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223 Comments
- VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -20/+92People too often call things monopolies when they aren't.
You can only buy a Big Mac at McDonald's. Does that mean McDonald's has a monopoly on Big Macs? - bleonard, on 10/12/2007, -19/+68Sure they do...and the consumer has the ability to choose whether or not to buy an iPod and songs from the iTunes music store.
- stringycheese, on 10/12/2007, -9/+49"doesn't Apple have the right?"
Actually no. They are guilty of what's called vendor lock-in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, lock-in, or the Pottersville pattern, is a situation in which a customer is so dependent on a vendor for products and services that he or she cannot move to another vendor without substantial switching costs, real and/or perceived.
These costs to the customer create a situation which favors the vendor at the expense of the consumer. Monopolies tend to result when lock-in costs create market barriers to entry, which may result in antitrust actions from the relevant authorities (the FTC in the US). - Rice, on 10/12/2007, -21/+57Ehh, I hate DRM as much as the next digger... but doesn't Apple have the right?
- duke, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34"doesn't Apple have the right? "
Well, maybe not in France or Norway. As an American, I tend to default to thinking of my rights as universal, but they're not. Any country has the sovereign authority to regulate commerce in the public interest. Even in America, you can't sell heroin, and there are antitrust and consumer rights laws designed to protect consumers. Do you have the "right" to sell a car with a rolled-back odometer? Not where I live. Perhaps France and Norway are acting in the best interests of their citizens. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+36If you want to get rid of the DRM just use this program:
http://www.hymn-project.org/
Takes maybe 5 seconds a song, really fast and easy to use, no more drm! - SupaDawg, on 10/12/2007, -11/+32Jaymoon, exactly what i was thinking. The arrogance of Apple and Apple users never ceases to amaze me. They're all for it when it's somebody else head on the block, but the second apple is under attack it's wrong. Talk about a doube standard.
That said, it would be a good business move on the part of apple to open up the ITMS. They already have an installed ipod base and this would allow them to take advantage of the rest of the market.
If Apple opened up itunes i'd be first in line to use it to buy video for my psp. - fireflydigi, on 10/12/2007, -12/+33If you have a problem with it, simply don't use iTunes.
- Akyan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Devils Advocate Mode Enabled: But surely that is the same situation as internet explorer with windows, you could choose to download firefox.
- Jaymoon, on 10/12/2007, -17/+34Brings to mind the reason why Microsoft was in "so much trouble" for making the MSN music store the default store to buy music from with a fresh install of XP...
Yet the itunes music store is right there set as the default store to buy music from on a Mac... hmmmm.... - duke, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18@VeganG: "People too often call things monopolies when they aren't. You can only buy a Big Mac at McDonald's. Does that mean McDonald's has a monopoly on Big Macs?"
May not be a monopoly, but in the US, there is such a thing as an illegal tying arrangement, and it's a violation of the antitrust laws, even if there is no monopoly. The classic old example was a case involving a company that sold water softeners. They use salt. But the manufacturer would void your warranty if you used any brand of salt other than the one they sold. The court said that salt is salt, and that locking a purchaser of your product to your brand of salt through a warranty, just so that you can inflate the price of your salt, is illegal. But the point isn't whether Apple's actions constitute a present violation of American antitrust laws - the point is that France and Norway have the sovereign authority to regulate commerce within their own borders for the protection of their citizens. Maybe requiring your brand of music encoding to be played in your brand of player, without any legitimate justification other than your own profit, is like requiring buyers of your water purifier to use your brand of salt. Maybe they see Apple's tying arrangement as a form of profiteering that they regard as unethical, and believe should be illegal. They're the government - they can do that. - wolfzombie, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18I guess I'm missing the problem. iPods play mp3's. You can buy mp3s from multiple other sources other than iTunes. If iTunes wants to sell music that will only play on the iPod, that isn't vendor lock in. You can get your music elsewhere, and still put it on the iPod. Now if Apple decided to make iPods only play songs downloaded from iTunes, that is a different story, although they would be shooting themselves in the foot for doing so as iPod sales and iTunes sales would drop drastically once people couldn't rip their own CDs and put them on the iPod.
As for the Microsoft analogies, they really aren't the same situation. You don't have a choice whether or not to have IE installed on a new XP install. - gorkon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I love iTunes because of the integration, but would MUCH rather have the ability to buy ANY MP3 Player and have it work with iTunes myself. As Apple get's bigger, they are going to have to address this issue.
- stringycheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9But doesn't that eliminate any convenience of using the iTunes store?
- iceperson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11"They plan to sue Apple over this? Good luck."
governments don't sue, they charge. - IHaveIssues, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I think part of the problem is that iTunes is arguably the biggest digital music store on the 'net.
- skymt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10No, j0c1f3r, they can't. That's what DRM is. It's not normal AAC, it's encrypted AAC.
- ZergyPoo, on 10/12/2007, -9/+17"Sure they do...and the consumer has the ability to choose whether or not to buy an iPod and songs from the iTunes music store."
That's kind of weak...
The same argument can be applied to Microsoft, people can choose whether or not to browse the internet using IE, they can always download something else.
Personnally, I don't see why Apple cares so much. You'd think that they'd get even more business than they already do if they made the music from their store compatible with all players. Right now they're forcing people without iPods to go someone else, when most of those people would probably still buy from iTunes. - sigma419, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"A little niche"? They've sold almost sixty million iPods!
- iceperson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9"If you have a problem with it, simply don't use iTunes."
this is exactly what I said when MS bundled IE with windows! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15No, not really at all. Games for various consoles can't play onto other consoles becausee they physically cannot - different consoles use different hardware and are not compatiable.
Mp3s, however, can play on anything, and apple is creating a monopoly with its drm. - phlame, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9The thing with iPod+iTunes is that its an integrated experience. Apple doesn't want to sully that experience when Joe six-pack plugs in his $29 MP3 player from wallmart and expects it to work flawlessly with iTunes. Would the manufacturer catch flak for integrating the crappy MP3 player very badly with iTunes? No. Apple would.
Without iTunes, the iPod is just another player. - zelig, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12They plan to sue Apple over this? Good luck.
- LycoLoco, on 10/12/2007, -7/+13"People too often call things monopolies when they aren't.
You can only buy a Big Mac at McDonald's. Does that mean McDonald's has a monopoly on Big Macs?"
But, see, I can take that Big Mac and go eat it anywhere I damn well please. I don't have a problem with Apple having iTunes branded songs, that's cool. The problem I have is that I can't do what I want with it on any player I want. - boozedrinker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Monopoly my ASS! They are hundreds of online music stores, and hundreds of MP3 players.......people need to quite whining about this. Ohhh god, please don't let Apple make the BEST player and store out there, god we wouldn't want that! ;-) You idiots don't have to buy either. APPLE HAS EVERY RIGHT! PERIOD. It's not a monololy people, there are thousands of options.
- yossarian24, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8This is a pretty huge pain for xbox 360 users that have their 360 on their network. I can display all my photos on my hd tv via the 360 but only 1/4 of my music. I know apple has a good argument but its frustrating that I paid money and got these songs legit and I am limited in how I choose to listen to them. Apple is ironically showing that getting music in bootleg ways is better than "paying the artists"...or however much apple gives them, I hear like $.10
- Ronnie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6FREE THE MUSIC!
SUPPORT CREATIVE COMMONS. - Arramol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Unfortunately, the bigger they get, the less attention they have to pay to what we want.
- stringycheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Because I want to put my purchased music on my iPod and my wife's iRiver.
- bleonard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@ZergyPoo WHAT?!
To play music on your iPod you don't have to buy it from the iTunes music store at all!
To get a game for your XBOX it can be written by any software developer but it MUST be licensed by MS.
Before XBOX there were 2 major consoles.
Before PSone there was ONE major console.
To get a song for your iPOD is can by performed by any artist and brought from ANY music source (iTunes store, CD, illegal download, OTHER music store). The iTunes store is just another outlet for consumers to choose from. The iPod supports MOST standard music formats plus Apple's proprietary format of AAC+ with DRM aka M4P. - dcmjzero, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12no. apple shouldn't have the right to make song that are purchased play only on its players. the only reason it isn't legal to use another player is because of the anti-circumcision clause of the dmca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act). otherwise anyone could take their itunes and play them on anything.
- bieber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6DRM should be illegal. Period. The average consumer DOES NOT understand the issues at hand, all they know is that they can buy music and transfer it to their iPod. They don't realize that if they change operating systems or digital music players, or if they want their music in a different format later on, they're gonna get shafted, and it should not be allowed for companies to foist these kinds of restrictions on them.
Besides, it's not like there's any way to legally purchase music online _without_ DRM, so the user truly has no choice. If you want your music online, and you don't want to break the law, you have to accept DRM... - stringycheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Ever heard of www.emusic.com? It's exactly what you just described. You pay 9.99 for 40 downloads which works out to .25/song. The music is non-RIAA and non-DRM and the bit rate is a lot better than iTunes files.
- kimos, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@iceperson
IE is integrated into the OS and cannot be removed without trashing serious parts of Windows. iTunes can just be removed if you don't want it... - Hubris, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Here we go again....all the Mac fanboys who currently love their Ipods have no problem with restrictions...as long as they don't impact them. If at any point in the future, a product other than the Ipod becomes the popular choice, and it is ILLEGAL for you to bypass the copy protection that limits the music to only playing on Ipods, then perhaps people will see why this should be a big issue.
Converting to mp3 and then back into another player's format further lowers the already-low quality....and might technically be seen as violating copy protection under the DMCA. - Akyan, on 10/12/2007, -42/+47I would say no, they are basicly creating a monoply. If Microsoft were doing this instead of apple what would you say then.
- dsendecki, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11So Apple would succeed at creating a monopoly in Europe where Microsoft failed? Apple must have deeper pockets then. ;)
Apple will get pwned by Europe; its just a matter of time! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I've actually eaten food from other fast food places in fast food places other than the one I purchased it in... But that's besides the point.
The point is, that when I purchase something, I have the rights to use it for my own personal use any way I see fit. As long as I'm not re-selling it or broadcasting it to make money, there's nothing anyone can do about it. If I want to rip the songs I bought from iTunes to a different format for my own personal use, there's not a court on this plannet that will prosecute me for doing so. It's my music. - nmap, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I don't understand why anyone would buy DRM crippled music in the first place.
I can buy unDRMed music anywhere and rip it myself (cds). - fahrenheitlf, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7The Microsoft Zune media player will be using the same business model as Apple.
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6450_7-6553513-1.html
"The newer ecosystem will be incompatible with 'other Windows Media services,' placing the focus squarely on one device, and one jukebox and store...'Xbox and PC connectivity,' part of a larger plan to engage an energized gaming audience."
Portable media players are going the way of the game console. Focus is to lock the user into their store front to reap profits of media sales instead of hardware sales. The MS Zune, according to current reports, will not utilize PlaysForSure... it will use a new proprietary DRM model. - bolero421, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"no, more like "buy a bmw, you have to buy BMW gas", "buy a Ford, you have to buy Ford branded gas" - and if you don't and you do use the other brand, your warranty is null and void. makes more sense with the same commodity with different "hardware"."
You've got your analogy backwards. The iPod is the car and the music is the gas. You can buy the car (the iPod) and put any sort of gas you want in it (mp3, acc, etc). But if you buy Apple's brand of gas (acc music), it has to go into their car (the ipod). - stringycheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4His point is with the CD, you get more. You get a physical backup, a jewel case, liner notes, higher sound quality, and no DRM. When buying online, and you sacrifice all of these features, the music should be significantly cheaper, instead of more expensive.
- skellener, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You can buy music just about anywhere. Don't like iTunes or iPods? Don't buy 'em. Why is this so hard to grasp for so many people?
I don't see anyone complaining about Yahoo Music. Right from their site:
The use of Yahoo! Music Unlimited requires installation of the Yahoo! Music Jukebox which is only available for the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows XP or 2000. Internet Explorer 6.0+ and Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher are also required.
How come no one is demanding that Yahoo! open their format? There's no difference.
Personally I don't use Yahoo! Music Jukebox, XP, IE, or WMP. I don't like those products. So guess what? I don't buy anything from them. - aNoble, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8iTunes DRM really does suck but it's easy to get around by burning songs to a rewritable CD and then ripping them back off.
You'd think if iTunes let's you burn your songs to a CD you can play in any CD player they'd let you burn them to a format you could play in any MP3 player. But then again, Apple doesn't make CD players. - C0D3R, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6No one buys $.99 music from iTunes. They purchase a right to use a bucket of bits in a certain way. Apple can change in any way at any time what users can or cannot do with the bits and the bucket.
Please keep shining the light on your ignorance and foolishness by posting how wonderful this is. Tell us more about how enlightened US consumers and lawmakers are to bless us with Apple and iTunes.
Hey! Maybe the US could force us all at gunpoint to subscribe to iTunes. You know, force some musical democracy on us. Vote for iTunes. Fight the music over there before it gets over here. - SupaDawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Technically you could use On-Star in a Honda. It would just be a matter of getting the parts from a donor car and installing them... It wouldn't be hard at all. I don't know how much use you'd get from it mind you as you'd most likely be in breach of your service agreement but it would look cool. lol.
- apocalizer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@stringycheese:
Not to mention the audio quality. - hayden.evans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ hammydude
only works with iTunes version 4.6
......iTunes is currently at version 6 now. A little out of date. - justncase80, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The big difference is that you have to enable a console to play games from various platforms whereas you have to disable an mp3 player from playing mp3's being copied from other players. There is an active blocking going on rather than a lack of enabling.
- thinkdifferent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jasqwerty
"It wasn't risk taking, it was just that idiots like you get sue happy if someone like Microsoft would try this. I mean, come on, they got sued because they have a ***** web browser and video player in the OS"
The difference is that MS was already a monopoly when they added the browser and video player to the OS, thus leveraging the monopoly position to gain other ground. In this case, Apple started from nothing & built a combination which became the most popular. Their business plan is exactly the same as when they were the lowest market share vendor. Thus the combo was in place before they became the market leader.... thus it's not a monopolistic tying. -
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