Antitrust Suit Filed To Halt Apple 'Music Monopoly' 510
Dotnaught writes with word of an anti-trust lawsuit filed against Apple late last month. Information Week has the story, a suit charging the company with maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market. "The complaint goes beyond software licensing politics and charges Apple with deliberately designing its iPod hardware to be incompatible with WMA. One of the third-party components in iPods, the Portal Player System-On-A-Chip, supports WMA, according to the complaint. 'Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format,' the complaint states. 'Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as crippling a product, and software that does this is known as crippleware.'"
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Worse than that, "support" for WMA in a portable player chipset doesn't generally mean the hardware can decode it by itself. It means that the hardware has enough memory and enough DSP horsepower to decode it when combined with an appropriate software codec. This is a case of licensing or not licensing the WMA codec, not just the crypto. It would almost certainly have cost Apple money on every iPod to support even the unencrypted WMA. This isn't something you get for free just by using a particular piece of hardware....
I would also hardly call WMA support "highly desirable". Among Microsoft employees who have portable music players, the iPod market share is reportedly 80%. If it were so desirable, don't you think at least Microsoft employees would favor Zunes because they support WMA? I think we can safely establish that at least as far as consumers are concerned, WMA support is not desirable. As far as consumers are concerned, a WMA file, an MP3 file, and an AAC file are all the same thing as an AIFF file. Most consumers just don't care. Expecting a hardware vendor to pay extra money on every unit for a feature that few users care about is silly, and I can't imagine how much crack their lawyers must have been smoking when they took on such a frivolous case.
If they were doing something useful like suing for the right to sell FairPlay songs, that would at least make sense, but suing because Apple didn't pay to license the WMA codec is about the most asinine lawsuit I've ever heard of. This makes the SCO lawsuits seem positively sensible by comparison....
Don't like apple, suit still retarded (Score:4, Informative)
even though the ipod is a retarded crippled heap of junk and itunes DRM is evil, there's nothing forcing you to buy it, there's plenty of other choices out there.
add to this the fact they are expecting apple to pay a license fee to put WMA on the ipod, and you get the picture of the suit bringers idiocy.
I think this stems from one of these morons who files nucance suits thinking itunes is some kind of defato standard.
Re:Standard or proprietary (Score:3, Informative)
Supporting AAC is easy. However, the specific DRM system Apple uses is not licensed to others; rumors abound about why this is, with probably the most sensible explanation being that Apple -- which is theoretically on the hook to the record labels if/when somebody cracks the DRM scheme -- doesn't trust anyone else to implement it.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
It also has a USB interface. But the first two generations of iPod don't.
The PP5002c can decode video. But no iPods until the fifth generation did so.
The PP5002c also had lots of other logic in it that wasn't used by Apple. I can't possibly see how this is supposed to be an argument that Apple was supposed to support WMA.
Another harassment suit. I hope it gets kicked out of court quickly.
Re:Plays MP3's just fine (Score:4, Informative)
Re:licence fees (Score:4, Informative)
The article.
That's uh, what it's about:
"Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod's software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple's FairPlay-modified AAC format," the complaint states. "Deliberately disabling a desirable feature of a computer product is known as 'crippling' a product, and software that does this is known as 'crippleware.' "
Some side notes:
1. This was known: http://dotnet.org.za/matt/archive/2004/02/20/460.aspx [dotnet.org.za]
2. The wma format itself is a non issue if you use the included iTunes software that ships with every ipod: http://www.apple.com/itunes/jukebox/importing.html [apple.com]
Quote "iTunes also converts unprotected WMA files to AAC."
3. If you have the rights to play it on your PC then you can convert wma files to your ipod without quality loss since it uses lossless conversion.
4. Apple created and supports a free program specifically designed to allow you to convert from wma as well as asf, wmv, wav, and ogg for the ipod: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/easywma.html [apple.com]
It looks to me like they just didn't want to pay to license a format that, by the complaints own addmission, isn't popular enough to hold on to 20% of the online music sales and is likely to be going down since the article even points out that DRM free Mp3 download services are gaining ground.
The second part of the monopoly isue is going to take some proving since the apple ceo posted this on the apple website:
Feb 6 2007
"Today's most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. It's hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music."
Since the ipod is left with 97% open format playback it's just a matter of deduction to see that the other cheaper players do support these open formats and some include protected wma (Zune) and could be easily puchased instead to use protected wma files directly if the consumer wanted. Free market and all that. If the feature was so desired then the players that support it would have more that a piddling share of the sales of music players.
Last note: Napster, Musicmatch, Walmart, Best Buy and Yahoo all adopted the protected WMA music format even though apple is supposed to have a monopoly on the online music industry, interesting. I would have thought that to sell more music they would have licensed formats that easily played back on the most popular music device, the ipod. You know, to make money.
Re:Spluh (Score:3, Informative)
Sure. Because the small/offbrand/ etc company has to worry about getting you to buy
the product, and they do that by making it useful to you. The larger company does
not have to worry so much about this, their main worry is in
A: their bonuses,
B: the investors/wall street,
and so, work to extract the last penny from the buyer, without worrying about providing commensurate value.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, and AIFF
Only one of the 7 formats is DRM'ed (ie. "locked"), and only 2 have any sort of Apple proprietary nature to them (Apple Lossless and the FairPlay DRM'ed AAC). They shouldn't be forced to adopt a competitor's DRM. And Amazon proved you can create an online service compatible with the iPod.
In short, they'll get thrown out of court.
Re:Spluh (Score:3, Informative)
Fuck Apple. What about RIAA? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Standard or proprietary (Score:2, Informative)
Supporting AAC is easy. However, the specific DRM system Apple uses is not licensed to others; rumors abound about why this is, with probably the most sensible explanation being that Apple -- which is theoretically on the hook to the record labels if/when somebody cracks the DRM scheme -- doesn't trust anyone else to implement it.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ [apple.com]
If you don't want to read the entire letter, basically it says that having DRM means maintaining "secrets" which would undoubtedly be leaked if the system was available for license. This is true because the content is encrypted, but you also have the key to the encryption so you can play it. The trick of DRM is allowing people to use the key without them knowing how. Considering the rate that information is leaked from Apple (and it is mostly due to 3rd parties), I think he's probably right.
From the same page, Steve Jobs also states that he would prefer not to use DRM, but that it is a requirement to appease the record companies. I don't doubt that Apple [executives] would like a monopoly (who wouldn't), but I agree with you that this lawsuit is frivolous. So far, they really haven't shown the monopolistic qualities that has been shown through Microsoft, etc.
Re:Really (Score:5, Informative)
Is that what the plaintiffs are asking as a remedy?
I think perhaps it's more about why there are no 3rd party iTunes stores?
Apple may have a better product than Microsoft but I'd be interested to know how the Sheman Antitrust Act [stolaf.edu] applies differently to Apple than it did in The US vs Microsoft antitrust case [wikipedia.org] when Microsoft excluded Netscape from its desktop. The question in law is how is Apple controlling the hardware and the content different from say Standard Oil controlling the product and the distribution system (i.e. the railroad). My guess is that this is not a trivial suit. A lot of people with ipods resent having itunes as their only option. I think that's what this suit is about. And no matter how you feel about Apple's right to exercise such control, the law on the matter may be entirely different.
How is this Apple's fault? (Score:3, Informative)
I think the problem is more with the media companies bickering over DRM than Apple's iPod.
You're free to buy a Zune if that's what you want. All iTunes music can be converted to DRM-free mp3 with a modicum of effort.
Re:Really (Score:5, Informative)
The general music catalogs are available from other sources. It's not like iTunes/iPod prevents people from listening to music in other ways.
If you really examine the issue, WMA with DRM is the odd duck here, not iPod/iTunes.
So, what's the issue again? In a nutshell, iPod/iTunes is a relatively flexible platform on either Macs or PCs.
The IE-Microsoft-Netscape issue was about bundling IE into the operating system as an "inseparable" component. That along with a hundred other abuses surrounding Java, QuickTime, Real Media, bullying vendors, exclusive contracts etc. led to the conclusion that Microsoft was a treacherous monopolist.
Re:Really (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft had no monopoly in browsers when they started. Microsoft had a desktop OS monopoly. They leveraged that to kill a company whose product might, someday, indirectly have hurt their desktop OS profits. The specific leverage they applied was to sink massive resources into developing a high-quality browser, and ... not only give it away free, but threaten to hurt other companies dependent on them for making products that worked with Netscape. They lost money hand over fist on the effort.
The assertions above are not rhetoric [usdoj.gov]. They're fact. Hunt up the words "malevolent" and "obsessive" in that link. When the Netscape threat was gone, Microsoft virtually abandoned browser development.
Apple had no monopoly on MP3 players or desktop OS's when they started. Apple used no leverage of any kind. They used high-quality industrial design and user-interface research, attention to detail, superb marketing and smart partnerships to earn their present spot on top of the market. They have not, ever, even once, stopped adding new capacity and features on to the iPod. The iPod has been phenomenally profitable since its introduction. Apple continued improving it at a torrid pace even when they had left the competition so far behind there essentially wasn't any, and they're still doing it today.
Here's the legal description of how Microsoft behaved [gpo.gov]:
and what the law says of people who behave that way:
and the prescribed penalties if the prosecutor decides to make it a criminal case (which he didn't):
Note that a hundred million dollars is and was chump change to Microsoft. They had a hundred seventy two times that much [microsoft.com] available in *cash and short-term notes*.
In short, "to monopolize" trade is not "to have a monopoly on a product". Publishers have a monopoly on distribution of books they publish. That isn't the same as monopolizing trade in books.
Apple have a monopoly on Mac OS X. They are not monopolizing trade in personal-computer OS's. They have a monopoly on iPods. They aren't monopolizing trade in digital music.
They law applies equally to Microsoft and Apple.
It's just that Apple didn't break it.
Re:Really (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Really (Score:4, Informative)
Section 1 states: Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.
Apple never claimed to support WMA and does NOT have a monopoly on music sales or formats. Microsoft DID claim to support other vendor's software, and in fact did support Netscape until they decided to push Internet Explorer, at which time they disabled Netscape from functioning to restrain it from competing in the same space. This is where the Standard Oil comparison comes in, but with Microsoft playing that role - they own both the OS and a browser, and strongarmed a competing browser from running on the OS. Apple does not own the major format (mp3) or the only way of getting music onto an iPod (I can think of three different ways to get this done without iTunes - see links at bottom).
Section 2 states: Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.
Again, same thing as my paragraph below section 1. Microsoft attempted to monopolize through their control of the OS. Apple can't monopolize something they don't have a monopoly on. These are two wholly different situations.
Section 3 states: Every contract, combination in form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce in any Territory of the United States or of the District of Columbia, or in restraint of trade or commerce between any such Territory and another, or between any such Territory or Territories and any State or States or the District of Columbia, or with foreign nations, or between the District of Columbia and any State or States or foreign nations, is declared illegal.
Oops, there it is again! Microsoft- restraint of trade: competitors actively stopped from competing. Apple, unable to restrain trade because it can't restrain something it doesn't have complete control of: there are at least six different alternatives to iTunes that I know of, three of which I've often seen installed out of the box on Windows PC's. I can't count the number of alternative music players that are as easily available and in most cases far more affordable than an iPod.
The rest of the sections define the rules for proceedings and limitations on this law.
When it comes to dominant userland OS's, Microsoft not only has the most distributed OS on the planet, but has actively stopped (to a large extent) competing OS's from even being a choice when you order a pre-built PC (another monopoly that they've gotten away with, at least in the US). Apple has the most distributed music player on the planet, but not because they forcibly removed others from being choices, rather they made a decent product and successfully marketed it. Nobody is forcing you to use iTunes to buy music online. You could just as well purchase it through, say, Windows Media Player. If you saved it as mp3 (hey, don't want to get all monopolistic now!) you can move these songs into iTunes and put it on your iPod. Try getting an iTunes Store or WMA file moved onto your generic mp3 player. Won't happen without some third party apps, and then I only know how to make it happen with the iTunes files (because I haven't tried with WMA).
Oh, and last but not least: the plaintiff's aren't asking for Apple to pony up licensing fees. That's the beauty of the scam: if Apple does it, Microsoft gets their money and these
Re:Wow (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Spluh (Score:4, Informative)
I second.
What I find most staggering in the "discussion", that people dumbly say that "iPod's chip allows WMA decoding". That's *LAMEST* thing of century to say.
For Apple to be able to include WMA support into iTunes/iPod, they would have to (1) fork some money to M$ and (2) sign restrictive licensing agreements.
Have you noticed that WMA players rarely support anything but WMA and MP3? Right, only few companies (e.g. Sony for their Walkmans) managed to secure deal which allows them to support other audio formats. Semi-official info I had about SanDisk's Sansa and Philips's GoGear players is that they can *NOT* support MP4 nor OGG/Vorbis because licensing agreement with M$ prevents them to.
In all the heated IP discussion, everybody forgets that technical side of story != legal side of story. Apple cannot support WMA w/o M$ blessing.
On other side, I fully support Apple's brave decision to support standard audio format - and *NOT* invent/buy another proprietary format. On ironic side, one can always respond to dumb question "Apple doesn't support M$ audio format" with "But it does!! MPEG4 audio was developed in greater part by M$!!"
General MP3 Player (Score:2, Informative)
The next day she took it back to Bestbuy and bought a Creative brand MP3 player and was delighted to see it worked on her PC and also not to be locked into one companys music files.
She learned two lessons from the experience:
1. Never trust a salesman at Bestbuy.
2. Never buy an MP3 player that is proprietary and has to have a DRM'd to hell OS.