arstechnica.com— Is iTunes LP another proprietary format or something different? We peer inside the beast that is Apple's latest foray into the hocking of digital music.
Sep 30, 2009View in Crawl 4
Apple didn't budge on DRM until well after EMI announced they'd distribute DRM-free music, and Amazon had been selling MP3s. Jobs' "open letter" was released shortly before iTunes started selling DRM-free music - meaning the contracts had already been negotiated, and the deals were sealed. He wasn't pushing the industry anywhere it hadn't already been going.Apple had everything to gain with their DRM, because the iTunes store was popular and it locked users to Apple products. If interoperability was really their goal, they could have licened FairPlay (or at least not intentionally broken RealPlayer's iPod functionality).I applaud Apple's removal of DRM, but it really appears to be something forced upon them, despite Jobs' sales pitch. He's a salesman, he'll say anything.
msp1Oct 1, 2009
"hocking"???
badtzOct 1, 2009
Apple supports/creates more open standards than Microsoft. FACT
coltoOct 1, 2009
He spelled it incorrectly. The correct spelling is 'hawking' which is basically vending.<a class="user" href="http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&amp;pws=0&amp;q=define%3A+hawking" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&amp;pws=0&amp; ...</a>
bdbrOct 1, 2009
Apple didn't budge on DRM until well after EMI announced they'd distribute DRM-free music, and Amazon had been selling MP3s. Jobs' "open letter" was released shortly before iTunes started selling DRM-free music - meaning the contracts had already been negotiated, and the deals were sealed. He wasn't pushing the industry anywhere it hadn't already been going.Apple had everything to gain with their DRM, because the iTunes store was popular and it locked users to Apple products. If interoperability was really their goal, they could have licened FairPlay (or at least not intentionally broken RealPlayer's iPod functionality).I applaud Apple's removal of DRM, but it really appears to be something forced upon them, despite Jobs' sales pitch. He's a salesman, he'll say anything.