Read my lips: iTS/iPod is NOT a monopoly.

Is the same lawsuit in place against Sony for ATRAC? Thought not.

People are just complaining because the other music download sites don't offer what the iTS offers.

Quote

Intruder wrote:
Read my lips: iTS/iPod is NOT a monopoly.

Is the same lawsuit in place against Sony for ATRAC? Thought not.

People are just complaining because the other music download sites don't offer what the iTS offers.

I'm not an attorney, but this seems very different from the Microsoft case.

1. The MS case involved MS's illegal actions deliberately attempting to damage (or kill) other companies (e.g., Netscape), not through direct competition on price or value, but through behind-the-scenes threats, agreements, etc. MS deliberately wrote its OS to make it difficult to use other browsers than Internet Express, for example. (Apple, OTOH, makes the Webkit--the basis for Safari--available to developers. Other browsers and software use it.) If I recall correctly, MS also forced PC manufacturers to either not ship any PCs without Windows installed or to pay the licensing fee for all their PCs, even if they shipped with Unix, Linux, etc. (My memory is hazy on just which.)

2. MS's case involved other companies (the PC manufacturers) as part of the scheme. That's what made it an antitrust action. As I understand it, antitrust laws are aimed at companys that collude (e.g., price-fixing). The difference here was that, as I recall, MS was shown to have forced the other companies to participate in the scheme.

3. Dominance of a market, by itself, would not seem to be a case for an illegal monopoly. For example, a company with a patent might have 100% of the market for its product. iTS has a large share of the market, to be sure, but nowhere near the dominance of Windows (<80% vs 95%--that may seem close, but look at it the other way around: competitors have 20% vs 5%--4 times as much).

4. There are other download sites with songs that will play on Creative, Rio, SanDisk, etc. players, but NOT on iPods.

a. So, the users of other players DO have sources for songs. They can also buy and rip CDs.

b. As Intruder said, the other sites are doing somewhat the same thing, thought their songs are compatible with players from several manufacturers.

c. Of course, MS is doing exactly the same thing with the Zune.

5. I would think that one might make the case the iTS songs are "software" for the iPod and that it's no more illegal for Apple to sell software that works only on the iPod than it is for Apple to sell iWork and iLife that work only on Macs. Apple also ensures that OS X can't be loaded on any computer other than a Mac.

If the case could be made for software, then MS should be sued over Project, which is only available for Windows, and is horrendously ovepriced (gouging businesses, quite frankly). It is $453.99 US at PCMall. Even FastTrack Scheduler, which is also expensive, is $100 less (and cross platform), but MS has a lock on the business.

I've double-posted, sorry, but....

TMO editors. Do you have a licensing arrangement with SmartHouse News that allows them to copy your articles and add their own byline to it?

http://www.smarthousenews.com.au/Business_News?Article=/Business%20News/F7H5L4D6

Where I come from, we call this plagiarism - in the absence, of course, of any agreements between publishers, although a lack of attribution even in the case of an agreement is poor form.

The other possibility is that both of you copied the story, verbatim, from another source. Please say it isn't so.

According to Apple's web site: when you purchase a song from the iTunes Store, you are allowed to, "Burn the music you buy to an unlimited number of CDs for your personal use, listen to it on an unlimited number of iPods, and play it on up to 5 authorized computers. You can also share purchased music with authorized computers on a local network by clicking “Share my music” in the Sharing panel of iTunes Preferences."

So you buy your songs from the iTunes Store and burn them to CDs for backup; then take those CDs, convert the songs to mp3s on another computer (PC or Mac), and then put them on any mp3 player on the market - all within the iTunes/iPod system. It takes a few steps, but it certainly pours water on the "monopoly" claim.

Only the Zune sounds like a proprietary system - but then again, Microsoft has already been declared a monopoly by the Feds.