[StageMgrJon]

It is not mindless reflex to point out that:

a) The iPod WILL play WMV. A Microsoft Developed Encoding. MP3 as well, certainly NOT developed by Apple.

b) Most class action lawsuits are frivolous.

c) Do you think that the courts will have wide-sweeping decision that will force the Zune to support AAC, Apple-Lossless encoder, and Billy-Bob's Special Music Electronic Convertin' Thingy?

To take your analogy one step further:

What if Ford had 80% of the car market. What if they forced you to use parts on their cars that were built only by them or to the specifications that they produce? Oh wait, every car maker does that.

What if Shlage had 80% of the Home Deadbolt market. What if they forced you to use a key blank that they produce, or spec-out? Oh wait, every lock maker does that.

What if a cable-company like Time Warner had a virtual monopoly by contract in a city to provide cable services and they took weeks to fix issues, provided crappy service, bad channels, and long periods where you had to sit at home for appointments. What if on top of this all you were FORCED to rent their cable box because there are digital signals that are encoded that only their box with translate? Oh wait, that's Time Warner, Comcast, and every other Cable or Satellite Provider.

All three of the above are services or products that you don't HAVE to buy, they are OPTIONS, things you can choose to purchase to make your life better, easier, or simply because you want it.

Guess we'd better get it over wtih and file "Everyone in the U.S. vs. Every Company or Person to ever develop anything and want to make a profit on it of any kind."

[leroybrown]

No - it doesn't stand. If you were to equate the iPod to Explorer, the common media would be MP3 (which is used way more than protected AAC). That would probably equate to standards-based HTML. MSHTML would be roughly equivalent to protected AAC. MP3s play fine in the iPod, and standards-based web pages (mostly) render fine in IE.

The fact is that ITMS doesn't sell the majority of the music sold. It doesn't sell the majority of the content contained on an iPod. There's no monopoly. Maybe if there were, we'd have something to talk about, but there isn't.

The point is that you don't have to use the ITMS to use an iPod. You don't have to buy an iPod to begin with. You don't necessarily save any money by buying from ITMS... heck, you can buy from ITMS and use another MP3 player, too (though you have to burn and rerip your stuff, or buy the unprotected files).

I just plain old don't see the merit in the case...

[warlock7]

Jeff, you're at it again. You need to stop making analogies as they never equate or hold true to what you are trying to compare to. We've talked about your endless supposition and how it's never really applicable many times before. Please, cut it out. Your supposition makes no sense at all.



Seems that Apple would have to be selling the Safari browser and it would need to be one of their primary revenue streams of the company in order to compare it to the iPod. None of that is the case.



As for mindless reflex, it seems that anytime anybody is suing Apple for iTMS and iPod tie-ins that you back the plaintiffs in a mindless reflex since you don't like the way that Apple does business by including DRM. When, in fact, your real issue has always been DRM. With the way that things are going DRM will be an unpleasant memory soon and then you should have no issues whatsoever, right?

[Buizer]

What you should have had is:

To those who out of mindless reflex dismiss this (or any) lawsuit as groundless or even frivolous (My comment is 95%+ are groundless).

Suppose Safari constituted 75% of the browser market and would read/render only those web sites using open standards or which were developed with tools or protocols which Apple developed ONLY to satisfy the content providers. Those sites developed with tools or protocols which Apple developed could only be read by Safari at the request of the content providers.

This is a different ball game.

Frivolous at best.

[sEaMoNkeY]

Okayyy...

Let's see here. Thease people have plenty of places for buying songs other than the itunes store. Hmmm, maybe they could just buy music from Amazon MP3, eMusic, or evan (gasp!) just buy CD's from a store and put the songs on one's iPod. Apple has been trying to get rid of FaiPlay for a while now. They sell DRM-free songs for the sam price as tracks with DRM. And yet, they are suing because they think it's a monopoly. So, they want to buy WMA songs. Ok. Just support the Micro$oft Monpoly, which also uses DRM. Ok. I do wish that apple would support formats like OGG and AIFF, though. But seriously, you don't like the itunes store, use Amazon MP3, eMusic, or just buy CDs yourself. I get my music from 2 sources: My local CD store, and the iTunes store. I'd say that 4/5ths of my music I've bought myself from a CD store, and the other 1/5th from iTunes. And, just so you know, I'm not just saying all this because I'm a fan of Apple, or because I hate Microsoft, I'm just trying to say one simple thing: Wake Up! Thank you.

(End of Rant)

[jmincey]

StageMgrJon said:

What if Ford had 80% of the car market. What if they forced you to use parts on their cars that were built only by them or to the specifications that they produce? Oh wait, every car maker does that."

The only problem with this statement is that Ford does not have 80 percent of the market. If Apple's iTunes/iPod combination had no more than, say, 20 percent of the market, this would not be an issue -- any lock-in notwithstanding.

[sundoggy]

I agree with the majority opinion here. iPods have always worked with MP3, the defacto open standard for copy-protection free music and ripped music. In fact, you have always been able to transfer music you legally own (ie, CDs) to your iPod, the most legal way to add music to your iPod or other device. In fact, you can take this a step further and rip a CD from music you buy on iTunes, freeing the music from the DRM and using it however you want (by re-importing the music to iTunes).

Apple imposed the DRM for the music companies in the first place, so that we could actually buy the music legally online and has made steps to sell DRM free music. Now, music companies are going out of their way to prevent Apple from selling DRM free music (Universal, Warner (I think)) when they sell it DRM-free through other resellers.

Plus, there is plenty of competition, the competition just hasn't figured out how to do it right and make it as easy as iTunes (well they have in some cases, it just hasn't taken off yet, but it will). Amazon is a great alternative. This thing should be thrown out.

[jddmacworld]

So, is this tch married to an Attorney looking to cash in or what? What an absolute waste of time.

[Rhywun]

jmincey said:

The only problem with this statement is that Ford does not have 80 percent of the market. If Apple's iTunes/iPod combination had no more than, say, 20 percent of the market, this would not be an issue -- any lock-in notwithstanding.

Why does the market share matter? Couldn't it simply be that the iPod is the best player on the market? These "monopoly" suits smack of resentment of a product's popularity more than anything else.

[osxfoundry]

I'm gonna sue Intuit because Quickbook on Mac does not allow me to do the same thing on PC, then all the game makers who make games for PC only, and also the Toyota because I want to be able to put a Porsche engine in my Tercel.

How about Microsoft and their browser, activeX control etc...

This is just a waste of time and money. I think these type of Class Action should be punished.

[StageMgrJon]

Careful with what you say about legal ripping of music to iPods or anything else.

If you read about the RIAA's latest filing in their Reverse-Class Action lawsuits against their customers, you will see that they are now attempting to define ANY ripped music, whether you own the CD or not, as stolen and illegal (this has been widely reported in The Wall Street Journal, and many other newspapers).

So if we aren't supposed to dismiss lawsuits against Apple out-of-hand no matter how frivolous they are, then I guess that jmincey better be ready for his multi-million dollar defense against the RIAA when they sue him for ripping his music to his computer/mp3 player.

This inference, by the way, in case you don't understand it jmincey is this: That if you bought it through ITMS then it is legal to have it on your computer, if you bought the CD, it isn't.

So if you want to blindly support lawsuits without considering the merits, then you had better be ready to start writing the checks to the RIAA when they sue you for Millions of $ and you don't even defend yourself against them because they MUST be right... after all- they filed a lawsuit.

[jdb8167]

KPO said:

> Apple hasn't licensed the Fairplay DRM technology to any other market participant. If the issue were solely about DRM, and not about selling iPods and iPhones, Apple would make it available to others.

Perhaps because Apple would rather have DRM on music die a complete death rather than being propogated via iPods. If you take Steve Jobs memo on music at face value, he wants all DRM music to be eliminated. Licensing would prolong its use.

[jdb8167]

jmincey said:

> I hope it will have the beneficial effect of opening up the entire digital music field so that no matter what player a person buys, or no matter what online store a person uses to obtain music files, each supports the other -- that way, consumers can choose the products and services they prefer, based on merit, rather than to be locked in to one thing or the other.

Wouldn't a better solution be to continue to eliminate all DRM from music? Then no one is ever locked to anyone and no cooperation between competing companies is required. Lets face it, having the government mandate cooperation between companies isn't a stellar solution either.

[jmincey]

> {quote:title=jdb8167 wrote: }{quote}
Wouldn't a better solution be to continue to eliminate all DRM from music?
[/quote]


Yep. Definitely!