business from controlling sole access to a resource. It's been manipulated, coerced, and corrupted over the years to basically mean anything your competitors comlain about.

You better hope Ron Paul doesn't get elected. He'll go back to old school. If there is a _free_ competitor and numerous other possible sources for a computer OS, his administration would laugh at the idea that MS is a monopoly. For the record, I'm stroked to just as many fits of hilarity and ridicule that people would claim Apple has a monopoly - the idea is just stupid.

Re:Rubbish

[Tony]

I don't care what the test is, the original intent of monopoly law was to prevent one business from controlling sole access to a resource.

Absolutely. And that was the problem with Microsoft. (Still is, to a certain extent.) It was demonstrated in their *first* anti-trust trial that they controlled access to the PC manufacturers. That is, they had sales lock-in, disallowing any other OS to appear on a computer.

I agree with the modern interpretation, myself. Any time a corporation can regulate the market, it destroys market value for its own profits. This is bad for the economy, bad for consumers, and bad for the world in general.

Microsoft is a monopoly, as they are able to control the market for their own advantage, rather than competing on product worth. However, I believe that power is waning. Perhaps we can recover from the damage they have inflicted; perhaps not. In any case, I believe Microsoft will be the new IBM, destined to be a big player without the control they once enjoyed.

At least, we can hope.

And if electing Ron Paul will delay that day, he has lost my vote. The *only* Constitutional mandate of the federal government is to regulate interstate commerce. I believe regulation of corporations, and revocation of corporate charters from abusive corporations, is both the right and primary responsibility of the federal government.

Re:Rubbish

[dgatwood]

Legally, this is not the case. A monopolist need only have enough market share to unduly influence the market away from competing products using its influence instead of competing fairly.

Yeah, but my point was that there's no reason to believe this is the case.

In fact tying is the first category of antitrust abuse detailed, with bundling being the the most common form. Apple bundles their iPod with the iTunes program and they tie both of them to the iTunes store using proprietary DRM. Mind you, the DRM was not by choice and they've done their best to remove or mitigate it. It was thrust upon them by a several time convicted antitrust cartel, the RIAA. Even so, both of those ties are illegal under antitrust law if Apple is ruled to have monopoly influence on the market.

Bundling of DRM? You can't bundle a feature of a piece of software. If it is not a sufficiently large piece of software to be able to stand on its own, such an argument should be laughed out of court. Otherwise, Microsoft would have to stop releasing new versions of Office and Windows, as every version adds features.... :-) Now if you were arguing that Apple should allow third-party vendors to write iTunes replacements, that would be a potential bundling argument, though DRM music stores shouldn't have standing to bring such a suit.

Umm, and you don't know going in that software you buy will only run on Windows and can choose to only purchase software that is cross-platform and works on multiple OS's or has a cross-licensing policy. If you just buy your games from Blizzard they come with Windows and Mac versions on the same disk.

You can, but the point is that a large percentage of software isn't available for both platforms, while by contrast, there are maybe ten CDs on the planet that are iTunes exclusives.... Selling Windows-only software is very common; selling iPod-only music is almost unthinkable.

Now, with all that said, No one has yet shown that Apple has enough influence to qualify for antitrust protection.

That was my point---that the most common arguments for that don't hold water. Nothing more.

Re:Rubbish

[dgatwood]

Those became a problem because they had already been declared a monopoly. They were not the cause of said conviction. Bundling is legal if you aren't a monopoly. Only if you are a monopoly does bundling require scrutiny.

The monopoly conviction was in part because of illegal contracts with hardware vendors that prevented them from selling computers without operating systems installed (or, by extension, with Linux or other OSes installed). Microsoft claimed that those machines were "obviously" being purchased to run Windows, so they charged the licensing fee for all computers sold by their OEMs, regardless of whether Windows was actually installed on them. That's what ultimately got them nailed to the wall, since it proved beyond any doubt that they had the ability to manipulate the market to stifle competition.

The Internet Explorer thing wasn't decided until a year after they were declared a monopoly, and even then, was mainly illegal because it helped them defend their OS monopoly. Specifically, by making it harder to use cross-platform browsers, it made web applications harder to write, thus limiting the ability of the web, Java, and other middleware to make the operating system you run less relevant. In any case, this was one of the triggers for the initial complaint, but if this were the only thing they had done wrong, they might not have been declared a monopoly, and if they had not prohibited OEM vendors from installing other browsers, I doubt the bundling would have been found illegal anyway. They did a lot more than just bundle a piece of software with a product....

Re:Rubbish

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Yeah, but my point was that there's no reason to believe this is the case.

I don't see that you've made that point at all.

Bundling of DRM? You can't bundle a feature of a piece of software.

You need to work on your reading comprehension. I wrote, "Apple bundles their iPod with the iTunes program and they tie both of them to the iTunes store using proprietary DRM." That says they bundled their iPod device(market 1) with their iTunes program(market 2) and their iTunes store(market 3) using DRM as the technical method of tying. I never claimed DRM was a market.

If it is not a sufficiently large piece of software to be able to stand on its own, such an argument should be laughed out of court.

The court doesn't care if you're talking about a feature or a device, they look only at markets, which I just detailed above.

Otherwise, Microsoft would have to stop releasing new versions of Office and Windows, as every version adds features.... :-)

You have some pretty wrongheaded ideas about antitrust law. You can add all the features you want, so long as those features are not tying a monopolized market and another existing market.

Now if you were arguing that Apple should allow third-party vendors to write iTunes replacements, that would be a potential bundling argument, though DRM music stores shouldn't have standing to bring such a suit.

You're confusing a remedy with a determination of bundling. All that matters to determine if they are bundling is are they shipping a bundle of products where one product is monopolized and the other competes in an existing market. For example, if it is determined they have a monopoly on portable music players, then it is obvious they are bundling iTunes with it, which competes with other music players like WMP, WinAmp, etc.

You can, but the point is that a large percentage of software isn't available for both platforms, while by contrast, there are maybe ten CDs on the planet that are iTunes exclusives.... Selling Windows-only software is very common; selling iPod-only music is almost unthinkable.

You're arguing quantity not quality. That is not valid from a legal perspective.

That was my point---that the most common arguments for that don't hold water. Nothing more.

I don't see that you addressed that point with any of your comments. You made a lot of comments that seem to confuse what antitrust law is about both as implemented and in principal.

Re:Rubbish

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Haha, grandparent post scares the rabid anti-MS freaks because the arguments are directly applicable to MS, despite the feeble "but you have file format lock in!" argument ...

Umm, what are you babbling about? MS has been convicted of antitrust abuse in courts around the world with legal systems developed independently.

I don't care what the test is, the original intent of monopoly law was to prevent one business from controlling sole access to a resource.

Umm, "monopoly law." I think you mean "antitrust law" as in the Clayton Antitrust Act. It was designed primarily to stop the abuses of colluding groups of businesses which together were breaking the free market. The point was that large companies using their large market share were undermining capitalism's benefits and it needed to stop for the good o the people.

It's been manipulated, coerced, and corrupted over the years to basically mean anything your competitors comlain about.

I don't think you understand the intent of antitrust law. It wasn't created because of the danger of one company controlling a resource or they would have made monopolies illegal, which they aren't. The laws were created to make sure the free market and competition could keep companies from undermining the system and winning markets with inferior products. Please educate yourself before spouting off your nonsense here.

You better hope Ron Paul doesn't get elected. He'll go back to old school.

That's pretty unlikely. He has basically no chance and even if he was elected it's not as though he could get congress to pass everything he wanted (or likely anything). Also, I haven't heard his position on antitrust issues, so that is an open question. Not that it really matters, since the US DoJ is impotent, having been appointed by people elected using MS's campaign contributions. All the effective actions against them have been from the EU.

For the record, I'm stroked to just as many fits of hilarity and ridicule that people would claim Apple has a monopoly - the idea is just stupid.

Yeah it's stupid, unless you bother to notice that Apple does have a lot of influence in the portable music player market approaching 70% share, and that is where both US and EU law start investigating. But I don't expect you to know what I'm talking about and I wonder why I bother to reply to you.

Re:Rubbish

[dgatwood]

The court doesn't care if you're talking about a feature or a device, they look only at markets, which I just detailed above.

I misinterpreted your point to be about bundling, not tying, and was saying that you can't bundle part of a product. My misread.

You're confusing a remedy with a determination of bundling.

You obviously misunderstood me, then. I was not suggesting any sort of remedy with that statement. I was saying that making the iPod require iTunes to upload music could be construed as bundling, but that the only people with standing to argue that this bundling should not be allowed would be manufacturers of jukebox software, not companies that merely take advantage of that jukebox software as a means of supporting their music offerings. Again, this was based off my misreading of your statement.

I wrote, "Apple bundles their iPod with the iTunes program and they tie both of them to the iTunes store using proprietary DRM." That says they bundled their iPod device(market 1) with their iTunes program(market 2) and their iTunes store(market 3) using DRM as the technical method of tying. I never claimed DRM was a market.

Except that isn't accurate. DRM doesn't tie the iPod to the store because the vast majority of iPod users' music doesn't come from the iTunes store. Do the math. 3 billion songs, 115 million iPods, on the order of 26 songs per iPod. The average iPod reportedly averages something like a thousand songs, so maybe 3% of songs on an average iPod come from the store. They're buying the rest of that content somewhere, so obviously other companies can sell music for the iPod. Q.E.D.

Similarly, DRM doesn't tie the store to the iPod because a way to get that content onto other players is built-in: burning to a CD.

I'm failing to see how such bundling in any way results in tying one industry to another. Even if it did, though, that would only be illegal monopoly abuse if the iPod is shown to be a monopoly, which IMHO, it clearly is not because there are plenty of close substitutes available that are comparable in both technical features and price. Since it doesn't meet the minimum criterion for a monopoly, the question of bundling is moot, as it is neither illegal nor inherently monopolistic to tie products together in the general case. If it were, Apple wouldn't be allowed to limit Mac OS X to Mac hardware, Digidesign would not be allowed to require their hardware to use Pro Tools, etc.

Putting DRM on that content isn't a right, and any argument that they can't sell music without DRM went out the window when the last of the major labels agreed to sell DRM-free content today. More importantly, though, this is all a completely moot point since Apple couldn't realistically support WMA/DRM even if they wanted to. Microsoft prevents WMA from being supported on the Mac. They have very deliberately gone out of their way to make it impossible for Mac users to use that content even by downloading Microsoft's Windows Media Player, and have dropped even that support now, pawning it off to another company who doesn't have support for DRM. No support on the Mac means that it can't reasonably be supported on the iPod or else Mac users would be second class iPod users. As a result, Apple included the only DRM scheme that they could support: their own.

If they were suing for access to the Apple DRM scheme, that would at least make sense, but suing to get Apple to include something that is technically infeasible is ludicrous. I'm not saying Apple would necessarily have supported WMA/DRM if it had been an option---I have no idea what would have happened if it were possible---but it wasn't, so the question is moot.

IMHO, this bunch of PlaysForSure licensees are terrified that their lunch is about to be eaten by Amazon's DRM-free content, so they're trying to stay out of bankruptcy by suing the deepest pockets they can find.... Nothing to see here. Move along. :-)

Re:Rubbish

[RightSaidFred99]

Umm, "monopoly law." I think you mean "antitrust law" as in the Clayton Antitrust Act. It was designed primarily to stop the abuses of colluding groups of businesses which together were breaking the free market. The point was that large companies using their large market share were undermining capitalism's benefits and it needed to stop for the good o the people. Oooh. Pedantry. Effective! Your arguments are all meaningless for a few basic reasons. First, there are provably alternative OS's available. Second, MS has no pricing power with regards to said alternative OS's. For Christ's sake, a lot of the alternatives are free.

All of your "arguments" center around some kind of dimwitted demand-side monopoly, when in fact the only real monopoly is supply based. Microsoft has no corner whatsoever on the Computer Operating System market. In fact, as has been proved repeatedly, the barrier to entry in this market is very low no matter what MS does.

In the end, your dipshit opinions are meaningless. You'll be forever bemoaning the "DOJ" or whoever you blame for Microsoft/Apple/Whoever "getting away with it", but they'll continue to "get away with it".

Single format ? AAC-only ??

[Anonymous Coward]

iPods can play MP3 too.

Re:Single format ? AAC-only ??

[calebt3]

Single protected format.

Amazon

[daveo0331]

What music monopoly?

Since when

[Altus]

is playing WMA files considered a desirable feature in a portable music player?

Re:Since when

[HTH NE1]

Since when is playing WMA files considered a desirable feature in a portable music player? Though it has the capability, I haven't had the need to play them in my Honda Fit.

Re:Since when

[Anonymous Coward]

To other people other than you slashtards, yup.

Apple should be made to allow their content on other media players and not just locked to their own. Easy enough. The argument about alternatives is bunk.

Re:Since when

[skarekrough43]

...it must mean that they finally sold a Zune!!!!

Thusly confirming that even a blind squirrel can find a nut if it looks long enough.....

Congrats Microsoft! I knew you could do it! One Zune! Way to go!

silver lining

[ianare]

There is one potentially beneficial aspect to this:

As for the injury to consumers, the complaint says that Apple's pricing is "monopolistic, excessive, and arbitrary," citing how a wholesale $5.52 price difference between 1-Gbyte ($4.15) and 4-Gbyte ($9.67) NAND flash memory modules results in a $100 retail price difference between 1-Gbyte iPod Nano and a 4-Gbyte Nano. If they could be forced to lower their prices, it would be nice for all of us.

Re:silver lining

[TooMuchToDo]

Or, you know, people could just not buy it if they think the price is too high. A manufacturer should never be forced to lower it's prices because "it would be good for consumers". That's what the market is for.

Re:silver lining

[Hamilton Lovecraft]

So would you like all manufacturers to be forced to limit their markup, or just Apple?

Re:silver lining

[ianare]

it depends on whether or not the company is a monopoly. If they are, then the gov't has every right to force them to lower their prices. As of one year ago, the market share was such:

Rank - Brand - Unit Share
1 -- Apple -- 72.7%
2 -- Sandisk -- 8.9%
3 -- Microsoft -- 3.2%
4 -- Creative Labs -- 2.9%
5 -- Samsung -- 2.0%
source

No question, the ipod is by far the most dominant MP3 player. So I still say that they are overpriced due to monopolistic practices. The example in TFA is exactly the type of thing that happens when you have a monopoly. Look at vista - how much is the difference in price for M$ to produce the basic vs ultimate version? And how much is the price difference to customer pays? Same thing here.

Re:silver lining

[ianare]

Depends on whether or not they are abusing their customers. In this case I would say that apple is. Of course you could say the same thing about M$ windows and office. Google probably will in the future ...

Re:silver lining

[hattig]

How in the hell would forcing Apple make its iPods cheaper help the competition compete?

Instead of being 2/3rds the price, they're now the same price. They'd sell even less.

The market has spoken, they are willing to pay 50% more to get an iPod *despite there being a wealth of competition and alternatives in the marketplace*. That's down to having a more desirable and better product for the mainstream.

Microsoft ACTIVELY hurt their competitors, e.g., stopping things working under DR-DOS, and so on. There's a vast difference in behaviour.

Re:silver lining

[prockcore]

The ridiculous markup is an indication that Apple has a monopoly.

Re:silver lining

[TooMuchToDo]

A ridiculous markup is no indicator of a monopoly. For more examples please see Coach purchases, Ferrari sports cars, and any piece of designer clothing over $1000.

There are plenty of other MP3 players out on the market. Just Google for "portable MP3 player". Monopoly my ass.

Re:silver lining

[TooMuchToDo]

How many other desktop OS' are in use besides Windows? Zero. Zilch. Linux on the desktop is still under 1% (number pulled out of my ass, but it might as well be a real number). Therefore, Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop operating systems.

Apple is not the only manufacturer of portable MP3 players. You yourself listed several others. Just because they have a large market share doesn't mean they have monopoly status.

Look at vista - how much is the difference in price for M$ to produce the basic vs ultimate version? And how much is the price difference to customer pays? Same thing here.

Ahh, my favorite part of your post. Guess what? Plenty of companies have big margins (30+ %). THAT DOES NOT MAKE THEM A MONOPOLY. Lots of manufacturers make multiple versions of a product and sell them at different price points. There is no law that says a company has to limit the markup a consumer pays (at least not in general retail). If people think ipods are too expensive, then don't by them.

Re:silver lining

[Zathras26]

How many other desktop OS' are in use besides Windows? Zero. Zilch.

Uhh... What? Haven't you ever heard of OS X? You know, the desktop OS that, according to Computerworld, just passed an eight percent market share?

Re:silver lining

[TooMuchToDo]

Wow. 8%. Doesn't Firefox have a greater market penetration? Call me when they hit double-digits.

Re:silver lining

[Zathras26]

OS X growth has been very strong recently -- I may be calling you soon. ;-) That wasn't my point, though. My point was that you said there are no other OSes out there besides Windows, and that's not true at all.

People Still Pay For Music?

[TheMiddleRoad]

Haven't they heard of file sharing? This is a lawsuit where a slower dinosaur is attacking a faster dinosaur. They're still both dinosaurs.

Re:People Still Pay For Music?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I'm willing to bet that most people still pay for music, even if they also download music illegitimately. Not everyone lives in their parent's basement thinking the world owes them something.

Re:People Still Pay For Music?

[TheMiddleRoad]

Oh, nice insult. High fives for you. I'm willing to bet that people pay for music only when they cannot easily find it online for free, as a gift, or as an impulse purchase.

Re:People Still Pay For Music?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Then that makes you delusional. Or perhaps just naive.

Is crippleware illegal?

[Quebec]

If crippleware is illegal there would be many lawsuits to do against all who produce DRMs (Macrovision included) and as well against those who enforced of the "no-skip" flag in DVD players.

That would be very satisfying just to know.

If it is not illegal we should make it illegal, it's a democracy after all!

Re:Is crippleware illegal?

[griffjon]

Yeah, I have a long, long list of worse offenders than Apple in producing crippleware. It'd be tough to figure out where to start!! Cell phone companies? Microsoft? Cable providers? Apple would be pretty low on my list. Anyone tried to see if this schlub is on the take from MS?

Re:Is crippleware illegal?

[grogling]

Oh, all the cell carriers are guilty of this. It would be wonderful to see them all slammed simultaneously with this. Let the landslide begin...

From the article ..

[Respawner]

"Apple, for its part, might reasonably claim it doesn't want to license WMA from Microsoft, a cost the complaint speculates is unlikely to exceed $800,000, or 3 cents per iPod sold in 2005."

Stupid

[ISurfTooMuch]

I'm all for freedom to play what you want to play, but this lawsuit is the stupidest thing I've seen in a long time. Hello! Apple makes the iPod. If they want to tie it to AAC+, they can do that. But, hey, as long as we're talking lawsuits, then let's sue them because it doesn't support OGG, FLAC, ATRAC, FLV, WMV, and it doesn't have an 8-track player option, just for good measure. By this logic, every software or hardware product out there could be liable if they don't include every single media or file format out there. All a lawsuit troll would need to do is develop some half-baked format that may or may not work, then pounce on any company for not supporting it.

If the plaintiff or the lawyers happen to read this, drop this idiotic suit. You aren't going to win, and you aren't doing the cause of open formats any favors. All you're doing is making yourself and the cause you seem to think you're helping look stupid.

Re:Stupid

[ArsonSmith]

wonder how illegal it would be to have a company set up to sue companies for similar but even more absurd things as a company that is currently sueing you. Perhaps have a company whip up a quick crappy codec then sue apple for not supporting it. This 3rd party company would be supported somehow by apple.

WMA compatible with anything???!!!

[jackjeff]

Yeah... but of course it bothers no one that DRMized WMA are incompatible with everything except M$ software and M$ operating system.

At least Apple ported its DRM scheme to Windows. Such cannot be said about M$. Microsoft has a problem with monopoly only when they do not have them.

Google:
- you do not need IE to use the website
- in fact it probably works better with FireFox
- they do software. For linux and mac also!!!.
- sometimes free software.
- ... even for the phone to replace that crap of Winblows mobile!
=>> Balmer: "they are evil" + "this is just for the show. That mobile thing is no where to be seen"
==>>> Google: one month later "see it's there already. took us much lest time than winblowz viztoys !!"

Apple:
- designed an mp3 player with probably a higher fee and slightly less feature than competitors. Did not want to pay royalties for their WMA proprietary format and relied on existing file formats. And put a USABLE GUI to the mp3 player so you don't have to be a geek to play songs!!!
- iTunes. Wow ID TAG encoding. You guyz on PC are no longer required to put everything in the file title and can actually have a small database of all your files (=> trash winamp, wmp of these days etc... ) Oh burning a CD and ripping with the same software. TOO EASY. not geeky enough
- M$ DRM are bad for customers. Ask those who already LOST what they bought with it. Apple answer: screw the majors. Same price for everything. You can burn your music. You're not happy? Go see elsewhere, customers are happy. There's no elsewhere? Then ppl will pirate your stuff.
==> M$. They're not using the standard WMA format
====> APPLE: WMA is not a standard. Does not work on Macs. You want us to use that for iPods???? No way! We have Macs to sell! Port you crap and let's talk after... When i mean port, don't do the same shit as we some of your previous software ports on mac (Windows Video Player for instance.. )

Illegal Monopoly?

[roman_mir]

This is a usual trolling by lawyers, what is illegal about Apple's monopoly on iPods and iTunes? I don't have an MP3 player at all, don't listen to music, but even I know that there are hundreds of MP3 players out there and that Apple's music file can be converted to an MP3.

Um, they broke WMA?

[rsilvergun]

That's not a bug, it's a feature!

OGG!

[WindBourne]

If this is proven, then it should be possible to get OGG in here. In fact, it might actually be better for Apple to support OGG.

Re:OGG!

[Kuukai]

Is ogg on the chip too? If so we have ourselves a case.

Re:OGG!

[jpetts]

Ooh! Ogg and chips!

Re:OGG!

[archen]

Doesn't have to be on the chip. From the summary it says "hardware supports" but apple software doesn't allow for playback. You can play ogg vorbis files with rockbox (as I do), therefore Apple is deliberatly blocking this format according to their logic. Can't wait for the counter suit as the Zune does not play Apple AAC files as far as I know. In fact with the entire PlayForSure debackle, Microsoft should sue itself.

You'll note that this suit does not stem from Microsoft, because they could obviously see the double edged sword and where this stupidity would all go.

Re:OGG!

[dangitman]

However, Ogg isn't proprietary or DRM infested, so it doesn't count.

Re:OGG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's the real 7 billion ton robot monster here? Not I!

Non-issue perhaps?

[thatskinnyguy]

OK. Go ahead and enable WMA support on iPods. People can put their crappy 64kbps wmas on their iPods and not notice a difference. But for the rest of us who actually give a crap about the sound quality of the music we listen to, our choices for music on an iPod remain essentially the same... so no difference there. Really is this an issue?

Ridiculous defintion

[Kjella]

'Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as crippling a product, and software that does this is known as crippleware.' I see it there, and I see the wikipedia page is equally overbroad. By that definition, any company that ships anything less than their "Ultimate extreme deluxe enterprise edition" is selling/distributing crippleware. Not everyone needs the full Photoshop CS3 with all the bells and whistles, though I'm sure it's nothing more than some compile settings. Crippleware should in my opinion be reserved for really annoying software that does nothing but nag about buying a different version, or shenanigans like DRM. Delivering several variations of an application to different markets at different prices, that each exist in their own right is not crippleware.

How long until

[Hawthorne01]

we find out that Microsoft is footing the legal fees for this?

I mean, it's not like they have a history of doing stuff like that (coughcoughSCOcough).

Here's hoping this case is just as successful as SCO's.

Don't like apple, suit still retarded

[timmarhy]

I can't see how anyone could seriously think this suit could win.

even though the ipod is a retarded crippled heap of junk and itunes DRM is evil, there's nothing forcing you to buy it, there's plenty of other choices out there.

add to this the fact they are expecting apple to pay a license fee to put WMA on the ipod, and you get the picture of the suit bringers idiocy.

I think this stems from one of these morons who files nucance suits thinking itunes is some kind of defato standard.

Re:Don't like apple, suit still retarded

[jay-be-em]

Myself and many others still prefer the form factor of the iPod, input device (the tiny joystick ones on the iRiver and Cowon units I've used have driven me insane, and the touchscreen units I've found don't offer enough storage for me) as well as the numerous pieces of accessories available.

I agree with you that the default firmware of the iPod is crippled, which is why I chose to replace it with rockbox. It works quite well I find. I can play my flac and ogg files and all kinds of other cool stuff -- frozen bubble, doom, etc.

Eventually I hope to go with a non Apple player, as I'd like to support a company that supports more open standards, but as it stands now I can't find a player with the same storage:physical size ratio and aa usable of an input device. If anyone has any suggestions I'm open, I'm looking at upgrading from 80GB as soon as something I like comes out, or Rockbox supports the new iPod classic.

A few dates and numbers

[sootman]

Apple introduced the iTMS in April 2003

Over a year later, they had 8-50% of the market, depending on exactly which numbers you look at.

So it sounds like they were in the MINORITY when they put protected-AAC support in. Of the many reasons why this suit-of-the-day is probably groundless, I think this is a good one: are they required to worry about anticompetitive practices when they aren't yet a monopoly? Once they become one, are the required to change? I would think not--if the market didn't like the restrictive product they introduced, it wouldn't have become dominant in the first place.

This isn't like MS giving away IE for free AFTER Windows was firmly established as the dominant desktop OS. This is like if MS had given away IE since the Windows 1.0 days. Did any of the MS antitrust suits include complaints that they bundled Notepad? More people probably play Solitaire and the other bundled games than use Notepad--were there ever any antitrust suites re: the games?

Disabling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Implementing wma DRM playback (or wma playback at all) would have been additional work for the iPod designers. Excluding them is not the same as crippling the device. As well as Apple's proprietary DRM scheme, iPods play MP3's which were the most common music file format. Why should they be required to add support for Microsoft's format?

Apple's only real monopoly...

[s_p_oneil]

I want to know what they plan to do about Apple's only real monopoly: movie trailers. God, I hate QuickTime.

Re:Apple's only real monopoly...

[pasamio]

I don't think apple has the monopoly on that, they just provide a service that many distributors utilise to promote their product. It downloads off Apple provided servers and the companies themselves own the trailers anyway. not only that but people provide the trailers on their own sites as well. what they do have is some exclusive trailers that you don't see elsewhere, but given that beyond the cinemas, the distributors/producers I only see Apple being the one to show trailers. Apple is offering a service, something Microsoft can do if they so feel like it. Or Google. In fact I did a quick google of movie trailers and got a few results after Apple:
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Trailers/ (links into its database and has better search)
http://movies.yahoo.com/trailers/
http://video.google.com/movietrailers.html (looks like this got forgotten however)
http://movies.go.com/movie_trailers

There were also other sites that pointed back to Apple and others that pointed to the trailers at the distributors site as well. Apple hardly have a monopoly as there are many other options. Its just that they provide a lot useful integration as well.

No.

[LWATCDR]

Microsoft can be sued for not playing WMA Play for Sure files!
You can only buy music for a Zune from the Zune store. So even Microsoft doesn't support Microsoft's DRMd WMA files!

In other words you can sue anyone for anything.

So buy a different player

[bn0p]

From TFA "The complaint takes issue with Apple's refusal to support the Windows Media Audio format. "Apple's iPod is alone among mass-market Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format," it states, noting that America Online, Wal-Mart, Napster, MusicMatch, Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Music, FYE Download Zone, and Virgin Digital all support protected WMA files."

No one is forcing anyone to buy an iPod. There are several other music/video players that play WMA files (if that's what you want). This is equivalent to my suing a car manufacturer because they don't make a car the way *I* want it.

If you don't like how the company's products work, buy something else. If you don't like their music store, buy your music somewhere else. Their market share isn't the factor - they are not the only player in the market.


Never let reality temper imagination

The suit should be dismissed

[DreadfulGrape]

and the plaintiff should be horse-whipped.

"Why do you rob banks, Mr. Sutton?"

"Because that's where the money is."

Yeah, I know Willie didn't actually say that, it seems to apply in this case.

A monopoly is not magically illegal.

[jpellino]

What is illegal is to use that monopoly position to unfairly exclude others from the marketplace.
iPods have been unable to play WMA since when there was only one iPod. The condition precedes any monopoly.
Microsoft is in fact in the marketplace and makes a very brown player that plays WMA just fine.
Stacie is perfectly free to buy one of those.

Next?

Re:A monopoly is not magically illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I saw, iTunes is able to take unprotected WMA and convert it to a format for the iPod. So really, they are "supporting" WMA... just not the protected WMA varieties... and why should corporations have to support their competitor's formats... doesn't that violate common sense?

Re:A monopoly is not magically illegal.

[fred fleenblat]

>> Stacie is perfectly free to buy one of those [zunes]

That's the point. Apple doesn't have a monopoly: there are viable cost-effective alternatives in the marketplace that people can choose if for some bizarre reason they wish to play DRM'd WMA files.

Re:A monopoly is not magically illegal.

[fermion]

What I found interesting about this suit is how uncreative it is. It is unlikely that anyone will get anywhere with the monopoly issue. What might be illegal is the fact that Apple formed a cartel and engaged in price fixing. This has gotten companies and cartels, like Monsanto and De Beers, into serious problems, that have resulted in serious fines. What saves Apple and the labels involved in the cartel is the fact that ITMS sells on a small fraction of the music, so customers are free to buy music on CD and rip and store on the iPod. However, if the labels persist in their assertion that such ripping violates copyright, then the only way to legally get music on the iPod is through the online stores like ITMS, Amazon, and the like. At this point Apple does become the major player, and and can certainly be construed as fixing prices in that market.

Re:A monopoly is not magically illegal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you really say that Apple is fixing prices, when they're holding DOWN the cost of music and not driving it up?

The labels have continuously griped about Apple's fixed pricing strategy, not because they want to drive down the cost of music, but because they want to charge MORE for new/popular items.

That Apple has prevented them from charging more just doesn't sound like price fixing to me. Price fixing generally involves parties collaborating with each other to set the price higher (e.g. standard xxAA practices), not one party forcing other parties to keep the prices low.

Frivolous Lawsuit-o-Rama

[kjs3]

Yeah...good luck with that...

iTunes DRM license?

[Animaether]

they do? If they do, that's news to me;
http://www.google.com/search?q=itunes+drm+license

Just buy something else dummy

[ToasterTester]

LMAO lawsuits like this are so stupid, its not like Apple is the only music player on the market buy one that does what you want.

Maybe I should sue Ford because I can't get a General Motors engine in a Focus. Where is it written all products have to support every format? Doesn't Apple have the right sell what they want and don't forget by not supporting other formats Apple is taking the risk and losing some customers who want those other formats. GROW UP people vote with your dollars. If Apple was to start losing lots of sales because they only support their own format, they would flinch and open up.

So sick and tired of people wasting court time on whiny things like this instead of voicing their opinion with their dollars. All lawsuit like this do is increase the prices of products to offset the cost of legal departments to fight these frivolous lawsuit.

Re:Just buy something else dummy

[sl3xd]

I agree that the lawsuit is entirely stupid.

But I've never really understood the arguments against the iPod - most of them seem to boil down to the adolescent "I don't want to buy it because everybody else is getting it" argument.

I can see people liking other shapes/cases over the iPod, but in terms of features, I just don't see anything compelling that the iPod lacks or does poorly.

The only features I've seen in iPod competitors that are even interesting involves playing FLAC and Vorbis files - which I only half support, as they aren't ISO standards.

WMA, Vorbis, and FLAC aren't ISO standard formats.

I've been a fan of Vorbis from years before it made 1.0. But I support standards - and Vorbis is only a standard in that its source code is open source.

I also believe that even though the chip may support WMA, that's no reason to include it - support the standard codecs, not the ones Microsoft paid the chip company to include.

iPods already support the ISO standard codecs: AAC, MP3, H.264, and I believe MPEG-4. Vorbis is great, but AAC is very competitive - enough so to justify sticking to the ISO standard codec. There are few compelling reasons to use any of the alternatives to the ISO standard codecs, unless you're trying to sell licenses for your own proprietary format, like WMA.

Much flak has been shot at Apple for FairPlay (a combination of the standard AES encryption and AAC codec), and their unwillingness to license it out. As it stands, the record companies are so desperate to divorce themselves from Apple (but are unable to, as Apple sells so much of their goods, and iPods are so popular), that they're willing to give up DRM and proprietary PlaysForSure (which Apple won't support) to regain some semblance of the control they desire.

It would be a horrible step backwards should Apple license FairPlay; it would give the record companies a reason to keep using DRM. Apple has scored a big victory (though most likely unintentional) for consumers over the record companies in more or less forcing them to either ditch DRM or allow Apple to take over the entire industry.

Re:Just buy something else dummy

[tm2b]

Much flak has been shot at Apple for FairPlay (a combination of the standard AES encryption and AAC codec), and their unwillingness to license it out.

And for some reason, people neglect to mention the Motorola ROKR two years ago that licensed it. Sure, the phone sucked - but so do most WMA-players.

Re:Just buy something else dummy

[sl3xd]

Quite true. But I think everybody would like to forget the ROKR. (And probably the 'other' iTunes phone, the SLVR).

"Why?" is the wrong question...

[Animaether]

"Why not?"

Say the chip supports it, and addressing the chip for WMA takes a dozen lines of code if that; then why -not- support it? As the summary says, that's just crippling the darn thing - and for what reason?

I can think of a few, most involving DRM; but Apple seems to think it perfectly reasonable to tell a user to burn a CD, then rip to MP3, if they want to listen to iTunes-DRM'd tracks on anything other than an iPod.. so surely telling the user that DRM'd WMA's will not play should suffice as far a 'tech support' goes there.

More likely, the chip vendor charges per feature used. They bake a chip that can do A, B, C, and D simply because that's cheaper than baking several different chips (do the math - there's may combinations.) Each thing it does that you license it for costs you $5 on top of a base price. So supporting A, B, D only saves you $5 per chip. That'll add up over a few hundred thousand.

Re:"Why?" is the wrong question...

[kindbud]

Say the chip supports it, and addressing the chip for WMA takes a dozen lines of code if that; then why -not- support it?

License fees for the iPod to support WMA would have to be paid by Apple to Microsoft.

Is there anything else I can help you with?

Re:"Why?" is the wrong question...

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

Does the chip have any dedicated support in Silicon, or just enough power in silicon to run software that supports?

It would be a big difference.
1)Apple is paying for the chip and licensing any IP embodied in the chip, then building or licensing other software to run on it, which doesn't support a feature.
2)Apple is Licensing Software and paying for a Chip to run it, but removing part of the code, to not support something.

Re:"Why?" is the wrong question...

[tsotha]

Even assuming licensing is free, it still might not make sense. Apples's philosophy is to make devices that do one or a small number of things really, really well. The more features you add to a device, the more it complicates the device, both for the user and for the programmers who are trying to maintain it.

One thing that apple most definitely does not want is calls from users because some WMA file won't play correctly. It's not just the extra effort Apple would have to expend to support WMA - it's also the fact that expanding the iPod's feature set increases the likelyhood users will run into problems. Just like any other software.

Anyway, that's really a business decision on Apple's part, and it shouldn't be second-guessed by a court.

Hmmmm.

[WindBourne]

So, the default format out there IS mp3. Will that play all over? Yup. But if you want more formats, then why not push to have OGG or even lossless formats on ipod? Do not get me wrong. I find if funny that MS is calling ipod a monopoly when they have far less of the market share than MS had with their stuff. But I would have to say, that if Apple is forced to support WMA, then they should be forced to support OGG and others.

Awesome logic

[wootest]

Does anyone know of any music player that plays more than "a single protected digital format"? This is solely about the wrong "protected digital format" - read: not theirs - winning. Even Microsoft has abandoned and scaled down their own licensable DRM in favor of a new one. Yes, perhaps Apple could have left the WMA support in. For this to have any bearing of the "more than one protected digital format", though, the support for DRMed WMA would also have to be available in iTunes, which runs on Windows and on Mac OS X. DRMed WMA isn't ported to Mac OS X, and I'm not sure what to tell you if you think Microsoft would have let Apple port it there for them or would have ported it to Mac OS X so that Apple could use it. If there's going to be a substantive antitrust suit, the best argument would be the coupling of iTunes and iPod. It's perfectly possible to continue to deliver the "seamless experience" while allowing other ways to put songs on the iPod, for example.

Apple has helped the DRM free movement

[Mr_Silver]

If Apple loses, then a large number of positive steps towards dropping DRM will be lost.

The only reason the music industry is leaning towards MP3 is because if they want their music to work in over 80% of portable players then they must either chose DRM (FairPlay) and only one vendor (Apple) or ditch DRM and allow more than one vendor into the game - they have no other options.

If Apple are forced to support Microsoft's DRM then they won't have to even look at MP3 any longer since Microsoft will sell their DRM solution to anyone who comes with a cheque book.

Having said that, a glance of the article didn't seem to differentiate between WMA and protected WMA. If we're only talking about the former, then this won't help the music labels in any way - as they'll still have to go DRM free to avoid dealing with Apple.

On a final note, it's a Slashdot fallacy that Microsoft's DRM is stricter than FairPlay. It is actually configurable and therefore could be made to be laxer than Apple's - if the vendor and label so chose. Unfortunately at present they generally tend not to.

Re:Apple has helped the DRM free movement

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

It would be interesting to see is financing this little venture?

double edged sword

[pbjones]

I cannot use WMA DRM on my Mac. The only possible outcome, if successful, is a wider market for the iPod, and things like the MS Zune will be required to play Apple DRM. And as for monopoly, you can buy other players.

Digital music?

[blitzkrieg3]

...a suit charging the company with maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market. I don't know about that. I can still buy CD's from any record store.

Okay children, our word for the day is....

[edwardpickman]

Codec. Can you say Codec? C-O-D-E-C. Do you know what a codec is? How about compression? What about proprietary? No? Try this one "license fee". Makes me yearn for the days when we used to tie pork chops on lawyers and toss them in a pen full of pit bulls Saturday nights. Then the damn PETA people made us stop. I was never sure if they was worried about the pit bulls or the lawyers? In all seriousness this should be a five minute case. All that should be needed is to explain to a judge what a codec is and how they function and which ones are open sourced and which ones, "WMA" as an example, have to be licensed. That should in a sane world be enough to get it thrown out and not waste the court's time. It's called a free market system if you want a player that uses WMA it's called a Zune.

"Known as crippleware"

[Internet Ronin]

Is it?

Really?

I think that's what losers call it. I don't know that I've ever heard anyone who has known anything about computers EVER call anything crippleware.

Freaking morons. You hear about this stuff all the time, it's like the lawyers decide they can take whatever noun they want, add "-ware" to the end of it, and its some part of the technological subculture that they can use that other lawyers and judges won't have any clue that they just made it up. They'll just assume that it is part of the "technological subculture" that they don't know anything about, and, voila, we've got new terms.

Crippleware. Jesus. I don't know anyone in the industry making up nonsense like this. Do y'all?

Re:"Known as crippleware"

[jedidiah]

Crippleware?

That term goes back to the time when you pretty much needed what would pass for "guru" level knowledge today just to get a computer running and a game started.

Re:"Known as crippleware"

[QuietObserver]

No kidding. The GP was one of the few times I read a comment on /. and thought, 'WTF? Is this guy even in the industry?' I've heard the term crippleware so many times just in 2007, let alone the many, many times I heard it before then, I can't even imagine it not being in the technician's standard lexicon.

Re:"Known as crippleware"

[emurphy42]

Why, yes. Yes, it is.

Jargon File - Crippleware

If you know about the Jargon File, then you will now understand why you were wrong, and that's fine. If you don't know about it, then turn in your geek card now, go to chroot jail, go directly to chroot jail, do not pass sudo, do not collect 200 bogomips.

Re:"Known as crippleware"

[JulianOolian]

Crippleware is a kind of shareware where the unlicensed demo version has too many restrictions on its functionality. So many in fact, that it makes it impossible to use enough to find out if it's really worth paying for a license. Or did I miss a meeting?

Licensing

[LowSNR]

I've read up a little on the chip, and since the WMA decoding seems to be done on the chip itself (i.e. not in software), then it's SigmaTel who would have licensed WMA from Microsoft, and there shouldn't be any reason Apple would have to re-license it. Am I missing something?

Don't get me wrong, I think this lawsuit is hogwash, but I am genuinely confused as to why Apple would have to pay MS for this.

Largest marketshare != monopoly

[UnknowingFool]

One of the definitions of monopoly in the classical sense is that no other close products exist and there is a high barrier for entry into the market. No one can argue that you can't get a substitute quite easily. In fact, you can probably pick up a bunch of them in the After Holiday sales. Microsoft even makes one. Apple doesn't come close to having a monopoly on digital music players.

Apple doesn't have a monopoly in digital media either. You can get music from a number of different online sources. Some of the are DRM free like Apple which means you don't have vendor lock-in. Or you can get media without ever having to go online by stopping at your local Walmart, Target, or Best Buy and buying CDs and DVDs.

The only thing that Apple has a monopoly in is Fairplay music and video. But that's because they own the licensing and won't license to anyone else. So what? Ford doesn't have to make their engines compatible with Toyota.

Re:Largest marketshare != monopoly

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

One of the definitions of monopoly in the classical sense is that no other close products exist and there is a high barrier for entry into the market.

Antitrust law is not restricted to classical definitions of monopolies. Anything over about 70% market share in a market is subject to scrutiny to see if they have sufficient influence in a market for antitrust restrictions to be applied. This is because you don't need 100% market share to undermine free trade in a market and the point of antitrust law is to make sure we have free trade so that competition and capitalism work.

No one can argue that you can't get a substitute quite easily.

Well that depends. If you're already a customer and have an iPod (like 70% of people who own a portable music device) and have bought DRM'd music from the iTunes store, then it is non-trivial for the average person to transfer their music to the new device. Thus, while you can buy a substitute, you have motivation to not do so because of Apple's market share and because it is hard to get your music transferred legally because of the DRM apple used. Also, for people with some special need which is dependent upon a third party attachment, it is sometimes not possible to find third party attachments for any other kind of device. Both of these are reasons for an antitrust commission to consider Apple's influence and possibly deem it sufficient for antitrust laws to apply.

The only thing that Apple has a monopoly in is Fairplay music and video. But that's because they own the licensing and won't license to anyone else.

Actually they did license it to a couple of cell phone makers.

Ford doesn't have to make their engines compatible with Toyota.

Neither Ford nor Toyota has a 70% or greater market share for engine manufacture.

Now I'm not saying Apple does have monopoly influence, but they are right in the gray area where the law is concerned. Apple knows it and have taken steps to try to minimize any antitrust issues, such as pushing the RIAA to allow them to move away from DRM. It would be a shame if the courts took drastic action against Apple, since this overlaps a market MS has been convicted of abusing via their monopoly and the courts took no effective action. That said, Apple may have to either stop bundling iTunes or start bundling other players as well or do something to make other software player makers happy, be it helping them interact with iPods via public APIs, or giving them cash settlements.

In principal, forcing Apple to play nice doesn't hurt them at all, since if their software and service is the best at the cheapest price, they'll win market share anyway. Realistically, Microsoft is leveraging their monopoly, the RIAA is leveraging their cartel, and the MPAA is leveraging their cartel all of whom are convicted abusers of the system, so the market is already broken and a large portion of each consumer's choice is influenced by things other than the merits of the product. It would be great if the courts in the US or EU would tell Apple they want to see changes to make the market fair, right after they do the same and make it stick for all the other players.

Re:Largest marketshare != monopoly

[UnknowingFool]

Antitrust law is not restricted to classical definitions of monopolies.

In this case, the plaintiff is alleging that Apple violated the Sherman Antitrust Act which requires that a monopoly or cartel must first exist. In the MS case which involved the same act, the judge first had to find that MS was a monopoly before the government could take action against it. So legally, the plaintiff must prove that Apple has a monopoly in some way. Let's say that for the sake of argument that Apple has a monopoly. It would however only be in iPods/iTunes. It would not be in digital music players or digital media.

Well that depends. If you're already a customer and have an iPod (like 70% of people who own a portable music device) and have bought DRM'd music from the iTunes store, then it is non-trivial for the average person to transfer their music to the new device.

Well that depends on your definition of non-trivial. In iTunes, File -> Burn to Disc seems pretty trivial to me if someone wanted to get their music off DRM. And that requires no 3rd party tool. Also since Apple sells DRM free tracks, there is nothing to prevent any of those customers from moving their media from one device to another except that the new device must support AAC, a format created by the makers of MP3.

Also, for people with some special need which is dependent upon a third party attachment, it is sometimes not possible to find third party attachments for any other kind of device. Both of these are reasons for an antitrust commission to consider Apple's influence and possibly deem it sufficient for antitrust laws to apply.

If I understand your statement correctly, Apple's large market share makes them somehow responsible for any 3rd party attachment I loaded work with any of their competitors? I didn't read it anywhere in any law or my agreement with Apple that they had to make sure that their competitors could work with 3rd party developers. Even if we accept that somehow Apple is a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Apple would be in violation if they prevented their competitors from working 3rd parties not if they did nothing. This is where MS got in trouble. They threatened their partners like Intel and Dell not to work their competitors like Sun and Netscape.

That said, Apple may have to either stop bundling iTunes or start bundling other players as well or do something to make other software player makers happy, be it helping them interact with iPods via public APIs, or giving them cash settlements.

Even assuming that Apple is monopoly, unbundling iTunes does not alleviate the situation at all. The issue here is the DRM (Fairplay) prevents customers from moving their media to non-iPod players. That is the whole basis of the lawsuit. The remedy that the plaintiff is asking is that Apple somehow must use a competitor's DRM (which suffers from the same legal issues as Fairplay). The other remedy that the plaintiff could have asked is that Apple license Fairplay.

The second option violates Apple's legal contract with the media companies. So the court would have to invalidate Apple's contracts for Apple to proceed. Jobs himself has said that if it were up to him, all music from Apple would be DRM free instead. I suspect that reason the plaintiff did not ask for Fairplay licensing is that this would leave the plaintiffs without anything to sue. For the plaintiff to collect damages, there must be something to cause a complaint. By only partially removing the DRM lock-in, there is still something to complain about.

Re:Largest marketshare != monopoly

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

In this case, the plaintiff is alleging that Apple violated the Sherman Antitrust Act which requires that a monopoly or cartel must first exist.

This is untrue. According to the Sherman antitrust act the company or cartel in question need only have what they call "monopoly influence" in a market, which is later defined as having undue influence due to market share, such that they can undermine free trade.

So legally, the plaintiff must prove that Apple has a monopoly in some way. Let's say that for the sake of argument that Apple has a monopoly. It would however only be in iPods/iTunes. It would not be in digital music players or digital media.

They need to prove Apple has the ability to undermine free trade in a market using their market share and it is by market, not product. They're claiming Apple has such influence in "online video market," "online music market," "hard-drive based music player market," and the "Flash-based music player market." The courts may or may not accept those market definitions, but that is what they're being asked to rule on.

Well that depends on your definition of non-trivial.

Absolutely anything that makes it easier for people to use Apple's devices instead of a competitors that are result of their market share are all that matters according to the law.

If I understand your statement correctly, Apple's large market share makes them somehow responsible for any 3rd party attachment I loaded work with any of their competitors?

No, it doesn't make them responsible for the third party attachments. It makes them responsible for not taking any action which capitalizes on what third parties are doing as a result of their large market share, in order to gain share in a different market (like online video sales).

Even if we accept that somehow Apple is a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Apple would be in violation if they prevented their competitors from working 3rd parties not if they did nothing.

You're fundamentally failing to understand our antitrust law. No company is in violation of the Sherman antitrust act for being a monopoly. They're in violation if they're a monopoly which takes any action to leverage that monopoly into another market. There are two things to consider:

1. Do they have monopoly influence? Do they have the power undermine free trade?
2. If they do, are they leveraging that monopoly to gain share in another market.

The behavior of third parties speaks to number 1. If people can't as easily go with a different vendor for their next device, this speaks to how much power Apple has, not to if they are abusing that power.

If they have monopoly influence, they are clearly abusing that influence. They are tying together their online store and their software with their player. Do you really think iTunes would be as popular if it did not ship with iPods? Do you really think they're sell as many songs from the iTunes store, if it was not the only store accessible with the software that ships with iPods? It is a clear cut case of tying, so the only question is "do they have enough influence to undermine the market" and that is the point in debate among people who have a clue about US or EU antitrust law. I'll say again, the ability to move music to a different device as easily as to a new iPod and the availability of third party add ons, both speak to how much power Apple has and those will be things the courts look at to make their determination. Apple is liable, under the law for tying, not for what third parties do, but what third parties do helps determine if what Apple has done (tying products) undermines the market and thus is illegal.

Even assuming that Apple is monopoly, unbundling iTunes does not alleviate the situation at all.

Yes it does. It removes Apple's ability to undermine the "music jukebox software" mark

Re:Largest marketshare != monopoly

[UnknowingFool]

You're not going to convince on your point and I'm going to convince you on my point about monopolies. All I can say is that if you look at the actual suit, it makes a number of untrue assertions which, hopefully cause it to be dismissed.

14. Apple deliberately makes digital music purchased at the Music Store inoperable with it's competitors' Digital Music Players. Thus the consumer's only option in the Digital Music Player market is Apple's iPod.

You can get music from other stores onto other players, for example the Zune. Apple itself sells DRM free tracks which you can load onto any DMP. The choice is limited to only 1 studio.

15. Conversely, Apple makes the iPod unable to play music sold at its rival's Online Music stores. Consumers who have iPod can only play the Online Music they purchase from Apple's Music Store, allowing Apple to further entrench its nearly complete monopoly in both of these markets.

DRM free media has been available online for a long time. Amazon just started but eMusic has sold them for a long time. The legality of allofmp3.com is in question so we won't count that one for now.

I smell Redmond ...

[ScrewMaster]

Given that the complaint centers around Microsoft's proprietary format, it's not hard to suspect Microsoft of somehow being involved here.

Might make sense in a weird way

[Denis Troller]

If you discard the "crippleware" remark at the end, it could almost make sense form a monopoly point of view. (and no, I did not RTFA)

- The iPod is the leading player on the market
- The iPod only plays Apple's flavor of DRM'ed music files
- Apple is the only one providing this particular file format from its own music store
ergo Apple is trying to build a monopoly for its music store through its iPod players.

Now that could barely make sense to me ONLY if the iPod had supported WMA and Apple decided to remove it later on, to enforce some kind of shady monopoly afterwards, where people are enslaved to the iPod and you force them to use iTunes-provided AAC. As it stands, the player never played anything else than what it plays today, and it won on its own merits (or on the media hype around it, take your pick). Their was no illegal maneuvers that I can see in that.
The only thing you might say is that Apple should open up its DRM format for the sake of compatibility, so that other players can play the same files (and I don't know if there is any legal backing to that kind of demand, IANAL).

An incredibly display of not understanding shit

[pslam]

The PortalPlayer CPUs don't have WMA decode in hardware. Or any codec for that matter. They just have 2 ARM7 CPUs in them and they decode everything in software.

In order to support WMA they would have to:

• Get a WMA license from Microsoft.
• Pay Microsoft a license fee.
• License the WMA (software) codec from Microsoft.
• Adjust their player design to suit Microsoft extremely odious licensing requirements (e.g DRM).

With any luck this will get thrown out of court within nanoseconds along with all fees paid by these idiots. Bet it won't.

Not PortalPlayer

[Count Sessine]

The latest couple of generations of iPods do not use the PortalPlayer hardware. I don't know whether or not the Samsung stuff that the newer iPods use supports WMA (DRM or audio codec), though.

Desirable

[damista]

"Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product..."

Ermmmm WMA? Ermmm desirable? Really?

Dunno about you guys but to me, WMA isn't really a desirable feature. I avoid WMA whereever I can. Since the introduction of the Zune, we know that WMA isn't the same as WMA, which in turn isn't the same as WMA. What it means? Well, there's the not DRMed WMA, then there's the "Plays for sure"-WMA and of course there's the Zune-WMA. "Plays for sure" doesn't really play for sure anymore, since it isn't compatible to the Zune-DRM-bull and the Zune-stuff doesn't play anywhere but the Zune. Do we really want this Microsoft mess? With Apple's DRM, at least I know that it will work on any iPod, no matter what generation or model. If I buy a WMA-enabled player, I do not have a guarantee that any given WMA-file will play. Do we really want this WMA-mess on the iPod too?

Besides that, I can't remember reading anywhere, that my iTunes purchases will work on a Zune or iRiver or any other player. So if they insist on Apple making iPods WMA capable, how about making ALL other players out there capable of playing Apple's DRMed songs? Sure, Apple runs the show but nobody forced the others to use WMA. They just heard it comes from MS and instantly jumped on the bandwagon, expecting it to be THE format because MS will manage to force it upon everybody as usual. Fortunately for us, this didn't happen, despite Microsoft's relentless efforts.

Yes, I agree it would be nice to have all players compatible to all purchases. But we don't need a lawsuit for that. All we need is musicstores to give DRM the boot and switch to MP3. Then EVERY player can handle EVERY purchase. But of course this would mean MS won't get royalties, Apple won't get any and the lawyers responsible for the suit won't get a hell of a lot of money either and that's what it is all about: Money!

Discrimination!

[KetchupKyle]

"...is known as crippling a product, and software that does this is known as crippleware.'" ... ....soooooooooooo my ipod isn't wheelchair accessible?

Really? what about the Zune?

[F-3582]

And I find AAC files sound better than both MP3 and WMA files (independent tests find that, too, by the way). Plus they work a lot better with Linux apps. You know, AAC is a mostly open format with easy-to-legally-avoid patent hassles. WMA, on the other hand, had to be completely reverse-engineered by FFmpeg in order to work on other platforms and I'm not so sure about legal issues with that.

And don't forget the fact that the only way to connect a Zune to a Linux machine is a VMware'd Windows. Which I won't install just for managing music with my machine.

nitpick

[commodoresloat]

So sick and tired of people wasting court time on whiny things like this instead of voicing their opinion with their dollars. All lawsuit like this do is increase the prices of products to offset the cost of legal departments to fight these frivolous lawsuit. Actually, filing a lawsuit like this is in fact voicing their opinion with their dollars, since lawyers are not free. The difference is that they're expecting to use the public's dollars as well (court costs and time). Otherwise I think you're exactly right - this lawsuit is nonsense; whoever's idea this was should have their browser's homepage set permanently to this page with the volume turned up.

Stacie Somers

[hibji]

Who is Stacie Somers and what does she have to gain by filing this lawsuit? Does she work for Apple's competitors? I can find any information on her after a quick google.

In other news...

[mr_mischief]

Cars sold with combination XM, FM, and AM radios work fine with those three radio technologies. However, while AM and FM are free, the XM satellite radio costs extra! And radios designed with those features have all the necessary parts to also receive HD Radio, but the manufacturers cited "little demand from customers" as a reason not to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in development costs to do the decoding.

Can we really start demanding in court that our favorite niche format be supported in the market regardless of return on the seller's investment? Cool. Where do I get my firewire-enabled Betamax deck with Colecovision game cartridge slot and RCA Selectravision cartridge slot? After all, it's all audiovisual entertaiment, and by God I want it just that way!

!apple_records

[yincrash]

I was confused at first. I knew the Beatles were popular, but not that popular.

Apple media malaise anyone?

[realinvalidname]

You know that because the word "iPod" appears in the headline, this story will be on the front of every major city newspaper's business section tomorrow.

There's gotta be a nice cottage industry of filing nonsense lawsuits against Apple. Maybe it drums up business for the legal firm's less ridiculous cases.

I lost my RE:

[aliquis]

I guess the point is that most other sellers sell DRMed WMA, but who cares, it's not like the costumer can't get an mp3 player which support drmed wma if they want to. Retarded lawsuit anyway, Apple doesn't have a monopol on the mp3 player market, they may have a quite large than on the music selling market but in that case it's only because all the other options suck and noone even tried or cared earlier, and why do one have to support whatever microsuck has going for it anyway?

Because it's the standard and it's monopol most be uphold on all markets? Even where it have failed to get one? Good one ..

mnb Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The PP5002c used in the first three generations of iPod (and the PP5003 used in the fourth) does indeed decode WMA.

A - It is a rather generic ARM core which does all the processing - it has no special "WMA capabilities" any more than your desktop PC does.
B - (nitpick) The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation iPods were the only ones to use a 5002 processor, as you say, but the 4th used a 5020, not a 5003.

The PP5002c can decode video. But no iPods until the fifth generation did so.

Again - the PP SoCs have two rather generic, rather weak, ARM cores - there is no video optimizations in them. The 5th uses a PP5021, and offloads video processing to a separate chip. Rockbox is unable to drive MPEG2 video at normal (24+ FPS) frame rates using only the PP5021 on a 320x240 screen (though the same chip is more than adequate for driving the much smaller screen of the 1st generation Nano.)

Only AAC???

[SanityKaos]

Are they talking about the new iPods? My iPod will play any file format

What about non-protected MP4/M4A?

[Deslock]

By that logic, why not sue all the MP3 manufacturers that don't support MP4/M4A?

Another frivolous lawsuit

[AnarkiNet]

This suit is ridiculous. It reminds me of the suit a while back against "the big four" (IIRC), because they were "violating the DMCA by not using our product".

"Imaginary Property"

[DrYak]

An iPod clone, the Medion Jukebox, was built using the exact same chip and stuff and indeed it did play WMA.

As said by other, iPod's chip would have the technical capability to play WMA.
BUT then Apple doesn't necessarily have the needed license to implement support for MS's IP.

That, specially from the point of view that, Microsoft's agreement in the "PlaysForSure" certification campaign forbids the player to support other formats except MP3 and WMA. (Which also eplains while in europe one can find a lot of devices playing OGG/Vorbis but not in the US where the device aren't allowed) And in addition PlaysForSure mendate an obscure and stupid protocol (a microsoftish hack around the Picture-Transfer-Protocole) for communicating with the device, whereas the iPod use plain simple mass storage and can work as an external hard disk too (except that the music is stored in an invisible folder).

This, had Apple decided to implement WMA (by simply turning on a function already available into hardware) they would have been forced to remove support for other formats namely the AAC around which their iTunes store is based, and switching away to a protocol that made the iPod a popular data-transport device.

Besides failing to support WMA doesn't make a monopoly. If we take into account all the compressed music file that circulated everywhere (on the net, on peer-2-peer networks, on embed device for various tasks including ringtones, etc)
MP3 is by far the most widespread standart.
AAC (iPod), WMA (Zune+PlaysForSure), ATRAC (Sony), Real Audio (Early webcasting), etc... all represent a tiny fraction next to the omnipresence of MPEG Layer III (and its ancestors).
And if people are complaining that the install base of linux is too low to be worth considering, I can't see why then people complain about some format that only represents a microscopic fraction of the market and is completely over shadowed by MP3.
All the others are only specific formats that are exclusively used between some proprietary music stores and corresponding audio players, and thus only exist in specific scenarios. The GSM codec (used in cell phones) is maybe the closest thing that comes in term of frequency of occurrence.

Re:"Imaginary Property"

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's agreement in the "PlaysForSure" certification campaign forbids the player to support other formats except MP3 and WMA.

I could not find any references for that claim. Do you have one?

Re:"Imaginary Property"

[Sparky McGruff]

From the friendly Wikipedia article on PlaysForSure:

A 2005 court case strongly criticised the wording of a Microsoft licensing agreement related to portable devices[7]. The license prohibited makers of portable devices compatible with Windows Media Player from using non-Microsoft audio encoding formats. Microsoft indicated that the wording of their license was poorly written due to an oversight by a junior Microsoft employee. Microsoft quickly amended their stringently worded license agreement at the judge's behest.

Looks like a simple accident! Nothing to see here, move along now...

Re:"Imaginary Property"

[Repossessed]

(Which also eplains while in europe one can find a lot of devices playing OGG/Vorbis but not in the US where the device aren't allowed)

Um, ogg vorbis players are available and allowed in the US. You just won't find them in stores. (I just bought one from Newegg). For a really amusing time, ask for an Ogg music player at Best Buy. Or even better, ask them for an MP3 player and watch them try to sell you an ipod.

Re:"Imaginary Property"

[Anonymous Coward]

As said by other, iPod's chip would have the technical capability to play WMA.
BUT then Apple doesn't necessarily have the needed license to implement support for MS's IP. BUT Apple is free to obtain a license from MS and implement it, just like dozens of other makers of portable media devices. On the other hand, Apple refuses to license FairPlay to others (except Motorola in a very limited way), even if they are willing to pay.

That, specially from the point of view that, Microsoft's agreement in the "PlaysForSure" certification campaign forbids the player to support other formats except MP3 and WMA. (Which also eplains while in europe one can find a lot of devices playing OGG/Vorbis but not in the US where the device aren't allowed) I guess the US-based Amazon.com (and other US stores) is breaking the rules by selling the iRiver T60, which supports OGG and PlaysForSure, and the Creative Zen 16GB, which supports AAC and PlaysForSure.

Do you have any links or real proof for your outrageous claim?

And in addition PlaysForSure mendate an obscure and stupid protocol (a microsoftish hack around the Picture-Transfer-Protocole) for communicating with the device, whereas the iPod use plain simple mass storage and can work as an external hard disk too (except that the music is stored in an invisible folder). Actually, the iPod also uses an "obscure and stupid protocol" (by your standards) built into iTunes (not plain Mass Storage Class) to sync and autosync iPod-playable music libraries that includes FairPlay files. When using plain MSC, those files won't play on the iPod.

I guess you're referring to Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), which adds portable media player extensions to Picture Transfer Protocol (which only supports digital cameras). MTP adds support for WM DRM license transfer, hot unplug, and more control of the devices functions while connected the computer. In addition, this "obscure and stupid protocol" has been proposed for standardization and implementations are available for OS X, Linux, and Symbian OS.

Also, PlaysForSure devices can support BOTH MTP and plain MSC transfer (just like the iPod supports both iTunes transfer and MSC). Yes, that means a PlaysForSure device can act as an external hard disc (e.g. the aforementioned Creative Zen 16GB).

This, had Apple decided to implement WMA (by simply turning on a function already available into hardware) they would have been forced to remove support for other formats namely the AAC around which their iTunes store is based, and switching away to a protocol that made the iPod a popular data-transport device. Everything in this sentence is disproven by the links I've provided above. Where's your proof? Why have you been modded up for your false claims?

Re:"Imaginary Property"

[Murphy Murph]

Actually, the iPod also uses an "obscure and stupid protocol" (by your standards) built into iTunes (not plain Mass Storage Class) to sync and autosync iPod-playable music libraries that includes FairPlay files. When using plain MSC, those files won't play on the iPod

No - the iPod uses plain, vanilla, MSC. The reason files manually moved over won't play on your iPod is because the Apple iPod Firmware is a database based player, not a filetree based player, and the database is built PC side, not iPod side.
This might be overly complicated, and this might seem backwards to you - but it has nothing to do with the USB protocol.

MTP, on the other hand, presents you with an overly abstracted version of the physical disk and severely limits what you are able to do with the disk.

Re:"Imaginary Property"

[ObiWanKenblowme]

Apple is free to obtain a license from MS and implement it, just like dozens of other makers of portable media devices. On the other hand, Apple refuses to license FairPlay to others (except Motorola in a very limited way), even if they are willing to pay

And Apple is free to not license their products if they don't wish to do so. What's your point?

I guess the US-based Amazon.com (and other US stores) is breaking the rules by selling the iRiver T60...

No, don't be a jackass. Amazon wouldn't be breaking the rules, but assuming the GP's facts are accurate, then the manufacturers would be (if they agreed to the PlaysForSure certification)

Brilliant!

[Hanging By A Thread]

One monopoly is being sued because it won't support another monopoly's format.

WTF?

Astroturf suits ?

[mbone]

The basis of the suit is that Apple doesn't support WMA ? Why do I suspect that Microsoft is behind this somewhere ?

Ipod Linux

[ripdajacker]

One can, if that's what one desires, install ipodlinux on the iPod, and then play other formats.

This lawsuit is rather ridiculous because, as been said before, one could choose to buy / rip to DRM-free mp3's, and if the ipod didn't support MP3 then one could consider a monopoly lawsuit.

Ridiculous Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a ridiculous lawsuit. Today I was in Walgreen's (US drug store chain) and was amazed to find out they stock a full line of off-brand MP3 players and accessories, all of them inexpensive. Anyone who wants an MP3 player or a mobile telephone has access to a wide-open buyer's market of affordable generic goods. IMHO, there is no monopoly at work here. I choose IPOD because I can afford it, and that is my brand of choice for an MP3 player. It's probably not all that much better than the cheap Chinese knockoff being sold at Walgreen's.

DRM is crippleware!

[blueworm]

Deliberately producing files that cannot be easily copied also constitutes crippleware.

where do these characters grow

[spaxxor]

really, I'd like a few to get my girlfriend's father off my ass if they are suing apple for something their product can't do, deliberate or not, then I have the right to sue toyota for making cars that can't drift anymore. it's their right to make their product do whatever they want (or lack thereof) it's called good business practices. grow up, that's what I have to say to the guys filing this law suit. music is still everywhere to buy besides apple, and you don't have to use their ipod, even then you can put ipod linux, or some other modified firmware on it to make them play whatever the hell you want

Re:Really

[Divebus]

WMA is a proprietary format also, with or without DRM. So, Apple not interested in paying royalties to Microsoft for WMA capability is monopolistic? Unless Microsoft is giving it away for free, that doesn't sound like a case. Why not sue Warner for monopolizing their own catalog? Or EMI?

Trolls

Waah, my iPod doesn't do my taxes!

[John Whitley]

Next on Troll-Attorney-Reality-Show: asshat sues Apple because his iPod is Turing Complete, therefore is capable of doing its owners taxes. "The iPod doesn't do mah taxes, and as we all now know, that makes it crippleware! teh suuxors! teh m0n0p0leeee!"

I hope the judge bats plaintiff and counsel out of the park.

Fuck Apple. What about RIAA?

[Chas]

Seriously. Apple, for all it's dominance in online music, is still a niche market.

There may be a technological solution...

[ardle]

the lawsuit has exactly 0 legs to stand on That's why the lawsuit exists: if it succeeds, DRM has some of the legal legs it needs. What's the next show: DRM v The Patriot Act? ;-)

The lawsuit is arguing that Apple DRM is the only DRM the iPods will decode; they won't decode Corporation X's scheme. If this is true (forgive me, I'm to lazy to check: this will be in the news again ;-), it seems to me that the argument is flawed in that Apple can remove the monopoly situation simply by supporting Corporation X's DRM in the iTunes store?.

If they allow downloads in competitors' DRM formats - and honour licenses in these formats by supplying Apple-DRM'd (or DRM-free, if appropriate) versions of third-party licensed material free-of-charge - then they are not excluding any DRM vendor. Nor would they be penalising purchasers of iPods, who would be able to obtain an iPod version of a DRM-X file for free.

DRM exists to protect the rights of the copyright holder, not any third party. Apple would only need to support cross-licensing for media it is licensed to sell. If a DRM-X file is available DRM-free from iTunes due to a separately-negotiated licensing scheme with the publisher, then that's tough luck for the vendor of DRM-X: DRM-X will then serve only to lock the end-user to devices that support it, the very thing Apple is being accused of :-)

Apple supporting third-party DRM in their hardware would signify a loss of ground in their professed ambition to remove DRM from the download scene.

Re:Fuck Apple. What about RIAA?

[mqduck]

Seriously. Apple, for all it's dominance in online music, is still a niche market. Will this be modded flamebait or troll? I'm taking all bets.

Microsoft likely won't support it on the Mac...

[argent]

* Get a WMA license from Microsoft.
        * Pay Microsoft a license fee.
        * License the WMA (software) codec from Microsoft.
        * Adjust their player design to suit Microsoft extremely odious licensing requirements (e.g DRM).

Don't forget:

        * Abandon Mac support for the iPod.
        * Abandon iTunes support for the iPod.
        * Make iTunes dependent on Windows Media Player.
        * Switch to the NT kernel for OS X so they can satisfy Microsoft's licensing requirements for iTunes.

I'm pretty sure they'd end up having to do one of the four, because there's no WM DRM support on the Mac, and given that Microsoft had already implemented kernel support for DRM in Windows Media 9.1 a couple of months before the iTunes Music Store opened it's pretty unlikely that Apple's ever been in a position to support Windows Media on the iPod without joining the Redmond collective.

Tags from the Hellmouth

[Dr. Evil]

Dozens of kids in highschool from all over the country have written me, pleading with me to stop Taco from introducing this "tagging" concept. One, who I'll call "Jamie" from Demoine, Washington writes:

"Jon, I'm really afraid of what Taco is doing. Tagging? This is like profiling. Soon our user profiles will be picked up by our highschools and used to evaluate us. I mean what if my UID were tagged with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dungeons and Dragons? I'd be doubly punished. Please don't let him do it!"

Could it be true that our very national treasure, our children might be victims of such an oversight? Is it worth the convenience which tagging gives us?

I was a kid once, and I remember what it was like in 1998. Kids can be cruel.

We're at the cusp of a new world and a great Internet. Modern tagging represents a shift in the zeitgeist away from the fine literature of Slashdot, towards a cheapened economy of elitism. Don't do it. Don't let it happen to you. First they tag your submissions. Then they tag you a geek. They brand you a victim.

(ok, I don't have the energy to continue this for another 12 paragraphs)

Re:Tags from the Hellmouth

[tm2b]

That might have been funny in the post-Columbine era.

Re:Really

[troll -1]

Apple is not interested in paying royalties to Microsoft for WMA

Is that what the plaintiffs are asking as a remedy?

I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?

Apple may have a better product than Microsoft but I'd be interested to know how the Sheman Antitrust Act applies differently to Apple than it did in The US vs Microsoft antitrust case when Microsoft excluded Netscape from its desktop. The question in law is how is Apple controlling the hardware and the content different from say Standard Oil controlling the product and the distribution system (i.e. the railroad). My guess is that this is not a trivial suit. A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option. I think that's what this suit is about. And no matter how you feel about Apple's right to exercise such control, the law on the matter may be entirely different.

Re:Really

[elmarkitse]

Desirable feature? Seriously? I hate WMV....not fanatically, but the less of it I have on my system the better. I've persistently refused to allow it to 'update' automatically as every new version seems to include some extra level of DRM or god knows what that wreaks havoc with every other installed video app and codec on my laptop. The only reason I'm using 9 instead of 7 or 8 is because it force fed an update onto my system through another program and then windows refused to let it go away. When I finally get around to reinstalling xp, I'm happily going back to the earliest version I can muster. I've even shied away from things like the Amazon store because it requires the 'latest version' of Media Player to play it's garbage. It just seems unnecessary, and when you read stories about Netflix or Amazon or other programs choosing for you what you can and can't do with your own hardware it just feels wrong.

my 2cents

Re:Really

[macdaddy357]

Microsoft can't take this market from Apple through innovation, so they are trying to do it through litigation. They are behind this action. It won't take long for following the money to show that.

WMA

[Vexorian]

WMA! Lamest lawsuit ever. When I read the story title I did not imagine that I was going to support apple on this one, but this is just a retarded lawsuit, really. The only way to explain it would be that the lawsuit comes from an MS proxy but I don't really think MS is that lame...

Milton Bradley will be PISSED

[rslam01]

I also hear they DRM'd the battleship

Can anyone read anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is great! Microsoft still sucks!
How do I remove Exploiter? Lawsuit won against Microsoft, but still
can't remove the tumor from a simple XP install.
Microsoft LOST that lawsuit, so where is the uninstaller.
I'm tired of the crying and useless legal bull,
if your stupid, then you will always be stupid. Don't make the smart people
pay for the complainers!

Re:Really

[ClosedSource]

"Microsoft can't take this market from Apple through innovation, so they are trying to do it through litigation."

Just another example of MS ripping off an idea conceived by Sun, Oracle, IBM, AOL, and (ironically) Apple.

Desirable Feature

[gsmalleus]

'Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as crippling a product, and software that does this is known as crippleware.'

So DRM is a desirable feature now? Seriously, there are plenty of music players out there that do and don't support WMA. It should be up to the company what features they want to include on their product. My portable music device broke a few months back, it was an old Archos Jukebox that I purchased before iPods were even a twinkle in Apple's eye. I loved that thing to death for 7 years, it only supported wav and mp3. I didn't care, my music is all mp3 format. When it came time to buy something new, I did some research and even though I was originally anti-apple because they were trendy and Apple fanboys piss me off, I got an iPod. Why? Excellent battery life, mp3 support, and iTunes could keep my music organized in a way that was compatible with my OCD ways. Now let's say for a minute that my entire music collection, for some reason, was in WMA format. Would I have bought an iPod. No, because they didn't support a format that was important to me. Apple is succeeding because they support formats that are important to their customers. How many more customers do you think Apple would gain by including the WMA format? WalMart and Amazon, two of the biggest online music retailers besides iTunes both support mp3. And if you were really really craving DRM on your music WalMart serves up WMA in addition to mp3.

Re:Really

[NaugaHunter]

I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?

They're called 'buy the CD and do it yourself'. There's probably a store in your town!

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

They're called 'buy the CD and do it yourself'. There's probably a store in your town!

Even Microsoft's argument that users could download Netscape didn't help. Microsoft still lost the case. If Apple persists in tying iTunes to the iPod it's going to face antitrust lawsuits.

How is this Apple's fault?

[Joce640k]

> A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option.

I think the problem is more with the media companies bickering over DRM than Apple's iPod.

You're free to buy a Zune if that's what you want. All iTunes music can be converted to DRM-free mp3 with a modicum of effort.

So, let me get this straight....

[plazman30]

Apple makes the iPod and it's Windows only. Demand for it is so great, that Apple ends up porting iTunes to it's competitor, Windows. The iPod happily plays MP3 files, and boatload of other formats, pretty much anything except ogg and wma. Now there's this other company called Microsoft that makes this device called a Zune. The Zune doesn't work with the Mac and it doesn't work with Linux. Microsoft's Zune software is Windows only. NO other online music store works with the Mac, other than Amazon. Who's got the monopoly here?

iTunes music formats

[falconwolf]

You do have a choice not to buy an iPod, however, you can't use AAC format files on some other players, so you can't put music from iTunes on them.

If a player can use music from a CD then the player can play music from iTunes seeing as how it allows you to burn music bought from iTunes to CDs.

Falcon

Re:iTunes music formats

[treeves]

I know. I've done it and made that point above. But it costs time, CDs, and degrades the audio.
Thanks anyways. I just wanted to complain.

Hmmmmm...

[PhotoGuy]

Anyone else have the gut reaction that this might be a Microsoft funded/supported initiative?

Honestly, why else would anyone bother with such a weak case?

Re:Really

[Viceroy Potatohead]

A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option. I agree with the gist of your post entirely, but I'm wondering about this point.

I've only been on Windows and Mac systems to test browser compatibility in the last few years, so I don't know. Is iTunes really the only option for iPod owners on those systems? are their iPods useless without it? It seems unlikely, but I don't know. My iPod works quite fine using gtkPod and mp3s. Surely there are third party apps in Windows and maybe even OSX to fill this gap? If that's what the suit is about, then it's garbage.

But, from TFA it appears MS is complaining about the limitations Apple has placed on competition by their (sort of exclusive) support of their own proprietary format (which no doubt iTunes is the primary vehicle for). I don't agree with Apple on that, whatsoever, but I wonder if MS is really willing to open that can of worms. Somehow, I doubt they'll go anywhere with this. I think it could be good for the user if someone made life difficult for Apple over this, but if MS is stupid enough to push this legal point, they'll be hurting themselves. I doubt they're that stupid. Not supporting other people's formats has been one of the biggest money grabs by MS since they gained desktop dominance. The last thing they need is another anti-trust ruling (even against a competitor) which contradicts that philosophy.

Re:Really

[Divebus]

The general music catalogs are available from other sources. It's not like iTunes/iPod prevents people from listening to music in other ways.

If you really examine the issue, WMA with DRM is the odd duck here, not iPod/iTunes.

• An iPod is first and foremost an MP3 player. The iTunes Music Store is optional to use - or not use.
• The iPod plays standard AAC (not dissimilar to Dolby Digital or AC3 as found on every DVD Video), WAV and AIFF (plus Apple Lossless files).
• iTunes itself will import unprotected WMA and allow you to use that on your iPod.
• You can load the iPod from competing stores like AmazonMP3 and eMusic and iTunes does not disallow the media.
• If you use iTMS (which also offers a range of unprotected AAC files), there's an exit door from FairPlay through burning industry standard Red Book CDs from the encumbered purchases.

So, what's the issue again? In a nutshell, iPod/iTunes is a relatively flexible platform on either Macs or PCs.

The IE-Microsoft-Netscape issue was about bundling IE into the operating system as an "inseparable" component. That along with a hundred other abuses surrounding Java, QuickTime, Real Media, bullying vendors, exclusive contracts etc. led to the conclusion that Microsoft was a treacherous monopolist.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

My turntable won't play my cassettes. Who do I sue?

Re:Really

[markk]

Uhm... It does apply to Apple. they aren't a monopoly. I can buy a song at Amazon right now and load it on my iPod. So is that not a 3rd party "iTunes" Store?
I can buy EMI songs on iTunes right now and load and play it on a Zune. Apple obviously controls the hardware IT MAKES, but I don't see lock in anywhere
except with the DRM that the CEO of Apple is on record that he would like to get rid of. That is mandated in contracts with producers.
  If Apple is a Monopoly with its DRM then all DRM is a monopoly. I would like to agree with this, but by definition, it isn't.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

An iPod is first and foremost an MP3 player. The iTunes Music Store is optional to use - or not use.

Nonsense.

It's extremely difficult to get anything on the iPod without going thru iTunes. Hint: How do you build an iTunesDB file without iTunes. gtkpod doesn't work with newer iPods. Sure there are some perl mods out there but c'mon, the average user is pretty much stuck with iTunes.

Re:Really

[AtlasAxe]

I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?

Oddly enough, I have no problem with eMusic items on my iPod. It's trivial for a company to sell music that will play on an iPod. It's just not as easy to offer DRM'd music for iPods.

Re:Really. Really?!!

[ChuyMatt]

I don't know about you, but I have found an even better option over at our Seattle friend's Amazon store. And it transfers songs directly to iTunes. Rather sweet, I would say. SO, there IS an option, AND it is done well, AND it is fully compatible with iTunes and thus the iPod.

So, what is the actual problem? Are we actually seeing another SCO type 3rd party stab in preparation for a big MS push into the field? Not a bloody clue. BUT, it still stands to reason that the ability for Amazon to 1-up the iTunes store seems to break their argument a tad, don't you think? It is not a closed device, really. MP3, AAC, WAV (who really uses that?!), OGG (just joking!). If you use any of those formats, it is on! And they have a right to pander to their own store with their formats if expanding the range of compatibilities means shelling out cash to one of their competitors, don't you think?

Now, I am not exactly an Apple fanboi on this, but come ON! This is just a load of crap. They have absolutely NO corner on the market. The people who were competing with apple on this were using different methods that were all based on a competing format using a subscription service method for the most part. Amazon is beginning to show major promise for taking them on and that only came about when the record companies decided they could get multiple revenue streams from different stores only if they opened it up to ALL players through other stores. That and people want unDRMed songs. /rant

Re:Really

[jthill]

Microsoft had no monopoly in browsers when they started. Microsoft had a desktop OS monopoly. They leveraged that to kill a company whose product might, someday, indirectly have hurt their desktop OS profits. The specific leverage they applied was to sink massive resources into developing a high-quality browser, and ... not only give it away free, but threaten to hurt other companies dependent on them for making products that worked with Netscape. They lost money hand over fist on the effort.

The assertions above are not rhetoric. They're fact. Hunt up the words "malevolent" and "obsessive" in that link. When the Netscape threat was gone, Microsoft virtually abandoned browser development.

Apple had no monopoly on MP3 players or desktop OS's when they started. Apple used no leverage of any kind. They used high-quality industrial design and user-interface research, attention to detail, superb marketing and smart partnerships to earn their present spot on top of the market. They have not, ever, even once, stopped adding new capacity and features on to the iPod. The iPod has been phenomenally profitable since its introduction. Apple continued improving it at a torrid pace even when they had left the competition so far behind there essentially wasn't any, and they're still doing it today.

Here's the legal description of how Microsoft behaved:

Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations,

and what the law says of people who behave that way:

shall be deemed guilty of a felony,

and the prescribed penalties if the prosecutor decides to make it a criminal case (which he didn't):

and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

Note that a hundred million dollars is and was chump change to Microsoft. They had a hundred seventy two times that much available in *cash and short-term notes*.

In short, "to monopolize" trade is not "to have a monopoly on a product". Publishers have a monopoly on distribution of books they publish. That isn't the same as monopolizing trade in books.

Apple have a monopoly on Mac OS X. They are not monopolizing trade in personal-computer OS's. They have a monopoly on iPods. They aren't monopolizing trade in digital music.

They law applies equally to Microsoft and Apple.

It's just that Apple didn't break it.

Limewire/Kazaa?

[KillerBob]

How can iTunes possibly have a monopoly on the download of digital music in a world where Limewire, Kazaa, and BitTorrent still exist?

Oh wait. They mean "legal" music downloads....

Re:Really

[Divebus]

Read again... iTunes Music Store. That's a separate thing from iTunes the software. You can use iTunes to manage a massive music library, transfer selected parts to an iPod with two way metadata and never buy anything from the iTunes Music Store. Most people prefer to rip CDs into their iPods and iTunes will even manage that, fetching track info and album art for you.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the same issue (from what I recall). Microsoft tried to embed IE to prevent Netscape and other browsers from becoming to popular because they feared that applications could be deployed via the browser from a server over the web. At the time the idea of running a true app via Netscape, or any other browser, was just a pipe-dream.

Regardless, MS did it's best to cripple Netscape's functionality so that users simply found it easier to stick to IE. One of the annoying things Windows would do was to reset your browser prefs back to IE or simply ignore your prefs and open IE when you double-clicked an html file on your desktop (it would then ask if you wanted to set IE as your main browser - MS has some big brass ones...)

This is completely different than the iPod situation. If I buy an iPod, I don't need to PURCHASE music from iTunes store, period. I have managed to buy and rip my tunes from sources OTHER than iTunes store. That fact alone means Apple is NOT monopolizing the iPod with iTunes. Shit, I can use BOTH the iPod and iTunes completely independently of each other and NEVER even buy squat from them and still have a great experience - they are NOT tied to each other. However, the perception that they are tied to each other is created by the fact that other MP3 players cannot *buy* from the iTunes store. And to that I say, why the fuck should Apple allow other players to access iTunes anyway? The whole point of iTunes and FairPlay is to provide the RIAA with a sense of security. The minute you open that up to multiple players then you're fucked - the cracks just can't be patched fast enough and Apple will get screwed by the RIAA.

However, if Apple DID license WMA/WMV and allowed users to by WMA tunes, well, THEN Apple would REALLY look like a monopoly because why in the hell would I want to buy a Zune or any other "plays for sure" device when my I can own 1 iPod to rule them all?

This case will be tossed out.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

No third-party iTunes stores? Man, somebody better tell Amazon that their MP3s won't work on the iPod, then. I hear they even had a feature where the songs you bought from them were automatically added to iTunes.

They're going to regret wasting all that money.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option.

in what way exactly is itunes the only option for ipod users? i obtain music files from many sources (itunes, cds, some less legit sources, etc.) and have no problem whatsoever listening to these on my ipod.

maybe you meant that itunes software is my only option for managing my music library and putting music on my ipod. while this is probably true, i am not complaining. as far as i am concerned the itunes software is one of the ipod's best features.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is very simple: it is not illegal to be a monopoly, although once you achieve monopoly status there are some things you can no longer do (this has to do with things like access to your products and price fixing, I don't remember the details). However, it IS illegal to use you monopoly status to extend you monopoly into other areas. In the Microsoft case, they were extending their OS and office products monopolies into the browser market, which was illegal because of their previous monopoly status.

It is also true that Microsoft illegally conspired to divide market share with it's competitors. They did this in the browser area if I remember correctly, and they also threatened Intel when Intel tried to supply something called Native Signal Processing, which Microsoft perceived as a threat to their codec technology. These kind of things are always illegal, even if you are not a monopoly.

If you are going to quote the Sherman Anti-trust act you should be more factual. You clearly have no concrete idea about either the law or what Microsoft was convicted of doing. I think this is a trivial suite, and you ignorance is a poor substitute for an informed opinion. Thirty seconds on Google and Wikipedia scaring up links does not make your position meaningful.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

But you can't get songs on to the iPod without going through the iTunes software. Can you?

Re:Really

[UnknowingFool]

I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?

You might have a point if online music was the only way to get music onto an iPod. You can go to any store that sells CDs and buy music that iTunes will load onto your iPod. As for online stores, eMusic and Amazon will gladly sell you music that can load onto an iPod and a number of other mp3 players.

Apple may have a better product than Microsoft but I'd be interested to know how the Sheman Antitrust Act applies differently to Apple than it did in The US vs Microsoft antitrust case when Microsoft excluded Netscape from its desktop. The question in law is how is Apple controlling the hardware and the content different from say Standard Oil controlling the product and the distribution system (i.e. the railroad). My guess is that this is not a trivial suit. A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option. I think that's what this suit is about. And no matter how you feel about Apple's right to exercise such control, the law on the matter may be entirely different.

First of all for the Sherman Antitrust Act to apply to Apple, Apple must have a monopoly. One of the classical definitions of monopoly is that there are high barriers to enter the market and no other alternatives exist. If you wanted oil, you had to go to Standard Oil. You want a commercial OS for a x86 computer? You had to go to Microsoft. You want a digital music player? You do not have to choose Apple because you have so many choices. Apple has the largest market share. They do not have a monopoly on digital players. You want music? You do not have to choose iTunes. You want DRM tracks on your digital player? You do not have to choose Apple/iTunes. You can choose Zune/Zune Music or Plays for Sure.

Oh brother

[sacrilicious]

'Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as crippling a product, and software that does this is known as crippleware.'

Requiring products to use all chip-implemented features in order to avoid such accusations would be idiotic. If Intel puts wifi on every chip, it does not make sense to require a child's Elmo doll using the chip to have a wifi interface exposed.

Re:Really

[drifterusa]

"A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option."

Overlooking the lack of evidence for your claim of mass resentment, you are talking about their only option for what? Purchasing music? While music retailing is admittedly taking a hit, there are still plenty of places to buy CDs as well as a few places to buy DRM-free MP3s to play on an iPod. If iTS has more music to sell than its competitors, blame the labels or the competitors, not Apple.

If you're talking about their only option to organize their music for use with the iPod, even if it's true (of which I am skeptical), to me that's like complaining that the only option for using pre-Intel Mac hardware was Mac OS. The hardware and the software are made by the same company and are meant to work together.

Part of Microsoft's misuse of its monopoly power was in telling licensees what business deals they were and weren't permitted to make with other companies in order to protect Microsoft's interests. I'm not aware of Apple doing this.

I don't know much about Standard Oil and railroads, but Apple does not control music or its distribution, only the distribution of music that appears for sale within the iTunes software. A court would have to determine that a) iPod market share constitutes a monopoly, and b) offering a convenient way to purchase music for iPods via iTunes constitutes an abuse of that monopoly, before a comparison with Microsoft would be apt.

It helps to note that the iTunes Music Store was created well before the iPod became a phenomenon and that the store was not created in response to a rising upstart nor was its success considered a shoo-in by any means. Compare this with Microsoft's long-entrenched Windows monopoly and their blatant moves to eliminate newcomer Netscape as a threat.

Note also that Amazon's success indicates that many people find them to be a convenient way to shop. Amazon has created a way for music purchased from them to appear in the iTunes software (or so I've read; I haven't tried it myself). Apple would be like Microsoft if Apple interfered with Amazon's software and prevented it from integrating with iTunes. So far, I haven't heard that this has happened.

So don't buy DRMed devices...

[PhearoX]

Soooo... If the iPod could only play mp3s and nothing more, we wouldn't have a problem?

I have a 30gb Archos which plays every format under the sun and has a DVR option, and I paid $50 than a comparable DRMed device. If people want to pay more for a more restrictive device just because it's available in pink rather than silver, so be it. That's capitalism, baby! I need iPod-buying morons to make my retirement account grow. ;)

Misleading statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

The second part of the monopoly isue is going to take some proving since the apple ceo posted this on the apple website:
Feb 6 2007
"Today's most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. It's hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music."

Since the ipod is left with 97% open format playback it's just a matter of deduction to see that the other cheaper players do support these open formats and some include protected wma (Zune) and could be easily puchased instead to use protected wma files directly if the consumer wanted.

I can't believe anybody is suckered by this obviously misleading set of statistics. That bullshit "3% of the music on the average iPod" stat assumes that every single one of those 90 million iPods sold from 2001 through 2006 was still being currently used and each iTunes Store song was only being played on one iPod. By the end of 2006, there were millions of discarded iPods no longer in use and many people were on their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th iPod.

As DVD Jon insightfully pointed out, what's relevent is the number of iTunes Store customers and the average sales per customer (which Apple doesn't disclose). Some iPod users don't buy any iTS songs. Many have bought hundreds or thousands of Fairplay songs. For all those buyers who've bought more than $100 worth of Fairplay-protected files, the thought of losing playback rights will likely lock them into staying with Apple devices.

Re:Really

[redheaded_stepchild]

I'll take you through it step by step, ok? And since this really IS informative and should be modded +5, I fully expect to be evicerated into trolldom by the idiots that modded you up.

Section 1 states: Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.

Apple never claimed to support WMA and does NOT have a monopoly on music sales or formats. Microsoft DID claim to support other vendor's software, and in fact did support Netscape until they decided to push Internet Explorer, at which time they disabled Netscape from functioning to restrain it from competing in the same space. This is where the Standard Oil comparison comes in, but with Microsoft playing that role - they own both the OS and a browser, and strongarmed a competing browser from running on the OS. Apple does not own the major format (mp3) or the only way of getting music onto an iPod (I can think of three different ways to get this done without iTunes - see links at bottom).

Section 2 states: Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

Again, same thing as my paragraph below section 1. Microsoft attempted to monopolize through their control of the OS. Apple can't monopolize something they don't have a monopoly on. These are two wholly different situations.

Section 3 states: Every contract, combination in form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce in any Territory of the United States or of the District of Columbia, or in restraint of trade or commerce between any such Territory and another, or between any such Territory or Territories and any State or States or the District of Columbia, or with foreign nations, or between the District of Columbia and any State or States or foreign nations, is declared illegal.

Oops, there it is again! Microsoft- restraint of trade: competitors actively stopped from competing. Apple, unable to restrain trade because it can't restrain something it doesn't have complete control of: there are at least six different alternatives to iTunes that I know of, three of which I've often seen installed out of the box on Windows PC's. I can't count the number of alternative music players that are as easily available and in most cases far more affordable than an iPod.

The rest of the sections define the rules for proceedings and limitations on this law.

When it comes to dominant userland OS's, Microsoft not only has the most distributed OS on the planet, but has actively stopped (to a large extent) competing OS's from even being a choice when you order a pre-built PC (another monopoly that they've gotten away with, at least in the US). Apple has the most distributed music player on the planet, but not because they forcibly removed others from being choices, rather they made a decent product and successfully marketed it. Nobody is forcing you to use iTunes to buy music online. You could just as well purchase it through, say, Windows Media Player. If you saved it as mp3 (hey, don't want to get all monopolistic now!) you can move these songs into iTunes and put it on your iPod. Try getting an iTunes Store or WMA file moved onto your generic mp3 player. Won't happen without some third party apps, and then I only know how to make it happen with the iTunes files (because I haven't tried with WMA).

Oh, and last but not least: the plaintiff's aren't asking for Apple to pony up licensing fees. That's the beauty of the scam: if Apple does it, Microsoft gets their money and these

And the others?

[eiapoce]

'Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as crippling a product, and software that does this is known as crippleware.' So can I use OGG/Theora on all the other pieces of hardware?

alleges that Apple dominates the market for online video, online music, and digital music players and that its dominance constitutes a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act Unlike Microsoft, which has been demonstrated used anticompetitive practices, the success of apple on the music market is due to superior products. Filling a suit to make out for poor competition is really lame and hypocritical.

Yes, good plan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's have a million different formats, and a million different music players that will only play their format instead!

Apple won the war for most popular portable audio player, it plays MP3s, deal with it.

If you really want it to play OGGs or something, chances are you are a bit of a geek and will have no problems changing the OS on the ipod to rockbox or something.

Re:Really

[hostyle]

Winamp does it pretty well for me.

Re:Really

[ardin,mcallister]

really, gtkpod doesnt work with new ipods? thats news to me. I suppose I should tell my ipod that. Libgtkpod works perfectly thru amarok. the only ipod that don't work right now is the Ipod touch. New fat nanos and the classics work just fine. Update your gtkpod stuff.

Re:Really

[Hal_Porter]

I copy the MP3s onto the iPod renamed as .htm files and then view them in Safari. It requires some nifty mental arithmetic skills to turn the streams of gibberish back into music in your head, but it can be done.

I own an iPod and I've never used iTunes

[Joce640k]

I use it to play back mp3 files ripped from my CD collection. I've never bought anything from iTunes, nor will I.

99% market share doesn't make an illegal monopoly - monopolies are only illegal when you abuse them and engage in non-competitive behavior.

Re:I own an iPod and I've never used iTunes

[raindogg]

This stuff makes me crazy, How many things work on PC's and not Mac's, why isn't there any monopoly lawsuits there?

Re:Really

[HumanEmulator]

I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?

Amazon.com. Buy mp3 music and their downloader will automatically load it into iTunes for you. I'm not sure how much more 3rd party and iTunes friendly you can get.

This sort of thing has happened before . . .

[Anomalous Cowbird]

I remember when I first bought a CD player, and found that it would not play either vinyl records or cassette tapes!

"monopoly"

[Fri13]

First, it is needed that company what's market share is big enough is confided as monopoly owner (not that game ;-))

Microsoft is confided as monopoly holder.
Apple is not confided as monopoly holder!

Second, when Company is confided to be monopoly holder, laws (rules etc) change littlebit for it.

Apple ain't monopoly on music business, yet. Even it is owning biggest share by selling portable music players.

So, Apple is currently holding greater market share than any one else, but Apple aint monopoly.

Re:Really

[LKM]

I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?

You mean like the Amazon MP3 store, which, you know... exists?

Crippleware? How offensive!

[JonTurner]

It prefers to be called differently-abledware, you insensitive clod!

Re:Crippleware? How offensive!

[geminidomino]

And I prefer to be called "Lord High Emperor Studmuffin" or "Your Radiant Eminence" for short.

That ain't happening either. :)

Modern devices index only once

[iampiti]

...my samsung when you disconnect the player from the pc, others let you index when you want. In any case this is not a problem

And I believe articles like are termed . . .

[Jerko]

Crappleware! I think articles like this are just posted so the iPod people and non-iPod people start flaming eachother. Come on guys, who's the biggest flamer?

Waaaaaah!

[stewbacca]

Cry me a river:

As for the injury to consumers, the complaint says that Apple's pricing is "monopolistic, excessive, and arbitrary," citing how a wholesale $5.52 price difference between 1-Gbyte ($4.15) and 4-Gbyte ($9.67) NAND flash memory modules results in a $100 retail price difference between 1-Gbyte iPod Nano and a 4-Gbyte Nano.

All this shows is that these people don't understand how retail pricing based on demand works. So by their logic, an 4-Gig Nano should only be sold for $5 more than a 1-Gig? How can computer companies charge $500 more for a modest cpu speed bump from 2.16 to 2.33 Ghz, when it doesn't cost $500 more to include the faster processor, for example? Talk about clueless (and a bit desperate). How about comparing Apple prices to similar competition's prices and see if they are competitive? Or even better, how about letting a company charge WHATEVER THE HELL THEY FEEL LIKE, and letting the consumer decide if it is too expensive or not.

The best justice

[Tony]

Actually, filing a lawsuit like this is in fact voicing their opinion with their dollars, since lawyers are not free.

Ah, yes. The best justice money can buy.

I'm so proud right now.

What content?

[Tony]

Apple should be made to allow their content on other media players and not just locked to their own.

Uh... what content?

Apple doesn't own any of the songs they sell, nor the TV shows or movies. You can get *any* of that "content" from other places-- CDs, other on-line music stores, Netflix, etc. Apple is a *distributor*, not a content owner. (At least for now.)

So, your request is complete nonsense. As in, it makes no sense. Illogical. Fallacious.

Re:Really

[norminator]

gtkpod didn't work well with the latest generation of iPods when they first came out, but that only lasted about a week or two, I believe. At this point, you can use gtkpod, Amarok, banshee, Rhythmbox (all on Linux), Floola (for Win/Mac/Linux), and quite a few others on each platform. I don't have a Mac, so I don't know what software there is for Macs, but I'm sure they've all caught up, too.

Also, as mentioned by a previous poster, the GPP wasn't really even talking about not using iTunes anyway, he was talking about not using the iTunes Music Store.

Actively Disabling?

[norminator]

I find it strange that everyone's saying that Apple is actively disabling support for WMAs, like it supports them natively.
Not only that, but iTunes will let you copy non-DRM'd .wma files to an iPod (I believe it converts them along the way). I don't think this discussion is even supposed to have anything to do with whether or not the iPod supports Windows Media formats. It's supposed to be about whether music from the iTunes Music Store can play on other devices. So the whole DRM'd .wma issue is more of a problem with the .wma stores.

Furthermore, according to the GPP:

Back on the topic of actively disabling WMA, how about requiring manufacturers doing more to point out supported formats? Maybe a spiky red bubble on the front of the box saying what's supported? That way, it would look like some marvelous extra, like 'batteries included' or 'one free song download'.
That's a funny complaint about Apple, considering the fact that any song that's ever been purchased from Apple's store is compatible with every iPod ever sold. Unlike the Microsoft side of things, where MS initially supported several different stores selling .wma music, then started their own MSN online music store, then created the Zune with an entirely separate store (and entirely different software?!?). And since the music from the Zune store won't work on the other .wma devices, and the "PlaysForSure" music from the other .wma stores won't play on the Zune, I'd say Microsoft is the one that has been "actively disabling WMA". Why in the hell would someone refer to their music format as "PlaysForSure", license it to hardware manufacturers, then create their own player that ForSureWon'tPlay the PlaysForSure files?

Not happy to be stuck with you

[Tony]

Once Apple supports WMA, they must support WMA forever. During the next spin, they will be *forced* to support WMA-enabled silicon, even if they could perhaps get another WMA-less chip a bit cheaper.

By limiting the number of supported formats, they limit the number of formats they also must support in the future. Since WMA is a single-vendor proprietary format, why would they *want* to support it forever?

Dock Connector

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple has any monopoly at all with the iPod it is their dock connector. One of the reasons I chose an iPod is the many 3rd party devices that have docking ports for the iPod. I have an iHome clock radio and someday plan to purchase an adapter so I can control it through the radio in my car. To my knowledge the only way to connect any other MP3 player is through the headphone jack, which doesn't offer the ability to control it.

Contrast that to the standard firewire port on almost every camcorder on the market where you can plug it in to a computer and control most of the basic functionality without any special software.

Oh yeah, it would be great if Apple made it easier for 3rd party apps to add music, photos, video and playlists to the iPod. As a Linux user, I cannot use iTunes to upgrade the firmware and have only partial support through the several different third-party apps out there. It is easy enough to add audio files, but questionable where the photos, video and playlists will actually work.

Re:Really

[nine-times]

I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?

None? Not a single alternative store to iTunes? What's this "Amazon" think I keep hearing people talk about, then?

Re:Really

[annodomini]

There certainly are third party stores where I can buy music for the iPod: eMusic, Amazon MP3, and Magnatune come to mind.

Sure, Apple controls the only DRM'd way to distribute content on the iPod. But there's a lot more to adding a new DRM system than just enabling it. You have to get licences from Microsoft, sign agreements that allow them to revoke your licenses, probably have code audits, and so on. Really, it would mean that Apple would have to allow their largest competitor access to and control over everything they do in their most popular and lucrative product.

What a stinking pile

[Swift2001]

"Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format," Apple will not play protected WMA. It converts normal WMA to AAC. So what? It plays everything but ogg and wma; a great wealth of formats, including Apple Lossless. On the other hand, the Zune will not play anything but protected WMA. It does play AAC. And mp3. And WAVEs, I suppose. So what? It plays the standard formats. WMA is a proprietary format. They're under no obligation to play it. The labels are moving away from copy protection. When they've finished with the transition, you'll have any number of compatible places to buy the same tracks, not just iTunes. Right now, Amazon provides the model, selling 256k unprotected mp3s. I've bought many of these tracks, and the iPod plays them quite well, thank you. This lawsuit is straight FUD, maybe financed by Gates personally.

Re:Really

[pxuongl]

The question in law is how is Apple controlling the hardware and the content different from say Standard Oil controlling the product and the distribution system (i.e. the railroad).

the difference is that apple makes the hardware (with the software is there to add value and incentive for buying the hardware) while with Microsoft, who made just the operating system, and then used the popularity and dominance of their operating system to stifle the adoption of competing software products. Standard Oil, similarly, bought the railroads in order to muscle out competitors.

Suing Apple for not including WMA drm and not allowing clone itunes stores is like suing sprint for not allowing people to buy ringtones for their sprint phones through the tmobile store.

Re:Really

[Kymri]

Should there have been antitrust lawsuits against Creative when there was no way to get my (quite shitty, frankly) Rio to accept music except through their ludicrous software? Or what about Sony and their ATRAC monstrosities? Use any music you want as long as you convert it to ATRAC!

Where do we draw the line at letting hardware companies support what they want? Or should every new device support every imaginable format?

Because I'd like to point out that you can use an iPod without ever buying a single song from the iTunes store, even if you purchase your music online. MP3 support - it's not like that's some trivial, little-known fringe file-format.

Sure you have to use iTunes to move music onto the iPod. And I have to use proprietary, provided software from the manufacturer to work with a number of various hardware products and peripherals. I don't see the big deal, frankly.

Hmm..

[StemCellVirus]

Funny, my iPod might not load a WINDOWS Media file, but the Zune cant use an APPLE Lossless file or an AAC...

There ARE third party iTunes stores

[Vandil X]

I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?

Wrong. Actually any online store that sells digital downloads as un-DRM'd MP3s can work with iTunes and iPods.

In fact, Amazon MP3's download client even has a preference option for automatically importing Amazon MP3 purchases into your iTunes library.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

nano model A1236. using gtkpod-0.99.12. model is not available for selection. i tried others close to it and i can upload content but there's something funky about the iTunesDB because the iPod doesn't see the content even tho 'ls /mnt/ipod/...../F00/' shows mp3s. Oh well, guess i'll install linux on it.

Re:Really

[MrMacman2u]

It's a reply like this that make me wish for a "6" rating for informative... or at least to be able to use karma to email you oral sex for such an excellent response!

I stopped reading comments when I hit this reply because it made me happy!

General MP3 Player

[MahariBalzitch]

My sister purchased an iPOD Nano for her son this Christmas. At the store she saw it required a minimum of XP. She told the sales person she was running Windows 2000 and asked if there was any chance that it would work on Win2k and he said oh yeah, lots of people are using it with win2k. Needless to say when she was trying to set it up on Christmas morning, it would not install saying minimum OS required is XP SP2.

The next day she took it back to Bestbuy and bought a Creative brand MP3 player and was delighted to see it worked on her PC and also not to be locked into one companys music files.

She learned two lessons from the experience:

1. Never trust a salesman at Bestbuy.

2. Never buy an MP3 player that is proprietary and has to have a DRM'd to hell OS.

Re:General MP3 Player

[Scudsucker]

Uh huh. I only switched from 2k to XP last fall (Adobe CS3 requires XP) and never had a problem with any of my iPods.

Re:General MP3 Player

[MahariBalzitch]

Win2k works just fine for sisters needs. She only uses her PC mainly for email. Why should she have to spend another $100 to upgrade her operating system on top of the $150+ she spent on the iPOD just in order to use it? It's like having to upgrade your OS because you bought a new monitor.

Re:Really

[Anonymous Coward]

itunes isn't their only option. They can use REAL, they can use Amazon, and lets not forget about all the stores that explicitly don't support the ipod. (walmart, yeah they are a real consumer friendly company aren't they) You don't have to use itunes to sync most ipods.

Re:Really

[JoshNorton]

Gods, I hate saying "Me too!", but ... Yeah. Likewise.

Re:Really

[justo]

MOD PARENT UP!!! you should be apple's defense lawyer

Re:Fuck Apple. What about RIAA?

[Magius_AR]

Niche? Focus on music aside, Apple is sporting a 150+ million dollar market cap, nearly half that of Microsoft. They're a major player these days, not a niche.
AND they're engaging in the kind of "anti-competitive" practices that Microsoft got _grilled_ for back in the day...namely, packaging their own applications with their OS.
The things that people praise Apple for today (i.e. having a rich, 'do-anything' desktop experience out of the box) is the same things Microsoft was condemned for (and punished for) in the past.

degrading audio

[falconwolf]

I know. I've done it and made that point above. But it costs time, CDs, and degrades the audio.

Personally I think digital music is a degradation from analogue anyway. Some have pointed out that qualitatively digital can be as good, or better, than analogue. However this is only true when a high bitrate, or whatever, is used to make the CDs. And how often do the studios use high quality measures when making CDs?

Falcon

Re:Really

[infidel13]

Deliberately disabling a desirable feature

I certainly don't want more DRM!

What is happening to this country's law schools?

[lime_rising]

Really. What idiot lawyer took this case? And why are they a lawyer in the first place? Do they think that they can win or something?

Apple can do whatever the crap they want to with their products. Including not paying money to a competitor for some crap format that's only "desirable" for Windows/Microsoft/Zune lovers. Other companies aren't required to use Apple's protected format, why should Apple have to use Microsoft's? Apple never had a monopoly on the digital music/music player market. They made a good product, people liked it, they bought it. They made good software, people liked it, they used it. If that's a monopoly, I'd like to know what your definition of a monopoly is.

Consumers can do whatever the crap they want to with their money. If you don't like the iPod, stop complaining about it and go buy a Zune or Nomad or something. If you don't like iTunes, use Amazon or Rhapsody or any of the other music stores. Or, you could go old-school and *gasp* buy CDs! This isn't the frigging Burger King, you can't have it your way all the time!

If anyone should be sued, it should be Microsoft for false advertising. PlaysForSure? Psh. It should be known as"Maybe This Will Play If You Have The Right Player Software Computer Alignment Of Planets But Who Knows?" instead.

Razor Blades

[Edoko]

Sue Gillette because its razors will not work with Schick. Sue Canon because it will not take other ink cartridges. Sue Apple because it does not work with proprietary Microsoft technology. What are the damages being shown?

Re:Really

[ardin,mcallister]

I have that one. select xA978. You have the 4GB Silver Nano Video. works just fine for me. :)

Re:Fuck Apple. What about RIAA?

[Chas]

Out of how much market cap in the entirety of the music industry?

Not "niche" as in "Apple only has XYZ percent of the total computer market".

Re:Really

[jacksonj04]

*applauds*

Not to mention the other important bit - Microsoft have an effective monopoly on the WMA DRM technology, and may refuse to licence it to Apple. If Apple could put a "Plays for Sure" logo on the iPod box then the Zune wouldn't stand a chance (Since that's not a PfS device anyway).

Issue with windows accusing mac...

[Deamor3]

I think you guys are missing the point here. If you look at what Microsoft is doing towards apple. They are accusing a business that takes up no more than 6-7% of the computing market for an OS. Look at windows! they own the other 90 some odd percent of the computing business. I personally use linux because i don't wish to support windows own monopoly. They are driving the course of the computer age because they have control over the OS Market. Linux is free, better and easier to use, supports basically anything you want. Has audio-convert, so you don't have to worry about that POS .wav file, and it allows you to basically customize it however you want. Windows is a piece of unreliable junk that should have been stopped years ago, but no one is smart enough to step in and realize what it truly is...

Re:Really

[MidnightBrewer]

The specific complaint seems rather specious. Yes, Apple dominates the market, but their avenue of attack is specifically in reference to not being able to play WMA files even though the iPod contains a chip that has that functionality. As others have pointed out, this licensing is not free. Apple may not support other DRM formats, but they also don't require you to use FairPlay-protected AAC exclusively, either. So they fail to enable a feature because they don't legally have the right to do so. That's not crippleware, that's just Apple following the law. If they were genuinely hoping to accomplish something, the plaintiff should have sued for Apple to open the Fairplay format, not try to force Apple to support WMA.

Besides, how does this actually help? Fairplay will continue to exist, If the plaintiff were to win, Apple could feasible expand its market share even more by eliminating the WMA hurdle, and Microsoft's own proprietary file format monopoly would be bolstered as well; how ironic. Who exactly does this case stand to help?

Re:Really

[pijokela]

The rules change when you have monopoly power in a market. And whether or not apple has monopoly power with the music store is not clear at all. I think I can argue that is the best store on the planet and Apple is using that market power to sell an unrelated product (the ipods).

Re:Really

[Gizzmonic]

Good points, except saying stuff like "Apple have a monopoly on Mac OS X" confuses readers.

Apple produces Mac OS X. They don't have a monopoly on it any more than Dell has a monopoly on Dell Computers, or the Coca-Cola corporation has a monopoly on Coca-Cola. There is a difference. iPod, Mac OS X, etc are Apple's proprietary products. They are not monopolies because there are other competitors in the various markets (iPods=MP3 players, Mac OS X=operating systems).

Why?

[Ngarrang]

So, instead of innovating a new product that would compete for market share, litigation is now the preferred route? Honestly, I don't see the point in suing Apple. I don't own an iPod, nor do I plan to, but the fact they won't play a competitor proprietary format does not seem too terribly offensive. The iPod plays standard MP3's, yes? So, who needs WMA at that point?

enough already

[moracity]

Do we need to keep perpetuating this myth that Apple has some sort of music monoploy. They make a music player that plays whatever music format they choose to let it play. It is their prerogative to do so. There are plenty of devices out there that play WMA. The only way Apple would be violating anti-trust laws is if they were interfering with the production of devices from other companies and somehow keeping them from support WMA. Having a unique, proprietary product does not make a monopoly.