Do I have a smoking gun letter from someone at Microsoft saying "We'll never license Windows Media DRM for Macintosh?" Of course not, but if you're going to quibble over that, you're silly. The lack of a product that plays back the DRM, from Microsoft or a third party is evidence enough.
I have precisely the facts as I laid them out to you. When Windows Media Player for Macintosh was available, it didn't play the then-current versions of Windows Media DRM as available for Windows. Now that Windows Media Player for Macintosh no longer exists as a currently shipping product, none of the third party solutions available in the market to Mac OS X users playback the current version of Windows Media DRM.
If you were actually a Mac user as you previously claimed, none of this would be news for you.
Do I have a smoking gun letter from someone at Microsoft saying "We'll never license Windows Media DRM for Macintosh?" Of course not, but if you're going to quibble over that, you're silly. The lack of a product that plays back the DRM, from Microsoft or a third party is evidence enough.
Look, the likely realities are these:
1. Absent a voluntary agreement with the office of the CO in Norway that allows Apple to keep its current DRM scheme intact, iTunes Norway will close.
2. Absent Apple becoming a digital music monopoly in the US, Apple's DRM will not be regulated BY the US government.
I'm not saying you have to like either of these things, but absent a mass defection in the market to something else, these are just the most likely realities of the market for the present and foreseeable future.
Grinding this down any further in a futile attempt to prove to me how right you are is unlikely to produce your desired result.
Look, make no mistake: Apple WILL NOT open FairPlay to other hardware manufacturers. They simply won't. If other European countries find against Apple's business model, Apple will simply close iTS in those countries and continue to sell music in the US, the UK, Japan and elsewhere where its model doesn't run headlong into this or that bit of regulatory fluff. But absent a total repeal of the DMCA in the US, FairPlay is Apple's to do with as they please and for the foreseeable future that means it plays back music on Apple branded hardware and ONLY Apple branded hardware. If you want to effectively counter that, it sounds like your time would be better spent lobbying the labels to embrace DRM-free digital music.
Windows Media Player for Macintosh lagged behind WMP for Windows, and never in its lifespan as a shipping product reached feature parity with the current version of WMP for Windows at the same time. Neither Flip4Mac or VLC can play back the current version of WMP's DRM, effectively locking Mac users out of every PlaysForSure subscription service on the market.
is that Apple's artificial cost means that in order to have the "right featureset", a manufacturer has to provide a whole bunch of extra value for free.
...that's life. If you dislike Apple's terms of business personally, buy a competitor's product. But, Apple has assumed 100% of the cost of turning the iPod and iTunes into billion dollar businesses. They have a right to see a return on that investment. You're welcome to disagree with their terms of business. You're not welcome to force your preferences on the rest of the market, when your position is decidedly in the minority. If iTunes DRM wasn't successful we wouldn't be having this conversation. The vast majority of the market knows exactly what they're buying and they're comfortable with Apple's terms of business. You don't have to be. Buy something else. When something else gets popular enough, Apple's terms of business will change, because they'll be forced to compete. Or, they'll make a mistake and fall back on thinking they don't need to compete and the iTunes business will die.
I don't think Apple is that silly, of course, but I also don't think this merits regulation.
...and Apple STILL had to provide extra features relative to its competition when they launched the iPod. The rest of the market has to be held to the same standard.
Market share is only relevant to the degree Apple is a monopoly player in this market. They're not. So long as the growth potential for the market exceeds Apple's sales growth, new competitors will continue to enter both ends of the market, which is precisely what we're seeing. There are new DAP hardware offerrings all the time, and there are new digital music retailers launching all the time. You sound like you're still hung up on the idea that there's no competition in this market. That's simply not true.
Apple had to provide extra features. The first iPod far exceeded its competitors. Why should the rest of the industry not be held to the same standard?
...and FWIW, the manufacturers in the market aren't whining about Apple either; they're just competing on features and price, which is exactly what they should be doing. This is all coming from a very tiny sliver of a very tiny minority in the market who seem to feel, selfishly, that their desires trump any other considerations.
No, what I'm saying is precisely the OPPOSITE of what you're claiming Apple should be held to.
If Apple had whined to regulatory bodies about Microsoft's refusal to license its Windows Media DRM for Macintosh, then they'd be roughly equivalent. Apple didn't do that. They simply made a player and a music store that the market liked better. The rest of the market is going to have to compete. If they claim they can't compete, it's not about DRM, it's just laziness. Apple didn't have to magically make an iPod that met some imagined dollar value - this is the point you keep ignoring - they just had to get the featureset right. The next player that knocks Apple out of the dominant position will get the next featureset right, whatever that may be.
It will be technology driven, and it will make whatever time is required to spend converting from FairPlay DRM worth it, because that's EXACTLY what happened when Apple launched the iPod. The market has ALREADY shown a willingness to do exactly what I'm saying. When the iPod launched, the killer bits of technology that made it successful were Firewire and a teeny hard drive. Compared to 128 or 256 mb flash players in the market at the time the iPod's featureset was far and away BETTER. The DAP that beats the iPod in the market will similarly be far and away better. They won't have to meet your fantasy dollar amounts with regard to the "hidden" cost of converting from FairPlay, because the featureset - whatever that will be - will make it worth folks' time to convert their existing libraries for the new device.
This has *already happened*. It will happen again.
But now suppose that my average customer will incur a cost of $500 to convert his iTunes library. Now my player doesn't just have to be $100 better, it has to be $600 better. That's a significant barrier that I have to overcome. I have to cram an extra $500 of value into my product for free if I want to compete with the iPod.
Nonsense. That's no more an absolute requirement of a competing player than it was for Apple when they launched the iPod. The iPod didn't have to meet some imagined dollar value equivalent to the cost of my CD collection to justify its purchase. It had to have the right mix of features to make me want it enough to justify whatever time I was willing to spend converting my music collection for it. Folks can, and *will*, do the same thing when they're ready to move away from iTunes. They won't have to convert everything all at once, any more than they did when they first purchased an iPod. They'll convert things in dribs and drabs, when the mood strikes.
They'll do it because whatever they buy will offer features that make the extra work worth it, *just as it was* when they bought an iPod originally.
What you're defending, really, is the idea that Apple should give away the product of all of the risk they took in developing the iPod and iTunes into billion dollar businesses. For all of your sturm and drang about Apple's supposedly anticompetitive tactics, you don't seem to expect the rest of the market to have to compete. They should expect to be given access to Apple's DRM and iPod platform for free. That's simply not going to happen. This is why it's becoming increasingly more difficult for me to see this as an altruistic, "consumer rights" driven position, and it looks all the more like you've got an axe to grind with Apple personally.
There are no barriers to "competition" in the current market. That's where you and I are probably going to have to agree to disagree.
Apple has no obligation to be forced to "interoperate" with the rest of the market. They've assumed all of the development and infrastructure costs of launching the twin iTunes and iPod businesses, and interoperability, while noble, is not a requirement of any product. Can I demand that Microsoft be forced to interoperate with OS X in specific ways that I demand? Can I demand that Microsoft provide me with a way to run shrink-wrapped Windows apps on my Mac without incurring any additional costs (Parallels or a copy of XP or Vista?)
Reasonably, no, I just can't. Should Apple be forced by this notion of "interoperability" into allowing OS X on whitebox PC's at the cost of it's Macintosh business? Hogwash.
Interoperability may be a laudable goal in many cases, and when and where the industry can agree on things like DVD formats and such, I think interoperability is lovely, but it should never - EVER - be a requirement.
Frankly, it's telling for me that you only chose to reply to part of my third point.
Where's the actual harm? What do consumers actually want? Is there no place where you can see the arrogance of assuming that you know what's good for us, even if we don't? The arrogance of assuming that your assessment of Apple's practices as "bad" and the rest of us as "dumb" and in need of being saved from big bad Apple is fairly silly? Is there no place for you to allow that people are free to make choices you dislike, and Apple is free to cater to them? Why or why not?
You keep calling it "inconvenience", but it's an expense like any other.
I'm calling it that because that's what it is. I disagree with you that the implied cost of a platform switch is equivalent to consumer harm. Either cite some evidence (other than, "it's harm because I say it is" or "it's harm because your time is worth $x" -- neither of those examples I find substantive *as examples of harm*), or accept that I just don't agree.
You keep calling it "inconvenience", but it's an expense like any other. Imagine if your landlord tried to charge you for moving out, giving you the option of staying there and renting an inferior apartment forever, or paying a hefty fee to go somewhere else. That sort of abuse is generally prohibited by tenant rights laws, because society has decided that "you agreed to it when you moved in" isn't a good excuse for extortion.
Again, food and shelter are *essentials*. That's why they're proper to regulate. Entertainment media aren't essential. If Apple was the sole player, then, yes, by all means regulate the hell out of them for the priveliege of allowing their monopoly, but that's just not the case here.
Likewise, it's only necessary for Apple to add this cost if they're afraid that iPods won't meet your needs. If they're confident that the iPod can stand on its own, they don't need to threaten you with a $600 fee, because you won't switch anyway.
Dial down the hyperbole, please. An implied cost in a platform switch is not a threat. It's an implied cost. It's up to me to decide if that cost is worth it.
It's not about having it both ways: FairPlay is part of the model, as I've said several times. What I'm saying you're confused by is the idea that so many people *willingly choose* FairPlay with all of its implied "lock in" (I still don't agree) and all the rest. They must just be dumb and need protection through regulation...
It's a symbiosis, as I said at the beginning. Apple uses iPods to sell iTunes tracks and iTunes tracks to sell iPods. It's the razor and razorblades model. Without inflated prices on the blades, the razors themselves have to be profitable on their own, and folks balk at the higher cost of both -- and the whole business falls apart. I willingly accept being "locked in" to my Shick Sensor, because the blades are cheap enough that even at their inflated cost they're a value for my money and the features outweigh the "switching cost."
Apple keeps iTunes at or near breakeven because they make up the difference by selling iPods. If I want a legal, convenient alternative to piracy, my choices seem to be limited to renting music or 99 cent downloads. So far, Apple seems to be the only company that's found a way to make a profitable business out of the latter, and I find the former not to meet my needs. All of that is part of the bargain I'm agreeing to when I buy DRM content from Apple. I'm willing to live with that bargain because I find the convenience outweighs the potential switching costs. Like I've said several times, here, my business is the market's to lose. If they want to win me as a customer, it's up to them to come up with a competing product that justifies the switching cost.
Put another way: is Apple the only company that can innovate in this market? They came up with a product that justified the initial "switching cost" of spending hours and hours encoding content from CD. Is it so inconcieveable that somebody else could produce a killer bit of hardware that was compelling enough to win me away from the iPod/iTunes ecosystem? If there really IS nobody else that's innovative enough to do so, then I say to the victor go the spoils. Apple deserves its success, if the rest of the market is going to continue to foist Zunes and Creative Zens on me.
The costs of switching away from iTunes, however, are 100% artificial. Apple has gone out of their way to keep your iTunes music from working on other players, by encrypting it with a system that no one else is allowed to decrypt. They've also gone out of their way to keep iPods from playing music from other stores, by changing the details of their encryption to stay ahead of other stores that tried to use FairPlay.
It's a niggle perhaps, but I think what you may mean is that Apple has artificially inflated the cost of switching away from FairPlay DRM.
Let's unpack that, though, and really look at its implications:
You claim that my voluntary purchase of iTunes tracks causes me harm, given the following:
1. Apple's DRM "locks in" my use of the iPod.
2. Switching costs associated with getting away from Apple's DRM are artificially imposed, and not a "natural" consequence of differences in format technologies.
Have I got it so far? Given that this has gotten testy in a few places, I don't want my paraphrase to mischaracterize what you're actually saying.
Honestly, I call bullshit.
My use of iTunes DRM is entirely voluntary. It's not the sole method of getting content FOR my iPod, and the DRM is simple to circumvent, by design. Burning unprotected Audio CD has been a part of the end-user rights from the begining. You and I are going to have to agree to disagree about the costs of that platform switch. You've gone around and around on that point, and I still don't find that inconvenience is equivalent to harm. It honestly doesn't matter that the platform switching costs are a consequence of Apple's DRM and not some other underlying technology, because iTunes DRM is part of the bargian when you purchase iTunes music. People know what they're buying, they aren't forced to get the content to use their iPods, and they aren't forced to use it and nothing else should they decide to use something else in the future. Really, the "differences in format technologies" argument amounts to a red herring. Apple has a right to protect its interests, here. Apple has a right to start a business the terms of which you find objectionable. They have a right to engage in practices you deem "anticompetitive" up to the point that those practices are ruled a violation of relevant law. Yes, yes, that's happening in Norway. I concede that point. They'll close iTS Norway if this goes any further, and that will be that.
Really, the fundamental veto power here is not to regulate Apple out of business, but to vote with your dollars. When enough of the market agrees with you and stops buying iTunes DRM tracks and/or iPods, Apple will do something else. The regulatory angle here does far more harm than good, if we really look at it carefully. At what point, under such proposed laws, am I permitted to sue somebody for not properly anticipating my future needs? At what point does my responsibility for making my own choices become relevant here?
As you know, I don't buy your cost analysis as a substantive example of actual harm. You're going to have to either agree to disagree or try again. Inconvenient isn't the same thing as harmful.
The implied switching cost is only added should I find that iPods no longer meet my needs. My business is the market's to court. They're going to have to come up with a DAP whose features justify the cost of switching, just as in the case of any other platform switch.
Ultimately, I suppose, this boils down to the notion of what constitutes harm.
I still think I'm allowed to make choices that you find wacky, and not in my best interest, so long as I'm not doing the things you originally claimed: taking unregulated medicines, eating bad meat, etc.
If you want me to see those things as legitimately deserving of regulation, I do.
However, with regard to nonessentials - and iPod and music purchases definitely count, here - that just plain falls under the category of needless regulation. Let the market decide.
Fine, I'll allow that my initial response was poorly worded. What I meant was that the CO in Norway isn't empowered to declare Apple's business illegal *without any other recourse to Apple*. I've explained that position several times in followups to you. In case you missed or ignored it, with regard to the specific decision in Norway, I held at the outset and continue to hold the following:
1. Norway can declare anything illegal that it wishes. It can pass consumer protection laws banning earbuds if it so chooses. That's more or less beside the point.
2. Apple could let the case go to court and appeal any decision against it, if any such appeals are permitted under Norwegian law. The final outcome of that court proceeding would be the final say in the matter, but a simple declaration on the part of a regulatory or enforcement body is not the end of the matter. That said...
3. I don't think Apple would go to court with a case it would likely lose. The far more likely outcome is that Apple will simply close iTS Norway (or France, or Germany, etc.) and continue to do boatloads of business in the US, UK, Japan and elsewhere around the world. Apple might pay a short term negative PR cost in that case, but that's in their interest, given that the long term financial cost of compliance in those countries would kill their iPod business. If they cave and absorb the cost of needless regulation in a few European cases, I have to expect that cases will pop up in jurisdictions around the world, and that truly will mean the end of the iPod.
4. I still challenge the assertion that such regulation is actually in the interests of the consumers the regulatory bodies claim they're serving. Are a majority of consumers claiming harm in those countries? Are a majority of consumers actually *being harmed* by Apple's non-compliance with the regulations in question? If those consumers weigh an abstract claim of harm against the loss of the iTunes Store in their country, which choice would most Norwegian consumers prefer?
These are complex questions that can't satisfactorily be dismissed with the "Apple is evil, DRM is evil, iTunes is illegal" meme that's been regurgitated over and over through this. I contend that most people are happy with their iTunes purchases, DRM "lock in" (I still don't agree with the notion in its specifics) and all. If those consumers aren't claiming harm, if most consumers find the iPod and iTunes to be good, fulfilling choices that meet their needs, why try and force them to accept that they're being harmed under the abstract notions of invented or assumed "switching costs" or other such fantasias.
And if Apple imposes artificial costs on you to keep you from switching away from their products, that's anticompetitive behavior. Period.
Except that argument doesn't really stand up under scrutiny, does it?
The analagous situation here would be Microsoft leveraging its monopoly position with DOS to force its OEM's to bundle Windows. End users needed DOS, and OEMs were forced to pay Windows licenses in order to keep their DOS licenses. That all hinged on Microsoft's position as the sole supplier of the essential software: DOS.
Is Apple the sole supplier of content for the iPod? Of course not. iTunes can rip music from your existing CD collection.
Is Apple the sole supplier of *downloadable, digital music file* iPod content? Well, no. My iPod plays purchased tracks from traxsource.com, djdownload.com, beatport.com and other music stores I use in addition to iTunes.
Is Apple the sole supplier of major-label iPod content? Here again, no. We're starting to see labels experimenting with DRM-free tracks all of which (so far) play just fine on the iPod. That's a market with growth potential for folks that see DRM as inherently evil. I suspect you fit that bill.
Is Apple the sole supplier of FairPlay DRM content? Yep, that's true enough. Yes, there are platform switching costs associated with moving away from FairPlay DRM. But those costs - however inconvenient - do not (yet) fit the bill for a platform "lock-in." They may, if Apple removes the presently simple method that exists for re-encoding iTunes DRM tracks. But they don't at the present time.
All of this is to say that you keep spinning around the idea that consumers are "locked in" to the iPod and iTunes marketplace without any other options; they have several other options. At present, the market *chooses* the iPod and iTunes, with, I contend eyes open in the majority of cases. We haven't seen large numbers of consumers in the marketplace calling for FairPlay to open up to other players. We've seen regulatory busybodies calling for such a thing, but that's not the same thing, naturally. We've also seen a (vocal) minority of anti-DRM folks calling for an across-the-board end to any and all DRM, but that's also not what the majority of the market wants.
Most people who want a digital audio player are happy with the iPod.
Most people who want convenient, downloadable, major-label content for their players are happy with iTunes.
Despite your previous claims that consumers need to be protected from evil, nasty corporations because they're too dumb to know better, I think most people understand perfectly well the implications of their iTunes purchases, and they willingly accept them, because the iPod is still the most compelling, best designed, easiest to use product in its market. You may be befuddled by that choice, but it's not up to you to force people to make choices that you agree with.
Forcing users to go through a conversion process that'll cost $600 worth of time is just as bad from the POV of a customer as making conversion impossible and charging $600 a fee for the ability.
The problem with your assertion here is that Apple is doing something nefarious and forcing costs of a platform change on users. Platform switching costs are a fact of life, not a regulatable offense. Can I get Apple to pay me for the costs of changing platforms if I decide to switch from OS X to Windows Vista? Can I call for Adobe to pay for the costs of switching platforms if I decide to stop using Creative Suite?
Yes, there are costs associated with changing platforms, but that's a fact of life, not a consipracy on the part of Apple to force people to use iPods. People *choose* to use iPods. When the market comes up with a product that's compelling enough to justify the cost of a platform switch, people will choose something else.
Your original shrill ranting seemed to claim that Apple's iTunes business had been summarily deemed illegal with no possible recourse for Apple. You've since backpedalled from that position a bit. In any case, as I've already said, I don't question Norway's ability to declare anything it wants to illegal. I question the continued assumption that that's evidence of harm. Governments make all sorts of silly regulatory decisions; they also make good regulatory decisions. This is, IMO, one of the former.
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Oh, gee. I hadn't actually considered that. Hmm. Maybe I did just make it all up. Feel better?
Sounds like you should probably sue Apple. Have fun.
If you were actually a Mac user as you previously claimed, none of this would be news for you.
Do I have a smoking gun letter from someone at Microsoft saying "We'll never license Windows Media DRM for Macintosh?" Of course not, but if you're going to quibble over that, you're silly. The lack of a product that plays back the DRM, from Microsoft or a third party is evidence enough.
Look, the likely realities are these:
1. Absent a voluntary agreement with the office of the CO in Norway that allows Apple to keep its current DRM scheme intact, iTunes Norway will close.
2. Absent Apple becoming a digital music monopoly in the US, Apple's DRM will not be regulated BY the US government.
I'm not saying you have to like either of these things, but absent a mass defection in the market to something else, these are just the most likely realities of the market for the present and foreseeable future.
Grinding this down any further in a futile attempt to prove to me how right you are is unlikely to produce your desired result.
Look, make no mistake: Apple WILL NOT open FairPlay to other hardware manufacturers. They simply won't. If other European countries find against Apple's business model, Apple will simply close iTS in those countries and continue to sell music in the US, the UK, Japan and elsewhere where its model doesn't run headlong into this or that bit of regulatory fluff. But absent a total repeal of the DMCA in the US, FairPlay is Apple's to do with as they please and for the foreseeable future that means it plays back music on Apple branded hardware and ONLY Apple branded hardware. If you want to effectively counter that, it sounds like your time would be better spent lobbying the labels to embrace DRM-free digital music.
...and Apple STILL had to provide extra features relative to its competition when they launched the iPod. The rest of the market has to be held to the same standard.
Market share is only relevant to the degree Apple is a monopoly player in this market. They're not. So long as the growth potential for the market exceeds Apple's sales growth, new competitors will continue to enter both ends of the market, which is precisely what we're seeing. There are new DAP hardware offerrings all the time, and there are new digital music retailers launching all the time. You sound like you're still hung up on the idea that there's no competition in this market. That's simply not true.
Apple had to provide extra features. The first iPod far exceeded its competitors. Why should the rest of the industry not be held to the same standard?
...and FWIW, the manufacturers in the market aren't whining about Apple either; they're just competing on features and price, which is exactly what they should be doing. This is all coming from a very tiny sliver of a very tiny minority in the market who seem to feel, selfishly, that their desires trump any other considerations.
No, what I'm saying is precisely the OPPOSITE of what you're claiming Apple should be held to. If Apple had whined to regulatory bodies about Microsoft's refusal to license its Windows Media DRM for Macintosh, then they'd be roughly equivalent. Apple didn't do that. They simply made a player and a music store that the market liked better. The rest of the market is going to have to compete. If they claim they can't compete, it's not about DRM, it's just laziness. Apple didn't have to magically make an iPod that met some imagined dollar value - this is the point you keep ignoring - they just had to get the featureset right. The next player that knocks Apple out of the dominant position will get the next featureset right, whatever that may be. It will be technology driven, and it will make whatever time is required to spend converting from FairPlay DRM worth it, because that's EXACTLY what happened when Apple launched the iPod. The market has ALREADY shown a willingness to do exactly what I'm saying. When the iPod launched, the killer bits of technology that made it successful were Firewire and a teeny hard drive. Compared to 128 or 256 mb flash players in the market at the time the iPod's featureset was far and away BETTER. The DAP that beats the iPod in the market will similarly be far and away better. They won't have to meet your fantasy dollar amounts with regard to the "hidden" cost of converting from FairPlay, because the featureset - whatever that will be - will make it worth folks' time to convert their existing libraries for the new device. This has *already happened*. It will happen again.
They'll do it because whatever they buy will offer features that make the extra work worth it, *just as it was* when they bought an iPod originally.
What you're defending, really, is the idea that Apple should give away the product of all of the risk they took in developing the iPod and iTunes into billion dollar businesses. For all of your sturm and drang about Apple's supposedly anticompetitive tactics, you don't seem to expect the rest of the market to have to compete. They should expect to be given access to Apple's DRM and iPod platform for free. That's simply not going to happen. This is why it's becoming increasingly more difficult for me to see this as an altruistic, "consumer rights" driven position, and it looks all the more like you've got an axe to grind with Apple personally.
Apple has no obligation to be forced to "interoperate" with the rest of the market. They've assumed all of the development and infrastructure costs of launching the twin iTunes and iPod businesses, and interoperability, while noble, is not a requirement of any product. Can I demand that Microsoft be forced to interoperate with OS X in specific ways that I demand? Can I demand that Microsoft provide me with a way to run shrink-wrapped Windows apps on my Mac without incurring any additional costs (Parallels or a copy of XP or Vista?)
Reasonably, no, I just can't. Should Apple be forced by this notion of "interoperability" into allowing OS X on whitebox PC's at the cost of it's Macintosh business? Hogwash.
Interoperability may be a laudable goal in many cases, and when and where the industry can agree on things like DVD formats and such, I think interoperability is lovely, but it should never - EVER - be a requirement.
Where's the actual harm? What do consumers actually want? Is there no place where you can see the arrogance of assuming that you know what's good for us, even if we don't? The arrogance of assuming that your assessment of Apple's practices as "bad" and the rest of us as "dumb" and in need of being saved from big bad Apple is fairly silly? Is there no place for you to allow that people are free to make choices you dislike, and Apple is free to cater to them? Why or why not?
I'm calling it that because that's what it is. I disagree with you that the implied cost of a platform switch is equivalent to consumer harm. Either cite some evidence (other than, "it's harm because I say it is" or "it's harm because your time is worth $x" -- neither of those examples I find substantive *as examples of harm*), or accept that I just don't agree.
Again, food and shelter are *essentials*. That's why they're proper to regulate. Entertainment media aren't essential. If Apple was the sole player, then, yes, by all means regulate the hell out of them for the priveliege of allowing their monopoly, but that's just not the case here.
Dial down the hyperbole, please. An implied cost in a platform switch is not a threat. It's an implied cost. It's up to me to decide if that cost is worth it.
It's not about having it both ways: FairPlay is part of the model, as I've said several times. What I'm saying you're confused by is the idea that so many people *willingly choose* FairPlay with all of its implied "lock in" (I still don't agree) and all the rest. They must just be dumb and need protection through regulation...
It's a symbiosis, as I said at the beginning. Apple uses iPods to sell iTunes tracks and iTunes tracks to sell iPods. It's the razor and razorblades model. Without inflated prices on the blades, the razors themselves have to be profitable on their own, and folks balk at the higher cost of both -- and the whole business falls apart. I willingly accept being "locked in" to my Shick Sensor, because the blades are cheap enough that even at their inflated cost they're a value for my money and the features outweigh the "switching cost."
Apple keeps iTunes at or near breakeven because they make up the difference by selling iPods. If I want a legal, convenient alternative to piracy, my choices seem to be limited to renting music or 99 cent downloads. So far, Apple seems to be the only company that's found a way to make a profitable business out of the latter, and I find the former not to meet my needs. All of that is part of the bargain I'm agreeing to when I buy DRM content from Apple. I'm willing to live with that bargain because I find the convenience outweighs the potential switching costs. Like I've said several times, here, my business is the market's to lose. If they want to win me as a customer, it's up to them to come up with a competing product that justifies the switching cost.
Put another way: is Apple the only company that can innovate in this market? They came up with a product that justified the initial "switching cost" of spending hours and hours encoding content from CD. Is it so inconcieveable that somebody else could produce a killer bit of hardware that was compelling enough to win me away from the iPod/iTunes ecosystem? If there really IS nobody else that's innovative enough to do so, then I say to the victor go the spoils. Apple deserves its success, if the rest of the market is going to continue to foist Zunes and Creative Zens on me.
Let's unpack that, though, and really look at its implications:
You claim that my voluntary purchase of iTunes tracks causes me harm, given the following:
1. Apple's DRM "locks in" my use of the iPod.
2. Switching costs associated with getting away from Apple's DRM are artificially imposed, and not a "natural" consequence of differences in format technologies.
Have I got it so far? Given that this has gotten testy in a few places, I don't want my paraphrase to mischaracterize what you're actually saying.
Honestly, I call bullshit.
My use of iTunes DRM is entirely voluntary. It's not the sole method of getting content FOR my iPod, and the DRM is simple to circumvent, by design. Burning unprotected Audio CD has been a part of the end-user rights from the begining. You and I are going to have to agree to disagree about the costs of that platform switch. You've gone around and around on that point, and I still don't find that inconvenience is equivalent to harm. It honestly doesn't matter that the platform switching costs are a consequence of Apple's DRM and not some other underlying technology, because iTunes DRM is part of the bargian when you purchase iTunes music. People know what they're buying, they aren't forced to get the content to use their iPods, and they aren't forced to use it and nothing else should they decide to use something else in the future. Really, the "differences in format technologies" argument amounts to a red herring. Apple has a right to protect its interests, here. Apple has a right to start a business the terms of which you find objectionable. They have a right to engage in practices you deem "anticompetitive" up to the point that those practices are ruled a violation of relevant law. Yes, yes, that's happening in Norway. I concede that point. They'll close iTS Norway if this goes any further, and that will be that.
Really, the fundamental veto power here is not to regulate Apple out of business, but to vote with your dollars. When enough of the market agrees with you and stops buying iTunes DRM tracks and/or iPods, Apple will do something else. The regulatory angle here does far more harm than good, if we really look at it carefully. At what point, under such proposed laws, am I permitted to sue somebody for not properly anticipating my future needs? At what point does my responsibility for making my own choices become relevant here?
As you know, I don't buy your cost analysis as a substantive example of actual harm. You're going to have to either agree to disagree or try again. Inconvenient isn't the same thing as harmful.
The implied switching cost is only added should I find that iPods no longer meet my needs. My business is the market's to court. They're going to have to come up with a DAP whose features justify the cost of switching, just as in the case of any other platform switch.
Ultimately, I suppose, this boils down to the notion of what constitutes harm.
I still think I'm allowed to make choices that you find wacky, and not in my best interest, so long as I'm not doing the things you originally claimed: taking unregulated medicines, eating bad meat, etc.
If you want me to see those things as legitimately deserving of regulation, I do.
However, with regard to nonessentials - and iPod and music purchases definitely count, here - that just plain falls under the category of needless regulation. Let the market decide.
Fine, I'll allow that my initial response was poorly worded. What I meant was that the CO in Norway isn't empowered to declare Apple's business illegal *without any other recourse to Apple*. I've explained that position several times in followups to you. In case you missed or ignored it, with regard to the specific decision in Norway, I held at the outset and continue to hold the following:
1. Norway can declare anything illegal that it wishes. It can pass consumer protection laws banning earbuds if it so chooses. That's more or less beside the point.
2. Apple could let the case go to court and appeal any decision against it, if any such appeals are permitted under Norwegian law. The final outcome of that court proceeding would be the final say in the matter, but a simple declaration on the part of a regulatory or enforcement body is not the end of the matter. That said...
3. I don't think Apple would go to court with a case it would likely lose. The far more likely outcome is that Apple will simply close iTS Norway (or France, or Germany, etc.) and continue to do boatloads of business in the US, UK, Japan and elsewhere around the world. Apple might pay a short term negative PR cost in that case, but that's in their interest, given that the long term financial cost of compliance in those countries would kill their iPod business. If they cave and absorb the cost of needless regulation in a few European cases, I have to expect that cases will pop up in jurisdictions around the world, and that truly will mean the end of the iPod.
4. I still challenge the assertion that such regulation is actually in the interests of the consumers the regulatory bodies claim they're serving. Are a majority of consumers claiming harm in those countries? Are a majority of consumers actually *being harmed* by Apple's non-compliance with the regulations in question? If those consumers weigh an abstract claim of harm against the loss of the iTunes Store in their country, which choice would most Norwegian consumers prefer?
These are complex questions that can't satisfactorily be dismissed with the "Apple is evil, DRM is evil, iTunes is illegal" meme that's been regurgitated over and over through this. I contend that most people are happy with their iTunes purchases, DRM "lock in" (I still don't agree with the notion in its specifics) and all. If those consumers aren't claiming harm, if most consumers find the iPod and iTunes to be good, fulfilling choices that meet their needs, why try and force them to accept that they're being harmed under the abstract notions of invented or assumed "switching costs" or other such fantasias.
Except that argument doesn't really stand up under scrutiny, does it?
The analagous situation here would be Microsoft leveraging its monopoly position with DOS to force its OEM's to bundle Windows. End users needed DOS, and OEMs were forced to pay Windows licenses in order to keep their DOS licenses. That all hinged on Microsoft's position as the sole supplier of the essential software: DOS.
Is Apple the sole supplier of content for the iPod? Of course not. iTunes can rip music from your existing CD collection.
Is Apple the sole supplier of *downloadable, digital music file* iPod content? Well, no. My iPod plays purchased tracks from traxsource.com, djdownload.com, beatport.com and other music stores I use in addition to iTunes.
Is Apple the sole supplier of major-label iPod content? Here again, no. We're starting to see labels experimenting with DRM-free tracks all of which (so far) play just fine on the iPod. That's a market with growth potential for folks that see DRM as inherently evil. I suspect you fit that bill.
Is Apple the sole supplier of FairPlay DRM content? Yep, that's true enough. Yes, there are platform switching costs associated with moving away from FairPlay DRM. But those costs - however inconvenient - do not (yet) fit the bill for a platform "lock-in." They may, if Apple removes the presently simple method that exists for re-encoding iTunes DRM tracks. But they don't at the present time.
All of this is to say that you keep spinning around the idea that consumers are "locked in" to the iPod and iTunes marketplace without any other options; they have several other options. At present, the market *chooses* the iPod and iTunes, with, I contend eyes open in the majority of cases. We haven't seen large numbers of consumers in the marketplace calling for FairPlay to open up to other players. We've seen regulatory busybodies calling for such a thing, but that's not the same thing, naturally. We've also seen a (vocal) minority of anti-DRM folks calling for an across-the-board end to any and all DRM, but that's also not what the majority of the market wants.
Most people who want a digital audio player are happy with the iPod.
Most people who want convenient, downloadable, major-label content for their players are happy with iTunes.
Despite your previous claims that consumers need to be protected from evil, nasty corporations because they're too dumb to know better, I think most people understand perfectly well the implications of their iTunes purchases, and they willingly accept them, because the iPod is still the most compelling, best designed, easiest to use product in its market. You may be befuddled by that choice, but it's not up to you to force people to make choices that you agree with.
The problem with your assertion here is that Apple is doing something nefarious and forcing costs of a platform change on users. Platform switching costs are a fact of life, not a regulatable offense. Can I get Apple to pay me for the costs of changing platforms if I decide to switch from OS X to Windows Vista? Can I call for Adobe to pay for the costs of switching platforms if I decide to stop using Creative Suite?
Yes, there are costs associated with changing platforms, but that's a fact of life, not a consipracy on the part of Apple to force people to use iPods. People *choose* to use iPods. When the market comes up with a product that's compelling enough to justify the cost of a platform switch, people will choose something else.
Your original shrill ranting seemed to claim that Apple's iTunes business had been summarily deemed illegal with no possible recourse for Apple. You've since backpedalled from that position a bit. In any case, as I've already said, I don't question Norway's ability to declare anything it wants to illegal. I question the continued assumption that that's evidence of harm. Governments make all sorts of silly regulatory decisions; they also make good regulatory decisions. This is, IMO, one of the former.