Comments on: Apple faces suit over “illegal” iTunes Monopoly

By: Fisch, BN, Germany

Fisch, BN, Germany — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:23:05 +0000

The ONLY question quote again:

The only thing Apple has â€œexclusiveâ€ control over is the fact that iTunes purchased content can only be played on iTunes compatible devices such as Windows PCs, Macs, iPods, and certain portable phones.

The question isâ€¦is that illegal?

By: Fisch, BN, Germany

Fisch, BN, Germany — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:21:45 +0000

This is indeed the ONLY qustion, the rest of the article is smoke ,-)

By: Justin Shattuck

Justin Shattuck — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 13:28:58 +0000

Personally, I am a discouraged when it comes to iTune’s copyright protection. I can appreciate Apple protecting artists and labels, however, there has to be a line drawn somewhere that allows users to pass music as we all used to. When I was a child I was given a cdrom from my uncle, “Poison: Native Tongue.” This was hilarious at the time, my first crazy rock audio cd, however, I still have that CD and maybe I’ll give it to my kids someday, however, all of my iTune’s music is pretty much lost.

I can’t pass my music down as the generation before could. Same conflict with iTune’s video, I purchase television shows from iTunes because I’m not a big fan of actual television. However, I am only able to download these videos one time and I have to back them up, which is fine, but is a nuisance. I understand Apple not wanting to waste money on repeat downloaders hogging bandwidth, makes sense. Yet, why can’t I burn my television episodes to a DVD and watch them on a projector perhaps, do I have to use my Macbook all the time?

I think with minor improvements to Apple’s copyright policy, things could be fantastic. No one is really rivaling iTune’s for the online music distribution market share, they have it pretty well covered; thanks to labels and exclusive bands. All it will take is another company, a moderate amount of investment and some great minds to come up with something that will force Apple to re-think its current policy.

Other than that, I still use iTunes….

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:55:59 +0000

iPods can play any .mp3 audio — one needn’t ever have the Apple codec that contains digital rights management.

It is a trivial issue to get around Apple’s DRM. All one needs to do is (deleted to reduce any culpability I might have in recommending a procedure that allows copying and getting sued by the RIAA and MPAA).

With respect to video, all one needs is to encode video from any source to the h.263 codec used by the iPod Video (something I have not done as I son’t have a video-capable iPod.

Apple may easily argue that their DRM-encoded material is not a “commodity.” It’s specially-encoded to protect rights and sold at a price that is not artificially high. One does not ever have to use the ITMS to put audio and video on one’s iPod and one can extract the materials purchased on the ITMS for play on other devices that allow generic music and video playback using a freely-available codec.

The suit is without merit and a test to see if Apple may be branded a monopolist (doubtful).