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Apple To Face $350 Million Trial Over iPod DRM
An anonymous reader writes: A U.S. district judge ruled last week that a decade-old antitrust lawsuit regarding Apple's FairPlay DRM can move forward to a jury trial (PDF). The plaintiffs claim that in 2004, when "Real Networks launched a new version of RealPlayer that competed with iTunes," Apple issued an update to iTunes that prevented users from using their iPods to play songs obtained from RealPlayer. Real Networks updated its compatibility software in 2006, and Apple introduced a new version of iTunes that also rendered Real Networks's new update ineffective. The plaintiffs reason that they were thus "locked in" to Apple's platform, and as a result "Apple was able to overcharge its customers to the tune of tens of millions of dollars". If the plaintiffs succeed, media content purchased online may go the way of CDs and be playable on competing devices.
He's probably still just mad about being forced a copy of a U2 album.
just check the couch cushions, I'm sure they've got a few hundred million in there amongst the Cheetos and lost tv remotes.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
RealPlayer - Talk about a ...BUFFERING... wasted oppor ...BUFFERING... tunity ...BUFFERING...
#DeleteChrome
are belong to us.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Old iPods let you do this. I had one that did, I don't miss it at all.
For those who think "oh I wish i had a device i can just browse as a hard drive"... well, how do you make playlist with a filesystem? I have 2 thousand files on my iPod, and I'm not even trying hard. Because some are based on last time i played them, dozens of files come and go based on metadata changes every time I sync. You want me to manage that myself? How can I have a file in two playlists, do I have to have two copies on disk? There's no real good way on filesystem only. You have to have some managing software. And at that point, you need to sync between Filesystem image and Managing software image. At that point, I'm willing to drop the Filesystem access for a decent player. I had the second gen iPod.