“A good friend of mine recently sent me a 9-page argument for why he’s using Rhapsody rather than an iPod/iTunes, and why he’s sticking with Windows rather than trying out a Macintosh,” Leland Scott writes on the “Musings from Mars” blog. A quote from Scott’s friend:
It also appears to me that with the iPod and iTunes, Apple is engaging in just the kind of predatory behavior you accuse Microsoft of (i.e., refusing to license other manufacturers to produce players that play AAC songs). No surprise there; all corporations strive to be monopolists if they think they can get away with it. So far, Microsoft has simply been more successful.
“Now, where do you suppose my friend got this impression? It comes directly from the FUD (fear, uncertainly, and doubt) seeded by Microsoft and its minions who are trying to–but so far, thankfully, failing to–control the world’s digital music with a proprietary format called Windows Media Audio (WMA). An amazingly stupid example of this kind of FUD appears in a Time Magazine article this week called “Attack of the Anti-iPods” by someone called “Time Morrison.” (Do you think his/her first name is really “Time”? But that’s what it says here…) In this article, Ms./Mr. Morrison opens his/her analysis with a breezy reference to “the proprietary digital-music format that joins you at the hip to Apple’s iTunes online store” as one of the negatives of the iPod experience,” Scott writes.
“Now, I would have thought someone writing for Time magazine about digital music players would know better. In fact, it’s the fact that they don’t know better that makes me suspicious of their motives. Because, as a matter of fact, Apple does not have a proprietary digital-music format,” Scott writes. “The fact is that the company that has a proprietary digital music format is Microsoft, not Apple. Microsoft’s format is known as Windows Media Audio, or WMA. Unlike AAC, which is an industry standard not owned by a single company, WMA can only be licensed from Microsoft, and Microsoft alone gets the fees from that licensing. It costs developers nothing to license AAC for use in software products, and use of AAC as a consumer keeps you from once again tying your technological future to a single company–that is, Microsoft.”
In his article, Scott reminds us that “you don’t have to use the iTunes music store just because you have an iPod” and that he thinks that the “Time writer was being phony on other fronts as well. For example, the iPod can play many formats other than AAC–in fact, it can play virtually all industry-standard digital music formats.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Time Magazine pops iPod’s ‘pimples’ and examines ‘fetching’ new iPod ‘killers’ – April 04, 2005
The de facto standard for legal digital online music files: Apple’s protected MPEG-4 Audio (.m4p) – December 15, 2004
So now that everyone knows that Apple will not support any hacks from Real or anyone else, will everyone continue to use iPod? Or will they eschew the platform for some other product and format? How upset is everyone that Apple has dared to provide a ground-breaking product that work perfectly and fills a market niche previously unknown to Real or MS?
Apple is a capitalist company. They don’t owe anything to Real or MS, and they are NOT obligated to anyone to maintain the hacks of other companies. If you want your iPod to stay the same as when you bought it, don’t update it.
Ted max, “jumped all over you” ? boy, you must be new to the forum
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Let me remind you your own words
“unfair practices by Apple”
“Whether Apple’s DRM scheme is monopolistic or not is a subtle question”
“people crow about how great it is that Apple totally dominates the MP3 player market, but get all upset that Microsoft dominates the computer market”
“we are being a little hypocritical”
Concerning the skin cream: “it makes my skin crawl”
Either you have problems with English or I do. I cannot see from your post anything but talking about how unfair it is that Apple only allows iTMS to support the iPod or that the iPod does not support… what is missing on its supported formats… ah yes WMA. Or that you cannot use the iPod with other wanna-be web-sites jumping like mushrooms on the internet. Right. So you are questioning a manufacturer for not using, or be interfaced to services that have great potential to ruin the quality of the product. Good.
So, with your comments above you were not hinting that Apple are using monopolistic practices, or unfair, or leveraging on its dominion like Microsoft does on the computer market “Why is domination good for one company and bad for another?”. Right.
Back on topic? Exactly, back again on monopolistic practices “remember Internet Explorer and Windows?”. Ted, looks like I understand your English better than you do. Here you go again.
Re-read the MONOPOLY definition, please. It is not at all fuzzy to layers. They see pretty well the difference.
Now, if you want to start discussing simply why the iPod and iTMS are tied together, that’s a totally different issue than all your previous comments.
It all relies on quality of service. First, the iPod is not forced to use iTMS. Any MP3 downloaded by other services can play on the iPod. Wait, the other services only sell you WMA? K, so you are asking Apple to pay Microsoft royalties for its proprietary format of a worst quality than MP4 (aka AAC). Right.
The actual question would be why Apple is not letting others use its DRM so to deliver directly to the iPod. Those services do NOT, and declare they will NOT (remember Real?) work on the Mac or native on OS X. So, the question really is “Why at Apple are not all idiots and do not shoot their foot on a daily base?”.
When Real was told – essentially – by Apple “not on a Mac? then not with the iPod” Real replied by cracking Apple DRM. Right. Why oh why then Apple did not reply “Oh Glaser, you clever. You won. Here is the gold key to the iPod”.
So, which of the two topics are we discussing about? Monopolistic unfair practices by Apple, or Apple not being nice with its consumers by not letting the iPod become another Rio, “play for sure” not?
In case you do not know, no one has to pay Apple royalties to use and let you download AAC format tunes: it is MP4. In Japan they are doing that already: you download music on your mobile phone, and then play it on the iPod.
AAC is open. Are you starting to see now how it is working in that market and why Apple is so tight? If they wanted to, EVERYONE could TODAY sell you MP4 music instead of WMA. Open standard instead of Microsoft proprietary format.
If Motorola can do it, the real question is why all others still stick to Microsoft WMA? Do you really need an answer?
Real did not “crack” the DRM. They reverse-engineered it, which btw is entirely legal. As much as I dislike Real as a whole, to say they are on the same level as crackers (or “hackers” as the OP put it, once again completely misusing the word) is utterly ludicrous. Crackers break into machines or create dangerous programs with malicious intent to cause harm to others. Real was attempting to enhance the options available to iPod owners. Did anyone ever stop to think about the fact that people with non-iPod players could purchase from iTMS, use Real’s tool to convert and maybe be so impressed with iTunes that they purchased an iPod? Granted it’s a long shot but there was no reason for Apple to break the compatibility except they want to keep the walled garden walled. It’s the same reason AOL uses a proprietary mail system as opposed to POP3.
Apple subsequently consciously making a change to break the compatibility smacks of, yes, there’s that word again, monopolistic behavior. If Apple were to reverse-engineer Microsoft’s DRM to allow encrypted WMA tracks to play on the iPod, and Microsoft made a change to break the compatibility, the lot of you would be screaming bloody murder.
tubedogg: Microsoft owns the legal rights to their DRM. You have to pay them in order to use that format. You cannot ‘legally reverse engineer it’ and use without your consent.
Apple owns the legal rights to Fairplay, the DRM they put on AAC format. You cannot ‘legally reverse engineer it’ and use it without their consent.
Glaser asked to use it, Apple said no, Glaser reversed engineered it without their consent, and said “up yours”.
It’s not “bloody murder”, it is “you cannot do it”. Period. DRMs are proprietary and require you to pay a license to use it and no existing EULA in the world give anyone the right to reverse engineer a product for which you are supposed to pay fee or get an agreement and use it without the copyright owner consent. And that *legally*.
“consciously making a change to break the compatibility” LOL, “monopolistic behavior” ROFLMAO. Than exactly the opposite lad. Monopolistic behavior is when you FORCE competitors to use your techonology, not preventing any and the others to reverse engineer your product and re-use it without your consent.
LOL, you guys are way too funny. Talk to a business layer about monopolistic practices. ROFLMAO
WOW, this is even more funny: “If Apple were to reverse-engineer Microsoft’s DRM to allow encrypted WMA tracks to play on the iPod, and Microsoft made a change to break the compatibility”
ROFLMAO, if Apple were to do that, it would be closed next day with thousands of Microsoft layers dismantling the very walls of Cupertino HQ.
Are you REAALLLLY that naive?
Magic MDN word “yes” as in: Yes, I really see you have no clue.
even more naive: “Real was attempting to enhance the options available to iPod owners”
LOL, Real was attempting to drive iPod owners to spend money on their service in that other MP3 players owners are not profitable. And tried to do that without required explicit consent to use proprietary Apple DRM Fairplay, which is COPYRIGHTED. Do you get the meaning of *copyright* or not?
“Did anyone ever stop to think about the fact that people with non-iPod players could purchase from iTMS”
How many other players, in addition to the iPod, play MP4 (aka AAC) in your world? They could not buy from iTMS even with the explicit consent from Apple in that they DO NOT SUPPORT AAC, that’s an open not proprietary format. They support WMA for the most.
In addition to that, the MP4 iTMS sells you comes with a DRM, called Fairplay, proprietary of Apple, that has legal rights to use it. You have to have explicit consent from Apple in order to use it and distribute music protected by Fairplay DRM, an Apple copyrighted DRM technology.
So there are two steps for others to sell to iPod owners:
1) distribute music in a format supported by the iPod. Hint: no WMA in that Apple would have to pay MS for that.
2) Pay Apple for a license to use Fairplay. Refusing the license to use a technology is not a monopolistic action. Forcing competitors to use a specific technology of which you are the only, exclusive provider, in order for a competitor to enter that specific market, otherwise impossible to enter, IS a monopolistic practice.
Apple refusing the license to Fairplay is not forcing competitors out of any market. The iPod is not a market, is a specific product.
Since people like car analogies, it is the same of screaming “monopoly” if FORD happens to make a car model everyone want and forbid HONDA to copy it and sell it as well.
Do your OWN CAR.