After news that Apple is suing Think Secret comes the news that Apple is being sued under US antitrust laws. The basis of the case is that once you buy music from iTunes you can't then listen to it on a non Apple portable player ie Apple have tied you to the iPod. This is of course not even considering the fact that Apple also try to prevent you playing other providers' music on the iPod too. Oh and they rip off the UK too.
So how come everyone portrays M$ as a greedy corporation yet Apple seems to sidestep such accusations even though they are evidently just as greedy as any other corporation? Still we can forget all about Apple if this one ever comes off.
via boingboing
14 comments:
Oh, so wait... We can't burn cd's of our iTunes music?
I must have missed that memo.
Oh, so wait... Then you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT with the songs?
Huh. Imagine that.
/rubs hands with glee...
Looks like the Apple apologists have turned up again. I loved it when they came last time.
OK here's a scenario for you oh spineless anon.
I purchase my (lossily) compressed digital tunes in AAC format from ITunes and store them on my pink mac. I then decide I want play them on a straight mp3 player. The only way I can do that is burn to a CD, re-encode to mp3 (losing yet more data in the recompression) and then transfer them to my mp3 player.
So music I have legally bought loses quality twice before I can play it on my portable device? Seems a bit unfair to me and certainly more of a hurdle (especially to the non techie) than it is dumping straight to an iPod.
Next please.
"So music I have legally bought loses quality twice before I can play it on my portable device?"
Oh, how my heart weeps for you.
But the point is, it CAN be done. So it seems kind of silly to sue Apple over NOT being able to do it.
-Jeremy
Yay! Anon grows a name!
I'm pointing out it's more difficult to transfer to any other device than it is to an iPod. Oh isn't that a lock in of some sort? Oh then that'll possibly be a breach of the AntiTrust law and should be tested in court. Oh it is.
As to your heart bleeding for me - don't bother. That was a hypothetical case. Apple haven't had a penny of mine and never will. I nearly bought an iPod until the great rock'n'roll swindle (UK iTunes pricing).
And there's no apostrophe in CDs either.
stop fighting.. and buy me an iPod.
Ah, so you're a Brit, then. That explains a lot. Like why you're such a superior spellar.
-Jeremy
Damn! Snared by my anal attention to punctation. English actually but close enough.
So do really think the above scenario is fair? I think any kind of lock in whatsoever is unfair to the consumer. I must admit to having a vested interest in that I am a consumer and not a greedy corporation.
I'm hardly a Rabid Mac Zealot, so I have no problems admitting that they can sometimes get away with things other companies could (or should) not. But in this case I see people going out of their way to find something to whine about.
You don't *have* to have a Mac to use the iTunes store. You don't *have* to have an iPod to use the iTunes store.
Since there are so many consumer-optional steps involved in the scenario it seems a bit of a stretch to call BAD APPLE on them, in this case. (IF you have an iPod, and IF you download songs from iTunes, and IF you aren't aware of the workaround [that, admittedly, recquires a few out-of-the-way steps], and IF you're worried about compressing an already compressed file...)
I hope I'm not coming across rude or snarky. It's not my intent, and I apologize for starting off on the wrong foot earlier.
-Jeremy
Don't worry about the way you've started. The comments are there for anyone to say what they want in any manner they want to. We just reserve the right to respond in kind. ;)
You're right in that he is going out of his way to whine but I still agree with him. Any stand against the consumer's right to do what what he wants within reason with what he has bought must be applauded. I believe you've even got that enshrined in American law.
I could be wrong and those rights, along with many others, may have been removed under the DMCA. Merg is our resident expert on all things US but he doesn't seem to be around or he could have confirmed that for me. But the point I'm making is he has bought that music to listen to and he should be able to listen to it in anyway he sees fit.
The whole burn / rip process is beyond (I would guess anyway) most people. And again why should they have to jump through hoops to do it?
As to whether he doesn't have to use the iTunes store in the first place I'll take it to the hypothetical extreme. Imagine the man is a total computer idiot like 99% of people are. He buys one of those nice shiny net enabled PCs, takes it home and finds iTunes. He installs the software and starts buying music. Now to most people 'computer music' IS mp3. So his wife thinks "I'll buy him one of those mp3 players so he can listen to the music he bought when we're out" and...
Extreme like I said but it could happen.
Regardless of whether it is fair or not it's probably short sighted business sense on Apple's part. There's a whole slew of large capacity personal players coming and then Apple will miss out on sales to these devices due to the fact that all of them will play at least mp3 plus maybe WMA or ATRAC. That and the growing perception that Apple is just the same as Microsoft or Sony.
Pinski (http://geoffpinski.ath.cx)
They also rip off Americans so stop your whinging about pricing (look at Canadain 99¢ and American 99¢).
Its not Apple's fault if your hypotethical purchaser is an idiot and doesn't read his EULA. So you would require Apple to
a) store the music in multiple formats?
b) store it in some large raw format and then compress it or whatever?
c) pay M$ more money (oh yeah WMA and DRM stuff costs money)?
d) have no DRM on their music (oh wait they can't do that cause the MAN won't let them)?
The first two solutions would probably make the iTunes store cost prohibitive. The second solution would take too much time for the normal user and he would head to the internet.
Third solution ain't going to happen in a million years.
And the fourth solution just kills off any hope of having an iTunes store.
As for other players, why should Apple be the one to change? Why shouldn't they? Oh yeah right because under your logic they are greedy SOB.
The reason M$ gets portrayed as greedy while Apple does not has to do with the fact that M$ makes billions while Apple struggles to survive.
What a specious argument. Just because Americans are being ripped off doesn't mean I shoube be happy that we are - and neither should they. It's sycophantic Apple love like yours that let's them get away with it. If more people complained about it rather than just taking it up the arse from Apple then something might be done about it.
Read the EULA? Nobody reads EULAs on software never mind music. I buy my music to play not to read contracts which may or may not be legally enforceable.
As for your 4 choices of possible alternatives to Apple's current model I'd go for B. Large scale storage is *very* cheap - ask Google who give away 1Gb to each and every gmail user for free. So not too much of a cost implication there. The only extra added cost would be the processing of of raw data to mp3/aac/whatever. This would be alleviated somewhat by caching of popular tunes ie if a song is being sold continously it would be mad to reencode the raw data every time. Of course these extra costs would be offset as revenue was driven up due to Apple's customer base expanding significantly due to people being able to buy mp3s off them.
How would this option take too much time for a normal user? 9 times out of ten they'd be buying the latest hot hit ie one that has already been encoded and is sitting in a nice large cache. If it hasn't been encoded it's not a huge amount of time to encode raw data to whatever format you want and it's sitting in a cache for the next user to request it.
Why should Apple be the one to change? Possibly because they want to survive. At the minute they own the portable digital music market because they have the best player by a long shot. Once the market is flooded with cheap mp3 players with large hard drives they will no longer own it. If they want to survive in it they have to adapt.
I have no issue with corporations making money. I do have an issue with corporations ripping their customers off. I believe you've hit the nail on the head with "struggle to survive". Apple have been struggling for so long that now they've got the iTunes / iPod cash cow they are milking it for all they can while they still have such a large share of the market. Greedy fsckers.
Pinski (http://geoffpinski.ath.cx)
Okay. Lets look at some other proprietary stuff.
DVDs. No one is suing the group that make up the DVD consortuim. They have a monopoly. They don't let you do everything you want - i.e. no copying to your computer, etc. (Unless of course you downloaded DeCSS and are violating the damnable DMCA) How are they any different? Can we sue them for Anti-Trust?
Lets go back to VCRs. Sony made the best player and had the best standard. BETA-Max. Where is it now? It lost out to VHS. Why? Basically for the same reasons that you think that is killing Apple. But no one sued Sony for Anti-Trust because they were the ones selling Beta-Max tapes and also the only ones who produced the Beta-Max player. So you want them to be more greedy by opening their standard? Or do you want them to be greedy for a short amount of time and then die?
Sony is also doing the same thing, and the only way to get around it is to burn and rip.
As for contracts, everything you do is contract. You go into a store you basically are agreeing to follow that stores rules. You buy software they always come up with the annoying EULA. They suck, but if you don't read them, well, we all know what happens next - SOL.
Where did I say I loved Apple? Nowhere. My defense of Apple resides more with my hatred of computer morons such as this guy. If he can't do the above steps to work around it, then he shouldn't have a computer. Heck these steps are so simple M$ put them in their FAQ on how to get their music to work with the iPod (and of course subsequently took them down). Maybe it makes me a computer elitist, but come on. Burn the CD and rip it, don't file a suit over it.
I don't use iTunes or any other music stores because they are all a ripoff. I can buy a used cassette tape or vinyl for 2 or 3 bucks and get more than twice the music. Also your original post seemed to imply that the UK was the only one getting ripped off. Apple has no control over the $'s value. It sucks that $1 right now is 2 quid. It looks like Apple Europe instead of the standard corporate American procedure of replacing $ with £ (look at McDonalds or as you pointed out computer hardware companies) took the € and changed it to a £.As long as the dollar sucks the English will be have a lower buying power on importing American goods (now I don't know if this can really be considered importing, but for now I will call it that).
Yeah just wait till Sony is charging the same price or Microsoft is charging 10p less. But remember neither sell mp3s either.
DVDs. You buy a DVD from any content provider and it will play on DVD hardware from any manufacturer region permitting. Where's the anti trust in that? The crux of this case is you buy music from Apple you can only play it on Apple portable hardware - unless you do the whole burn / rerip thing which loses audio quality and wastes time. To extend that analogy if Sony brought out a DVD that played perfectly on a Sony player but needed to be ripped and rerecorded to play on another player then Sony would indeed end up entangled in an antitrust case.
Betamax. Wasn't Betamax available for licencing but nobody took them up on it and jumped on the VHS bandwagon instead? Do Apple licence AAC to hardware manufacturers? If they don't they should. In fact they should be giving it away. That would increase their market and forestall any antitrust.
You're a mac user - I've had a look at your site. I deduced a love of Apple from that. That and your argument that it was OK for Apple to rip us off because they rip other people off too. Maybe love is a bit strong - but I have to say most Apple users I've ever met / talked to (and there have been a few) love the company and the pseudo hippy Jobs.
Hatred of computer morons? You're right you're an elitist. I'm more pragmatic (well maybe a teeny bit elitist!) and know that 99% of people will never be able to use a computer properly no matter how much the desktop is dumbed down for them. I also know that nearly all of those people will get a computer within the next few years regardless of their ability to use it. Should drivers be deprived of a car if they can't strip the engine down and reassemble it correctly? These people will expect to be able to play their music anywhere just like they always have done and rightly so. I find it incredible that any consumer could argue otherwise.
And being '733t' you should know it's a commonly held view that most EULAs just would not stand up in court as they are too restrictive. On second thoughts I'm not sure that actually holds true with the enactment of laws like the DMCA - so many consumer rights have been stripped away with their introduction. I know I disregard them totally - I've bought something and I want to use it in any way I see fit. BTW talking of 'skillz' - you can embed links in the comments. ;)
I don't use iTunes or any other online music stores either. I buy CDs and rip them for playing on various computers so this whole discussion is moot for me.
Regarding mY post about the rip off pricing - no Apple can't control the exchange rate but they did control the setting of the UK prices to be higher than anyone else's. As it happens the even lower exchange rate since then means we are even worse off comparatively.
As I stated in the comments on that post I am prepared to accept a straight dollar to quid conversion when it is for physical goods with all their associated manufacturing, storage and transport costs. I am not prepared to accept it on virtual goods which costs the same to be delivered to me wherever I am in the world. I certainly wouldn't regard downloading as importing.
Although we are not part of the Euro yet you can spend Euros in a lot of places in the UK. Apple specifically prevent UK users buying in Euros - probably illegal under EU law and definitely worthy of investigation. But the pricing is a whole other issue - we're discussing Apple's 'chain you to the
iPod' policy.
As for MS not selling mp3s - you can buy a WMA from the MS store and play on a huge range of portable players. This range will only increase. Look - no lockin to a single manufacturer's hardware. But don't get me wrong - I think Microsoft and Sony are greedy too.
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