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Behind the Scenes In Apple Vs. the Record Labels
je ne sais quoi writes "The New York Times recently posted an article describing what really happened between Apple and the Record labels that culminated with the January 6th Macworld Keynote by Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller." Essentially they discuss a bit of a swap: Apple allowed variable pricing for songs and the industry allowed DRM free music. And apparently the iTunes homepage is a huge hit making device. Big shock.
No, they gave up DRM, and copy protection is sort of related to that. They did not give up anything even remotely related to copyright protection, unless I somehow missed the part where Apple talked RIAA into releasing works into the public domain.
That's just plain wrong. Bad reporter!
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Apple can't open it's own record label. From Wikipedia: "In 1978, Apple Corps, the Beatles-founded holding company and owner of their record label, Apple Records, filed a lawsuit against Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The suit was settled in 1981 with an undisclosed amount being paid to Apple Corps. This amount had been estimated to be US$50â"US$200 million, but was later revealed to be US$80,000.[1] As a condition of the settlement, Apple Computer agreed not to enter the music business, and Apple Corps agreed not to enter the computer business." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v._Apple_Computer They got into hot water with Apple Records when iTunes got big. An actual recording label would blatantly go against the agreement.
This agreement is no longer in effect. Apple Corp has signed over all Trademark for Apple to Apple Computer, Inc (now Apple Inc) in 2007. In return, Apple Corp has a perpetual license to use the Apple name for their label. However Apple Inc. can now do whatever they want with regards to the music business.