You feel it’s easier to have to use 2 different devices instead of 1 that supports both formats? How is that easier? And if it’s unsafe to carry around your iPod, what do you do with it? Isn’t that pretty much its primary use?
There’s plenty of good arguments (IMHO) why a gov’t should not force Apple to support formats they don’t want to support, but none of these arguments that it’ll make the device worse or less useful in some way hold any water.
Especially if the additional cost would be 10 cents a device. Nobody who can afford an iPod can reasonable balk at spending another dime in exchange for having all those other services usable. Even if you don’t see the need to use them now, you might in the future. When I bought my player, I had no idea I could download WMA audiobooks for free, but I’m sure glad I have the ability now. If had bought an iPod I’d be pissed. (But I’d still support their decision to only support formats of their choice. I just vote with my bucks against it.)
A question: is France claiming Apple is a monopoly or near-monopoly or whatever via unfair/illegal business practices? I might have more support for France’s position if that were the case.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this. Apple is ensuring the quality of any Apple-branded item by refusing to license their scheme. Apple is not the only means of distribution. Lastly, Apple is not hindering entry into the market from any competitor in either the DAP or downloadable music areas. I do not find their behaviour anti-competitive.
Earlier you stated that the U.S. government went after Nintendo. Neither of these links support that (and it explains why I couldn’t find anything). These describe a lawsuit between Atari and Nintendo.
This is not correct. Anyone can sell music and files to be played on the iPod. As I pointed out earlier, emusic is one. They just need to offer it a format that the iPod supports: AAC, mp3, mp4, and I think others. Two other companies that have chosen to take advantage of the iPod’s popularity by offering compatible files is Audible.com, which offers audio books, and The Teaching Company, which offers lectures.
One should keep in mind that this position you refer to was created by them. SJ gambled that he had a better way to both listen to music and to buy it. Mp3s were in use before the iPod. And you were able to buy music over the internet, as well. But both the devices and the buying process were clumsy, sketchy, and unelegant. He had a vision of a better user experience and he was right.
As another poster pointed out before (to counter an argument I did not make and do not make), if the iPod accepted more formats, or all formats, it would be a more useful device for the consumer. Assuming that such a modification wiould not sacrifice the simplicity of the iPod, that point is correct. But from what I understand, SJ wants to control the experience of buying and listening to music so he can ensure that it is as easy consumer-friendly as possible. This was also part of the larger “switching” strategy at the time. The thinking being that if people could gat a taste of the Apple experience through the iPod, then that might encourage more people to switch from PC to Mac, helping them capture more than the 3% or 4% share of the computer market that they had.
Nonetheless, I’d like to say that I certainly don’t think the near-monopoly was gained illegally, but believe this to be irrelevant (even if an Apple-specific remedy were being proposed). To me it’s indisputable that Apple do have a dominant market position, and are abusing it to the detriment of competition and consumer choice. I don’t think it’s necessary for them to have acted illegally up to this point for the situation to be worthy of remedy, and I certainly see no downsides in opening up both markets to proper competition. If Apple have the best product, they should be able to maintain their market share through that fact, rather than through preventing others from even entering 90% of the market.
It is correct for the vast majority of copyrighted audio works, which are owned by major labels who will not countenance the release of said works without DRM. Plus, I pointed out emusic.com earlier; I’m well aware of it, and believe it irrelevant. I do not believe that the size or scope of its catalogue constitutes a challenge to iTunes’ near-monopoly, as there are vast swathes of the audio market that it can never enter. Claiming that competitors just need to offer products with no DRM is sophistry, since by and large, they cannot. The audio book market is a separate market, and thus a separate issue.
Indeed. However, the fact that you created a market does not give you the right to unfettered control over it. Microsoft could be credited with creating the PC market (and if anyone wants to debate this, please take it to another thread; I will not be defending this position). No-one would claim that Microsoft therefore deserve an eternal monopoly, least of all me.
Regarding your other points, I am sure that Steve Jobs does want those things. However, what Steve Jobs wants and what is conducive to a competitive market for online and portable music are two different things. If the iPod is indeed such a magnificent beast, then Macs will benefit from its so-called “halo effect” regardless of whether it is a closed shop or not. I think it is indeed a quality device, albeit not without flaws. I think it won its market share because it is very well conceived, not to mention beautiful. But I think if it is to maintain that market share, it should do so because it continues to be good, and not because consumers have large iTMS music collections that they can play on no other device, and are thus forced to buy more iPods. Moreover, I think Apple fans should agree with me. Look at the stagnation in Internet Explorer development after it had stitched up the market. A company that doesn’t need to compete will not bother, and the iPod, if guaranteed a market purely by dint of DRM lockout, will suffer the same fate. Not good for anyone; not even Apple.
But that’s not Apple’s fault but the label’s fault. If the label refuses to release something without DRM then people are going to be locked out unless the file is released under all available DRM schemes.
I guess I have no sympathy for people who buy technology without understanding all the caveats and nuances and even less sympathy for what I see as pointless legislation.
Although I agree there are benefits to the legislation, there are still certainly downsides. I personally feel that it is simply not the place of a government to dictate what features private companies should implement in their products, especially mere entertainment products, unless there is a VERY compelling reason to do so. Simply because it would be pain in the ass for existing iPod/iTunes users to switch to another service isn’t sufficient, IMHO. If it was a 911 emergency phone or something, then I could see it as appropriate for the gov’t to step in.
Also, what will happen as new formats come and old formats lose popularity? How will it be decided when a new format must be added to list of mandatory formats or when a format becomes obsolete enough to be taken off the list? These are technical decisions that gov’ts are typically very good at making.
And will every portable music player sold in France, by any sized manufacturer, have to implement all the formats on the list? Developing software to handle these formats can be expensive (even if the license for the technology is cheap), and could make the cost of developing a device too expensive for some small companies, and hence reduce competition.
There’s not enough benefit to justify getting the government involved in this, IMHO.
The labels are DRM scheme agnostic; they only care that it is released with some form of DRM. Therefore, if there is a demand for a particular release, then it should naturally be available from anyone who wants to compete. However, the situation that we have now is that everyone except Apple is simply unable to sell music that can be played on 80+% of the world’s digital audio players. I think that is an unacceptable situation, and one which benefits no-one except Apple, and even them only in the short term.
Okay; but I have a question (or five) for you. Do you think there is any place at all for competition regulation? And what do you think would be the downsides in opening up the iPod to competition? And finally, do you really see no downsides in Apple essentially being able to sew up a near-monopoly in two markets through a mutually reinforcing closed shop? Should your sympathies for what you regard as ill-informed consumer choice form the basis for competition policy? I agree to a point; I think consumers choosing to buy an iPod and download from iTMS are making a silly choice. For this reason I have chosen both to eschew the iPod despite its desirability, and refuse to download from iTMS. I’m not going to lock myself in to someone’s little scheme. But I don’t think that just because I can see my way out of this reinforced paper bag means that it isn’t fundamentally damaging to competition, and shouldn’t be remedied.
Many people don’t make exhaustively-researched, informed choices like you or me; they say, “I’ve heard about these iPod things; I should get one,” and they do so. Then they say, “well hey, I need some music to go on it; where can I get it? Oh hey, iTMS,” and they do that. And this is precisely what Steve Jobs wants, and knows, and loves. It is also precisely what Bill Gates wants in the PC market, and it’s a very damaging phenomenon, when the iPod/Windows own such a large proportion of their respective markets. The fact that the iPod is popular should not guarantee Apple a winning stake in the digital download market; they should have to compete for that by offering a better product. And the fact that iTMS leads the download market should not guarantee the iPod a winning stake in the DAP market; likewise, they should have to compete for that. This is how markets should work. The better mousetrap should be given an environment in which it can win. If that mousetrap continues to be the iPod, I’m happy. I just don’t want it to be the iPod by default, which at present I believe is the case.
Revtim, as I’ve said earlier I will certainly agree that this is a particularly cack-handed attempt at a competition remedy. I personally favour forced licensing of FairPlay as a means of breaking up the iPod/iTMS closed shop, and don’t see how forced feature inclusion can ever be practical. I maintain, however, that the closed shop needs to be opened by some means, and think that this is pretty much indisputable, assuming one accepts the need for competition regulation in the first place.
I can never find generic or store brand Mach3 compatibles. Those friggin’ things are nearly 2 bucks each, too. Is this just my part of the country, or are there simple no generic Mach3 blades out there?
Sure, there can be competition regulation, but first there has to be an unambiguous market breakdown. When it comes to digital music, I’m not seeing it. I still say that the labels could allow downloading without DRM and turn a profit.
Second, the iPod is open to competition. All someone has to do is to release the iPod killer. I probably would’ve bought a digital music player eventually, as I was getting sick of managing either MP3 CDs or dealing with minidisc. I don’t know for sure if I would’ve bought an iPod, but as mine was a gift I don’t think about it. At this point, when I buy a new player, it will be another iPod because the interface is good, the player is high quality, and, yes, I can easily use my Audible files and DRMed AAC files without having to come up with a workaround. I don’t see how I’m locked into a scheme.
Third, quality could go down. That’s always questionable, of course, but in any case, I would never use the other formats. It might be nice if the iPod and iTunes supported OGG, but I have made it a point for many years now to avoid WMA.
Fourth, Apple did two things right. They managed to get the labels to agree to a deal (amazing, I know) and they built a damn good piece of hardware. But the money, as I understand it, is in the hardware, not the software. As I’ve said, 90%+ of my music collection I’ve ripped from my CDs. They were ripped years ago and for a very long time I used only WinAmp and kept everything in carefully organized folder structures. I’ve switched to iTunes, but the file structures are still there. Anyway, they managed to get in on the ground floor. Remember, iTunes itself was developed first for Mac OS 9, and was released in January 2001. The iPod wasn’t released until October 2001 (out-of-the-box Windows compatibility wasn’t available until July 2002) and the iTMS wasn’t started until April 2003. iTunes for Windows XP/2000 wasn’t available until October 2003. As I remember it, at the time the labels were being hysterical (well, they still are, but even more so then) about copyright infrigement after Napster. In any case, remember, just having a monopoly is not illegal. Abusing it is, and I don’t see how Apple, if it does have a monopoly, is abusing it by not supporting specific file types and not making their proprietary DRM available for license.
Finally, I have no sympathy for bad consumer choices. I’ve made them, others have made them, and you get to live with them. Besides, something like an iPod is really an ultimate luxury. And, in my opinion, “subscription” services are an absolutely awful choice. I don’t like DRM, but if I have to deal with it, I’d much rather deal with Apple’s, as it’s light, historically (not so much at the present moment) easily broken without having to go to the trouble of transcoding, and doesn’t spend all its time phoning home. I think, quite frankly, if you are interested in buying music online you are better off with the iTMS and thus an iPod than with any of the other stores available. As for whether the iPod is inherently better than, say, some of the good stuff made by iRiver, Rio, or Creative, that’s a personal opinion.
Well, I think it’s disputable, and I accept the occasional need for competition regulation. I’m just not convinced this situation rises to the need. At the very least, I’d give the situation a few more years to see if the market changes without intervention. iTunes have only been around since 2001, and runnable on the PC platform only since 2003. Seems like it’s still a volatile enough market that anything can happen.
Steve Jobs isn’t holding their loved ones in chains above a piranha tank to force them to adopt or continue this policy. If it results in “lockout”, that’s no fault of Apple’s.
AAC is not proprietary, it’s an industry standard. The protected AAC format is not proprietary either, it’s open source. Apple’s implementation of those standards through the iTunes Store is proprietary.
From what I understand of the issue (I’m not a programmer) all a download service has to do to compete with the iTunes Store is to deal in any format that the iPod handles (AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF) and make something that’ll be better than iTunes. If they don’t care about iPod compatibility, they can use whatever scheme they want.
If someone wants to play WMA files, they can buy something that’s compatible; there are plenty of other players out there, as every person who slams iPods points out. If another music download service does well enough that it’s a real competitive threat, Apple will either have to find a way to support that service’s files on the iPod or take a loss when people migrate to another player that will support WMA or whatever DRM scheme that new service uses.
Apple could have kept iTunes, the iPod, and the iTunes Music Store all compatible only with Apple computers and software, and I’ll bet that no one would have complained that they were competing unfairly. They didn’t, they included Windows compatibility, became successful, and only a few years later people are bitching about the success.
Don’t like it? Don’t buy their stuff. Find something else that does what you want. That’s what Macintosh people did for a long, long time while everyone was buying Windows.
From rayh’s article, I see that the ruling wants to make all proprietary systems, not just Apple’s, open up. It also points out that pretty much all of the download services have the same exact business model: lock the downloader into their software to use the service. In other words, there’s no reason at all to single out Apple for this practice.
Update: France backs down on iTunes DRM stance http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-6067585.html?part=rss&tag=6067585&subj=news
"The French government has apparently reconsidered a proposal to force Apple Computer to make the songs it sells through its iTunes Music Store playable on devices that compete with its iPods.
A French Senate committee has removed wording from proposed legislation that would have forced technology companies to license their digital rights management schemes, according to the Web site of The Inquirer. "