Federal lawsuit over iTunes/iPod monopoly

[Quasmo]

Actually this a pretty clear antitrust case. As a company you are not allowed to operate more than one aspect of a product, ie. production, distribution, and exihibition. Apple clearly is keeping others out of both distribution (iTunes), and exhibition (iPod).

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: Quasmo
Actually this a pretty clear antitrust case. As a company you are not allowed to operate more than one aspect of a product, ie. production, distribution, and exihibition. Apple clearly is keeping others out of both distribution (iTunes), and exhibition (iPod).

No they're not, because you don't have to buy anything from iTunes in order to use your iPod.

Besides what about say Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft when they publish a game for one of their systems (like Gran Turismo or Halo for instance where they own the developer, publish/distribute the game themselves, and also sell the system it has to be played on)?

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: her209

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
I'm not quite sure if I think its wrong for iTunes and iPod being so tightly knit, but thats a big part of the reason that Apple has been successful in this market (and no not because they're forcing anybody to use the two, but because people want to use the two), but the fact is this lawsuit is just plain stupid on its accusation and any halfway decent lawyer should be able to tear it to shreds before it even goes to court.

Couldn't the same be said about Windows/Office or Windows/IE or Windows/WMP?

Yes, which is why people still use those more than their alternatives today for the most part (and Microsoft gets to bundle them). The thing that got Microsoft in trouble on their monopoly case is that they were offering discounts to companies like Dell and other large OEMs if they would put an IE icon on the desktop and either not install Netscape or else make it so it was more difficult to access. This was determined to be anti-competitive practice and is what netted Microsoft its punishment (and not the fact that they bundled those programs together).

And that comes back to the original question. Is Apple intentionally making it hard/difficult for alternative music players to play iTunes purchased music AND is Apple intentionally making it difficult to play music purchased at a rival online store to be played on an iPod? And for the record, I own an iPod and hate the fact that I have to install iTunes (which comes bundled with Quicktime which I cannot uninstall without "breaking" iTunes) in order to upload my songs to the unit.

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: Quasmo
Actually this a pretty clear antitrust case. As a company you are not allowed to operate more than one aspect of a product, ie. production, distribution, and exihibition. Apple clearly is keeping others out of both distribution (iTunes), and exhibition (iPod).

No they're not, because you don't have to buy anything from iTunes in order to use your iPod.

Besides what about say Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft when they publish a game for one of their systems (like Gran Turismo or Halo for instance where they own the developer, publish/distribute the game themselves, and also sell the system it has to be played on)?

They just divide up the companies. Like Coke has Coca-cola bottling company, and Coca-cola distribution Co.

It's just like the movie industry. They used to own the production, distribution, and exhibition, but now they are broken up.

Edit: Also, Apple does not allow you to play anything besides iTunes files, and MP3s, but how many legal forms of distribution of MP3's without DRM are there? I can think 1.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: Quasmo

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17

Originally posted by: Quasmo
Actually this a pretty clear antitrust case. As a company you are not allowed to operate more than one aspect of a product, ie. production, distribution, and exihibition. Apple clearly is keeping others out of both distribution (iTunes), and exhibition (iPod).

No they're not, because you don't have to buy anything from iTunes in order to use your iPod.

Besides what about say Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft when they publish a game for one of their systems (like Gran Turismo or Halo for instance where they own the developer, publish/distribute the game themselves, and also sell the system it has to be played on)?

They just divide up the companies. Like Coke has Coca-cola bottling company, and Coca-cola distribution Co.

It's just like the movie industry. They used to own the production, distribution, and exhibition, but now they are broken up.

Edit: Also, Apple does not allow you to play anything besides iTunes files, and MP3s, but how many legal forms of distribution of MP3's without DRM are there? I can think 1.

You can rip your own CDs to use in iTunes. I'm pretty sure Apple does not control the distribution of CDs.

 

[ElFenix]

what the fvck? coke wasn't broken up! coke spun off its distribution arm to make its books look good because distribution is extremely capital intensive.



as for itunes, i've owned an ipod for several years now and haven't bought a damn thing from itunes. i still buy my music on CD, and itunes will rip it for me if i want.

 

[episodic]

So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

 

[episodic]

Also - why don't we sue Apple Computers - they don't allow Windows Software. I'm mad that I can't run aperture on my PC - lets sue Microsoft. . .

O NOOOO my flathead screwdriver won't turn phillips screws I'm sueing!!!!!

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: Shawn
:thumbsup:

haha watch the apple fanbois go nuts about it, even though they know jack sh!t about how antitrust cases work.

Couple of points, backing off of my antitrust economics class:

1) Tying is per se illegal, if a company if found to leverge their market power to tie in other products, they are going down. Exclusive contracts are not per-se illegal, but thats irrelevant in this case

2) Apple has monopoly market share in the mp3 player market. They raw market share is some 80%, so in order to get the case dismissed, they would have to come up with some very wild market definition. The HHI index on mp3 players will be off charts.

3) Apple is not licensing their drm technology, which de facto ties their online music store into the mp3 player business. That will be very hard to disprove, especially since they went out of their way to stop companies from playing their DRMd contented on the ipods (real media)

From all the above, I'd have to say that DOJ has a pretty solid case...

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: marvdmartian
Gee, there's no Apple fanbois in here, are there??

I look at it like this. If you're smart/foolish (pick your choice) enough to buy an iPod, you deserve to be saddled with iTunes, and any other restrictions that owning an iPod entail. If you weren't smart enough to do your homework before buying/asking for one, then you double deserve it!

However, if you want to be able to make up your own playlists, from your own (legally owned) music that you've ripped from your own cd's, without dealing with DRM or any of the other "Big Brother" bullsh*t, then go find something else to play your music.

I personally bought a Sandisk Sansa 6gb player (got in on the uber-fantastic deal from Amazon, just before Christmas, and got one for $100! ), and think I made the best choice. I refuse to buy music I already own, and definitely refuse to buy it a second or third time, if something happens to my music player and I have to replace it!

Oh, and the plaintiff does have a valid point, in that Apple does (pretty much) force you to use their program to download (purchase) music for their player. Funny, how people didn't have a problem with Microsoft getting sued by the feds for monopolization, when we were "forced" to have to put up with IE when putting Windows on our computers.......yet now think it's wrong that someone does the same to Apple?? Fanbois, for sure!!

this is complete BS. i have an ipod mini and i have plenty of legal music on there. not a single song from itunes. there are plenty of alternatives. and if i want to buy songs from sites only offering them in wma format with DRM (not subscription) then i admit that i illegally use fairuse to strip the DRM so that i can play it on my ipod. and what does the price of the player matter? if people didn't like the price of the ipod, why is it still the market leader? why did it have such a good holiday revenue?

 

[bobdelt]

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

because thpse songs can be played on most players.

Right now, ipod\itunes is one market place. If you use itunes, you need an ipod. There is no way to download a video\song from itunes and play it on another device, legally.

There should be two market places. The store should be seperated from the player. You should be able to downloand from whatever site you want, and to put it on any device you want.


Didnt the french have some issues with this very same thing?

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

Lawyer's haven't caught up with Microsoft's similar scheme.

The thing about the iTunes music store (lawsuit is about copy protection schemes) is that anything purchased from the store is locked into your iPod and iTunes. Sure, you can rip to CDs and re-encode, but there is the loss of quality there (lossy to lossy conversion). Also, the same goes for going from WMA to whatever works on your iPod. The lawsuit is probably more focused on opening up purchased music for all D.A.P.s instead of just locking iTunes music to iPods (and of course, getting some money in the process).

Originally posted by: episodic
I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

Right.... :roll:

 

[Inspector Jihad]

Originally posted by: episodic
Also - why don't we sue Apple Computers - they don't allow Windows Software. I'm mad that I can't run aperture on my PC - lets sue Microsoft. . .

O NOOOO my flathead screwdriver won't turn phillips screws I'm sueing!!!!!

rofl :thumbsup:

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: episodic
Also - why don't we sue Apple Computers - they don't allow Windows Software. I'm mad that I can't run aperture on my PC - lets sue Microsoft. . .

O NOOOO my flathead screwdriver won't turn phillips screws I'm sueing!!!!!

Ya know this only shows your ignorance of the antitrust mechanics...

 

[arod]

Originally posted by: bobdelt

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

because thpse songs can be played on most players.

Right now, ipod\itunes is one market place. If you use itunes, you need an ipod. There is no way to download a video\song from itunes and play it on another device, legally.

There should be two market places. The store should be seperated from the player. You should be able to downloand from whatever site you want, and to put it on any device you want.


Didnt the french have some issues with this very same thing?

I agree... eventually the zune would get sued if enough players are sold but its nowhere even close yet. And I also agree that the apple stores content should be made avaliable easily to non ipod devices just as all of the plays for sure stuff should be made avaliable to ipods.... Im sure tons of ipod users would want to do the 15 monthly charge alot of the plays for sure stores offer.

Part of the reason why I dont buy songs off any of these stores is the drm that only works on a subset of players out there. There is no way in hell Im going to be locked into plays for sure or itunes and not be able to put those songs on any player i might buy (and im not going through the whole process to convert all of my songs to the flavor of the month as I have 20+ gigs of music). Thats exactly why I rip my cd's and use allofmp3/russian sites to buy music because they give you mp3 which I can be assured will work in any program and be playable by pretty much every player out there. Thats how drm should work.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

Lawyer's haven't caught up with Microsoft's similar scheme.

The thing about the iTunes music store (lawsuit is about copy protection schemes) is that anything purchased from the store is locked into your iPod and iTunes. Sure, you can rip to CDs and re-encode, but there is the loss of quality there (lossy to lossy conversion). Also, the same goes for going from WMA to whatever works on your iPod. The lawsuit is probably more focused on opening up purchased music for all D.A.P.s instead of just locking iTunes music to iPods (and of course, getting some money in the process).

Originally posted by: episodic
I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

Right.... :roll:

You're right. Maybe I should sue Sony because I can't play XBox 360 games on a Playstation3. Or maybe I should sue them because I can't play HD-DVD's on the PS3. They are obviously trying to make it hard for people that own 360 games and HD-DVDs. :roll:

 

[HardcoreRobot]

so fvcking stupid

i hate anyone that agrees with this

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

Lawyer's haven't caught up with Microsoft's similar scheme.

The thing about the iTunes music store (lawsuit is about copy protection schemes) is that anything purchased from the store is locked into your iPod and iTunes. Sure, you can rip to CDs and re-encode, but there is the loss of quality there (lossy to lossy conversion). Also, the same goes for going from WMA to whatever works on your iPod. The lawsuit is probably more focused on opening up purchased music for all D.A.P.s instead of just locking iTunes music to iPods (and of course, getting some money in the process).

Originally posted by: episodic
I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

Right.... :roll:

You're right. Maybe I should sue Sony because I can't play XBox 360 games on a Playstation3. Or maybe I should sue them because I can't play HD-DVD's on the PS3. They are obviously trying to make it hard for people that own 360 games and HD-DVDs. :roll:

You really have no clue how this stuff works, do you?

If Sony was the only manufacturer of game consoles and they used a standard dvd player that would only play sony-branded DVD media, then you'd have a case. Other than that, your analogy makes absolutely no sense...

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
so fvcking stupid

i hate anyone that agrees with this

ignorance is bliss...

 

[episodic]

Originally posted by: halik

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

Lawyer's haven't caught up with Microsoft's similar scheme.

The thing about the iTunes music store (lawsuit is about copy protection schemes) is that anything purchased from the store is locked into your iPod and iTunes. Sure, you can rip to CDs and re-encode, but there is the loss of quality there (lossy to lossy conversion). Also, the same goes for going from WMA to whatever works on your iPod. The lawsuit is probably more focused on opening up purchased music for all D.A.P.s instead of just locking iTunes music to iPods (and of course, getting some money in the process).

Originally posted by: episodic
I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

Right.... :roll:

You're right. Maybe I should sue Sony because I can't play XBox 360 games on a Playstation3. Or maybe I should sue them because I can't play HD-DVD's on the PS3. They are obviously trying to make it hard for people that own 360 games and HD-DVDs. :roll:

You really have no clue how this stuff works, do you?

If Sony was the only manufacturer of game consoles and they used a standard dvd player that would only play sony-branded DVD media, then you'd have a case. Other than that, your analogy makes absolutely no sense...

If apple were the only music player your argument would make sense.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: halik

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

Lawyer's haven't caught up with Microsoft's similar scheme.

The thing about the iTunes music store (lawsuit is about copy protection schemes) is that anything purchased from the store is locked into your iPod and iTunes. Sure, you can rip to CDs and re-encode, but there is the loss of quality there (lossy to lossy conversion). Also, the same goes for going from WMA to whatever works on your iPod. The lawsuit is probably more focused on opening up purchased music for all D.A.P.s instead of just locking iTunes music to iPods (and of course, getting some money in the process).

Originally posted by: episodic
I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

Right.... :roll:

You're right. Maybe I should sue Sony because I can't play XBox 360 games on a Playstation3. Or maybe I should sue them because I can't play HD-DVD's on the PS3. They are obviously trying to make it hard for people that own 360 games and HD-DVDs. :roll:

You really have no clue how this stuff works, do you?

If Sony was the only manufacturer of game consoles and they used a standard dvd player that would only play sony-branded DVD media, then you'd have a case. Other than that, your analogy makes absolutely no sense...

You are the clueless one. Apple created their own codec and their own player. Just like Sony and MS did with their consoles. They created their own consoles, and they set up the software to ONLY work with their system. MS even set up a network that only allows XBox's on it. How is that different that what Apple is doing? Apple's player isn't even that proprietary. You can play your own MP3s on it all you want. So what's the problem?

You don't like Apple's products? Go buy something else. There are PLENTY of other MP3 players on the market.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: episodic

Originally posted by: halik

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

Lawyer's haven't caught up with Microsoft's similar scheme.

The thing about the iTunes music store (lawsuit is about copy protection schemes) is that anything purchased from the store is locked into your iPod and iTunes. Sure, you can rip to CDs and re-encode, but there is the loss of quality there (lossy to lossy conversion). Also, the same goes for going from WMA to whatever works on your iPod. The lawsuit is probably more focused on opening up purchased music for all D.A.P.s instead of just locking iTunes music to iPods (and of course, getting some money in the process).

Originally posted by: episodic
I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

Right.... :roll:

You're right. Maybe I should sue Sony because I can't play XBox 360 games on a Playstation3. Or maybe I should sue them because I can't play HD-DVD's on the PS3. They are obviously trying to make it hard for people that own 360 games and HD-DVDs. :roll:

You really have no clue how this stuff works, do you?

If Sony was the only manufacturer of game consoles and they used a standard dvd player that would only play sony-branded DVD media, then you'd have a case. Other than that, your analogy makes absolutely no sense...

If apple were the only music player your argument would make sense.

Like I said before, apple has significant market power in the mp3 player market, so DoJ will see that as product tying.

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: shocksyde
While I agree with the lawsuit, isn't Microsoft doing the same thing?

You have to be a monopoly to be sued for being a monopoly...Microsoft just released Zune a month ago and have a market share of less than 10% since then. I hardly believe that qualifies as a monopoly.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: halik

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: episodic
So why isn't Microsoft and their music services not subject to the same thing.

Lawyer's haven't caught up with Microsoft's similar scheme.

The thing about the iTunes music store (lawsuit is about copy protection schemes) is that anything purchased from the store is locked into your iPod and iTunes. Sure, you can rip to CDs and re-encode, but there is the loss of quality there (lossy to lossy conversion). Also, the same goes for going from WMA to whatever works on your iPod. The lawsuit is probably more focused on opening up purchased music for all D.A.P.s instead of just locking iTunes music to iPods (and of course, getting some money in the process).

Originally posted by: episodic
I hate this aspect of our law - you work hard - you create a product people want - you don't give it away - you are sued out of existence.

Right.... :roll:

You're right. Maybe I should sue Sony because I can't play XBox 360 games on a Playstation3. Or maybe I should sue them because I can't play HD-DVD's on the PS3. They are obviously trying to make it hard for people that own 360 games and HD-DVDs. :roll:

You really have no clue how this stuff works, do you?

If Sony was the only manufacturer of game consoles and they used a standard dvd player that would only play sony-branded DVD media, then you'd have a case. Other than that, your analogy makes absolutely no sense...

You are the clueless one. Apple created their own codec and their own player. Just like Sony and MS did with their consoles. They created their own consoles, and they set up the software to ONLY work with their system. MS even set up a network that only allows XBox's on it. How is that different that what Apple is doing? Apple's player isn't even that proprietary. You can play your own MP3s on it all you want. So what's the problem?

You don't like Apple's products? Go buy something else. There are PLENTY of other MP3 players on the market.

Well for one, I doubt that either sony or xbox have majority market share in the video game market, so it will never concern DoJ. However, apple had 80-90% market share on mp3 players and they are actively trying to stop other companies from being able to play drm music on their mp3 player, which is the definition of anticompetitive behavior.

IMO they screwed themselves pretty bad with the Real Media debacle - the fact that they took proactive measure to keep real from playing on ipods kills a lot of their defense. Now they can't play it off as "We only wanted an enhanced product functionality for the consumers and licensing FairPlay wasn't possible as we'd have to reveal our trade secrets" . Real figured out how to make FairPlay work without licensing and theres no argument why apple's action to stop them was at all better for the consumer.

 

[0roo0roo]

eh, i'm waiting for them to sue other drm'd stuff first.. you know.. hddvd bluray