Does Apple Have A Music Monopoly Issue?

Ockie said:
So according to your logic, Ferarri, Apple, Sun, Microsoft, Lamborghini, Sony, (insert just about every major company who makes a product and provides a service) is a monopoly and are anti-consumer?

Sun makes machines with thier own OS
Ferarri only services their own cars, not fords, doges or other cheap cars
Microsoft has their own software on their own OS
Lamborghini doesn't service cheap cars either
Sony has the UMD and many other proprietary media for their devices

list goes on and on.


So pretty soon we will according to your logic be having to sue ford for not honoring warranty on a dodge. Or pretty soon we will need to go after Burger king for not selling a Big Mac :rolleyes:
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It totally blows my mind that you consider those appropriate analogies!!!

Let’s take a look at the Ferarri and Lamborghini only servicing their own cars analogy. Is anyone asking Apple to repair Creative and Sandisk MP3 players? NO, of course not!!! Where did you get this crap? I would really like to hear your reasoning behind this example.

griffinhart did a good job debunking the Microsoft analogy.

Bottom line is that the gov is not asking Apple to do ANYTHING extra. All they have to do is stop doing something illegal and anti-consumer: preventing other companies from playing music purchased through iTunes. There is no technical reason why the Zune can’t play iTunes. If Microsoft wasn’t afraid of getting sued by apple, I am sure they would have included that feature. Apple won’t even have to change anything in iTunes. All they have to do is not sue companies for making players that work with iTunes. In fact, if this ruling does go through, I would imagine that a simple update is all that would be needed to make Zune play music from iTunes.

And suing Burger king for not selling a Big Mac??? LOL, that is not even close to being relevant (not that any of the other analogies were though).

Sorry if I am being harsh. I just had to call you out on this one.
 
He's saying the Ferrari guys have the know how to fix a ford, but they will not. Same shit with apple. Apple knows how to allow WMA's to play on their shit, but they will not.
 
Once again, Apple doesn’t have to add any anything. All they have to do is stop blocking WMA playback (the iPod’s hardware is capable of it). If a Ferrari technician wants to work on a Ford at home, he can. Sure, Ferrari isn't going to support him, help him, or train him, but they aren't going to fire him if they drive by his house and see him working on his neighbors Ford. In the same respect, apple doesn't have to offer tech support for WMA, or even offer any documentation. All they have to do is stop disabling that feature on the iPod hardware. The only reason they would go out of their way to disable this feature is to prevent people from purchasing music from competitors. This is a textbook definition of anti-competitive behavior. Imagine the outrage if Microsoft ADDED code that made it impossible for users to run firefox or open office?

However, I could care less about WMA and I believe that the real issue is music from iTunes not playing on any other MP3 player.
 
Yes they have a monopoly...and if this gets enough headwind they will be forced to do something. As far as the digital music market is concerned apple is the microsoft of operating systems and they will surely be attacked in the same manner.

Only being able to play itunes purchased music on a ipod with no easy other alternative is pretty crazy and an obvious way to get people to keep buying ipods.
 
MScrip said:
> "so yeah, you do, legally, lose all of your music if you switch to a different player."

> "The vast majority of iTunes customers would be horrified to learn that they will have to buy only iPods for the rest of their life, unless they want to loose their entire music collection."

Lose your entire collection?

Let's imagine a time when you had a huge collection of tapes. Then, you started buying CDs. You've still got your tapes, though.

You buy a new car, and it doesn't have a tape player in it. Well, you've still got the tapes, and you will find a way to get the music off the tapes and onto CDs.

So, you've got an iPod full of songs, and you decide to buy another brand of music player. You've still got your old iPod with all your songs on it. You didn't really "lose" anything.

You can't play a cassette in a CD player, and you can't play an AAC file on a Creative Zen. But, there are ways to move from one format to another.
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Your analogy is flawed.

Instead imagine is that you have a collection of Cassettes that will only play on your current Cassette Deck. You buy another brand and it won't play.

Other DAPs can handle AAC. None can playback files bought from iTunes.

And who says you have your old iPod? Maybe your iPod broke, and all you have are iTunes files on your hard drive. Bottom line is, I've had at least 6 or 7 different CD players (not counting computer drives or DVD drives) and they all played every single one of my CDs, but only the iPod can play back iTunes AAC files.

It aint' the same, no matter how often the Apple apologists claim to the contrary.
 
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