Slashdot Mirror
Steve Jobs Questioned In iTunes Monopoly Suit
An anonymous reader writes "Twelve years ago Bill Gates had to deal with lawyers questioning him in regards to the Microsoft antitrust case. Now it might be that other tech mogul's turn. Steve Jobs has been ordered to answer questions regarding Apple's iTunes music monopoly. From the article: 'US Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd, based in San Jose, California, ruled on Monday that lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the antitrust lawsuit may question Jobs for a total of two hours. Apple may appeal the decision. A company spokeswoman declined to comment, while attorneys for the plaintiffs did not respond to requests for comment.'"
Exactly, that bastard Steve forced the record companies to accept his tyrannical 99 cent pricing policy and allow me to burn purchased songs to CD's where they can be ripped back to MP3 free of the restrictions! We must end his monopoly on rights restricted downloadable music for the iPod! Other companies MUST be free to sell us restricted license music & video for our iPods! Unite!
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Then you are free to use Amazon's service (and I guess there may be others).
I'm not really sure how they have a monopoly, when it's dead simple to opt for Amazon, instead. I use iTunes as my player and it's the most convenient podcast client I've found (because I listen to a lot of them), but I've never bought a single song on iTunes. I save that for Amazon. Better quality. Better prices. Re-downloadable. No DRM.
They may have some shitty business practices, when it comes to the operation of their app stores and itunes stores, but they have almost single-handedly kept music from being tied to nothing more than CDs for another twenty years, which is what would have happened if they hadn't leveraged against the music industry to strong-arm them into the 21st century, as they bit and kicked every inch of the way.
How will you expect the editors to took the time to conjugated verbs properly, when there's flamebait to will have been posted?
Ad revenues, man! Slashdot needed / needs / will need / will have needed / had needed / is needing / to need them!
Wait, are we talking about Microsoft or Apple now?
Only iTunes can place rights restricted music using the native "Fairplay" DRM on the iPod. That is how it is a monopoly. Everybody else has to use unrestricted formats.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Only iTunes can place rights restricted music using the native "Fairplay" DRM on the iPod. That is how it is a monopoly. Everybody else has to use unrestricted formats.
Yeah, wow. That's really stifling competition.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
mostly a public who know no better.
I would argue that this applies to iTunes as well.
At issue is a piece of software called Fairplay that allowed only music bought on iTunes to be played on the iPod, according to the complaint.
One competitor, RealNetworks Inc, responded in 2004 by introducing a new technology that would allow customers to play music downloaded from its site on their iPods. But Apple quickly announced a software upgrade to iTunes that once more blocked music from RealNetworks, the complaint charges.
Lloyd said the deposition of Jobs would be limited to questions about the back-and-forth with RealNetworks in 2004.
It's not about buying music from iTunes. It's about Apple killing music from a competing retailer on the iPod.
You certainly make a good point about how there are a lot of devices that can / could handle general computing tasks that are not "PCs" (such as tablets and phones) and that those generally don't run Windows. However, today, most of those devices are still considered secondary devices - and many of them require a PC or Mac in order to get their updates. This will change, and not all of them require it. But - right now - most of them are ancillary devices. For example, most updates for the iPhone require it be tethered to a PC / Mac in order to get them. In the Android world, many phones do OTA updates (like my Motorola Droid), but my Wife's HTC Aria just got an update to 2.2.2 and it had to be applied tethered to a PC (not a Mac) and was a wipe and load. I do believe that it won't be too long before most of these devices dispense with that tethered connection. Today though I have to consider a lot of them as secondary devices - and unlike Steve Jobs I can't call them "post PC devices" when they still require a PC / Mac in order to get updates.
Ripping from a CD is not illegal in any way shape or form if you own the CD and rip it for your own use. Apple has supported this method for a LONG time. iTunes isn't a monopoly. 1) You can get music off CD's and rip it 2) You can get Mp3's off Amazon 3) You can put music from either source (or any other compatible, i.e. non-DRM'd MP3, AAC, WAV etc.) on your iPod 4) You can put non-DRM'd iTunes music on other devices 5) The only reason music on iTunes was ever/is now DRM'd is because the labels demand it, Steve Jobs has been very vocal about non-DRM'd music being the right choice.
The suit stems largely from the Apple / RealNetworks dispute regarding the Harmony service Real tried to offer, allowing people to buy music from Real, and load it on iPods by re-DRM'ing the track as a "FairPlay-compatible" track. Apple made changes that (deliberately or not) stopped Harmony-purchased tracks from working on an iPod.
I'm not certain that this rises to the level of "antitrust" for several reasons:
1) They weren't under any obligation to license their FairPlay technology to other vendors, and in fact VirginMega actually got shot down by a court in 2004 for that very reason;
2) It's possible that turning a blind eye to how easily FairPlay was reverse engineered by Real could have put Apple afoul of its agreements with the record labels;
3) iPods have *always* allowed (and played) non-DRM'ed MP3/AAC tracks - Real could have sold non-DRM tracks if they wanted to sell for the iPod - eMusic has been doing it for a while now;
4) Real could have built their own iPod competitor, and had a run at the market that way; Microsoft's Zune and Sansa's various portable models both did this;
In short, there was enough competition and choice for consumers on the market that Apple's product decision didn't reasonably constitute "monopolistic" behavior.
No, of course not. Slashdotters have no trouble understanding sarcasm.
How many commercial applications can copy songs to an iPod?
There aren't many, but there are some. Winamp has been able to since the 5.55 release in March of 2009. It works well, too, I might add.
And technically, just having a "large market share" doesn't mean you're subject to penalties, either.
You have to *abuse* that large market share to unreasonably restrict competition. If you're simply better at what you do than anybody else, and people overwhelmingly choose your product/service, then there's no basis for an antitrust suit. Once you use your dominant position to harm Gateway's or RealNetworks' business, as Microsoft was found to have done.
Antitrust law is intended to encourage competition by making it painful for the big guys to stomp on the little guys who are competing well; it's not intended to punish someone for succeeding in a *legitimate* competition. It's possible to have a large market share without abusing it, though I'm sure it must be awfully tempting.
Exactly, that bastard Steve forced the record companies to accept his tyrannical 99 cent pricing policy and allow me to burn purchased songs to CD's where they can be ripped back to MP3 free of the restrictions
Points which are irrelevant to the antitrust case in question. Back in 2004, RealPlayer could be used to transfer FairPlay compatible music to the ipod. Apple said "We are stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod, and we are investigating the implications of their actions under the DMCA and other laws." After that, Apple changed the firmware to break the RealPlayer generated files.
If the Zune had reached 74% market share, and Apple had responded by adding the capability to download itunes music to the Zune, and Microsoft then broke that and blocked Apple from the market, you would be outraged. This is no different.
Also, while I'm no iTunes expert, I'm pretty sure that you can convert your Apple music to mp3s. My wife does it somehow.
Only because Apple was able to convince the RIAA to drop the DRM restrictions... Apple was certainly not alone in that, but they did fight the good fight for us in terms of removing DRM on music, even though the associated lock-in was working in their favor to keep people using iTunes/iPod. Unfortunately I see no pressure to do the same with TV/Movies they sell through iTunes, as much as I would like to buy TV a la carte and watch it on my Linux media center. (Hacked AirPlay developments not withstanding)
It's not about buying music from iTunes. It's about Apple killing music from a competing retailer on the iPod.
This assumes Apple has any obligation whatsoever to support third party DRM'd music stores on their iPod. I see no reason why that should be the case.
OK, because everyone seems to forget this, every time the 'monopoly' work is brought up.
It is not illegal to have a monopoly. It is illegal to abuse a monopoly.
They are not being sued because everyone uses them, they're being sued because they used their monopoly status to limit competition.
Apple never had a monopoly in music players or music downloads. They lead both of those markets, but never abused that status in any legally reasonable sense. Apple wasn't blocking Real from selling music. In fact, they weren't even blocking Real from selling music compatible with the iPod. They have no obligation whatsoever to allow third party music on the iPod.
How is Amazon's inability to secure The Beatles proof that iTunes has a monopoly? Hell a year ago iTunes didn't have The Beatles either where I find it hard to believe Apple Records suddenly went "Now that iTunes is a monopoly on the download music market, we will jump in!"
On the other hand, Apple Records has a history of shrewdly protect their rights on The Beatles and has rejected many deals as along the way where it appears that Apple Computer Inc kept negotiating till they got a deal Apple Records agreed too. Added to this nothing is stopping Amazon from making similar concessions where it is only up to Amazon leaders to decide if The Beatles library is worth suspected cost.
So, I had to really cut down that quote to get it to fit in my sig. Here is the full quote.
There are those who confidently claim that making a copy of music on your hard drive is an act of space shifting protected by the fair use privilege. I'm sure that some people engage in such space shifting, for example by copying music files from lawfully purchased CDs onto their computer hard drives. But anybody why thinks that that is fair use is going out on a limb... I am not saying that it is frivolous to argue that space shifting is fair use. I am not saying that I would be shocked if some court were to conclude that it is fair use. But I don't happen to believe that it is, and I do happen to believe that anyone who makes such a a copy on a hard drive without the consent of the copyright owner is probably engaging in copyright infringement.
The citation is David O. Carson (former General Counsel for the US Copyright Office), "Making the Making Available Right Available", 33 Colum. J. L. & Arts. 135, 138.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Yes, but there is no DRM on any music on the iTunes Store any more, and it's been that way for some time. Fairplay was never designed to be something that would spread - Apple had it out of necessity, but didn't want it to become a de facto standard.
Even when they were selling music with Fairplay DRM they included a feature in iTunes to strip it off (burn to audio CD) if you wanted it (although this meant quality loss if you then re-encoded it). The fiarplay converter isn't strictly needed, if you have any old files left over that have DRM - Apple has two methods to remove that DRM, one of which has always been there (burn audio CD), the other offered at the time they swapped to non-DRM files (a $0.20 per-track upgrade to download the new files).
But since they removed all the DRM, it is no longer an issue - the lawsuit seems to be about Fairplay, which hasn't been in use for some time, for this exact reason. They never wanted DRM in the first place, but had no choice due to the content owners demanding it. They removed it as soon as possible and made it extremely weak and trivial to defeat *within their own program* from the outset, strongly encouraging that you did so when you purchased music back then.
You're supposed to have a "monopoly" over your own products.
He was referencing the fact that not only does it bundle its own software but if you develop software that functionally duplicates on of their apps you likely can't even distribute that (according to the dev agreement). MS can't even bundle its own software on its product even though it gives you absolute freedom to install whatever other software you want.
So where apple can quite happily bundle safari with iOS and tell you what you can and cannot install MS can't bundle IE with Windows even though they impose no restrictions on what you can and can't install.
Or how about Apple's monopoly on the iPhone/iPad apps?
Uh, yeah, this argument doesn't really carry any water until you set your sights on Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft.
Well it actually does, it's just that it applies equally to them as well. There's no rule that says you have to have a go at Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft before you're allowed to have a go at Apple.
Or how about Apple's monopoly on the iPhone/iPad apps?
Uh, yeah, this argument doesn't really carry any water until you set your sights on Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft.
Well it actually does, it's just that it applies equally to them as well. There's no rule that says you have to have a go at Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft before you're allowed to have a go at Apple.
No, it just reeks of bias and damages your appearance of objectivity.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see what the problem is. Yes, you should enforce the law against all of the companies that are breaking it.
That is pretty stupid. Why would I believe this douchebag instead of using common sense, and basic concepts such as first sale? "Space shifting" was first explored with tape-recorders and was deemed legal.