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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.'"
How will you expect the editors to took the time to conjugated verbs properly, when there's flamebait to will have been posted?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don't see what the problem is. Yes, you should enforce the law against all of the companies that are breaking it.