“An antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple on Dec. 31 charges the company with maintaining an illegal monopoly on the digital music market,” Thomas Claburn reports for InformationWeek.
“Plaintiff Stacie Somers, represented by attorneys Craig Briskin and Steven Skalet of Mehri & Skalet PLLC, Alreen Haeggquist of Haeggquist Law Group, and Helen Zeldes, alleges that Apple dominates the market for online video, online music, and digital music players and that its dominance constitutes a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The attorneys are seeking to have their lawsuit certified as a class action,” Claburn reports.
“The complaint against Apple claims that the company controls 75% of the online video market, 83% of the online music market, more than 90% of the hard-drive based music player market, and 70% of the Flash-based music player market,” Claburn reports.
“The complaint takes issue with Apple’s refusal to support [Microsoft’s] Windows Media Audio format.’Apple’s iPod is alone among mass-market Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format,’ it states, noting that America Online, Wal-Mart, Napster, MusicMatch, Best Buy, Yahoo Music, FYE Download Zone, and Virgin Digital all support WMA files,” Claburn reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A monopoly, which this isn’t anyway, is legal. It’s monopoly abuse that’s illegal. Where’s the abuse? iPods also play MP3, WAV, AIFF, among other formats. Where’s the exclusion? What is Apple supposed to do, support every also-ran, failed format in the world?
I would like to sue MicroSoft, because they have 91.79% of the OS market and I want to use it on my hairdryer. Those bastards…
@Steve516
Amen.
Stacie, Microsoft’s wonderous Zune plays WMA files. You don’t have to be locked into Apple’s awful proprietary scheme which dominates digital content. How anyone could let just one company rule the distribution and playback of media with their cold iron claws is beyond me, but hey, I rock a Zune. I’m one of the lucky ones who got out. I could sell you my Ditty. It plays WMA files too.
These are truly dark ages we live in and I salute Stacie’s fight to free all consumers from Apple’s ruthless tyranny. Finally out of the perhaps 100,000,000 maligned I-Pod sufferers one has the courage to take a stand. Keep up the good work and let’s hope Microsoft’s magnificent WMA format gets the chance it deserves.
Your potential. Our passion.™
“It takes a lot of money to launch a case like this. Who’s paying, I wonder?”
You can almost be certain it is not Stacie Somers. Of course win or lose the lawyers stand to make scads of money on this. Hmmm, wonder if Stacie is a lawyer?
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Ken
These people have it all backwards. iTunes does not exist as a method to drive iPod sales. iTunes is there so that people who purchased iPods have an online source for their music. If you want to buy music for your sandisk online, go to any other number of compatible services.
It’s like going to a Ford dealership wanting to buy parts for your Yugo. If you don’t want to go to a dealership, go to an auto parts store. That would be the equivalent of buying mp3s from an online source or ripping your own CDs.
@Bob
My wife almost choked on her licorice she laughed so hard when I read that to her.
iTunes will convert non-DRM WMA files to the open AAC format right within the application. So that pretty much blows most of their argument out of the water right there.
>GranitW wrote : WMA is proprietary(like a monopoly would have), Apple is using an open standard that they didn’t develop(aac).
Going by your poor logic, the developer must not use his or her format in order to avoid becoming a monopoly. That action would require them to sit and twiddle their thumbs until someone developed a format to their liking. Do you really want to continue arguing for this? It’s stupid!
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Apple’s Power via Monopoly
I suspect the reason content companies are targeting Apple is because of the bargaining power they’ve gained. Apple has been absolutely dominant on the consumer side of the content business. There’s no arguing that away.
The problems arise in the form of Apple being in a position to dictate terms to the content sellers. The content sellers have weak negotiating power and don’t get the prices they’re after (might be good for consumers) or the packaging and bundling they’re after.
And there lies the problems… Apple has an unfair advantage by controlling the distribution side of the content business.
one thought: if there are so many options supporting WMA, why not use those and leave Apple’s customers to their own choice? Looks like this woman was naughty and Santa didn’t deliver so she’s taking matters into her own hands.
I am going to sue Apple for refusing to support my own audio format. Chrissy’s Really Ossem Codec is superior in every way to AAC, and used on 100 percent of the computers in the Yak Herders & Public Works division of the nation of Burkina Faso, yet Apple stubbornly refuses to allow CROC files to be played on thje iPod.
Steve, you’ll be hearing from my people.
“Apple, however, deliberately designed the iPod’s software so that it would only play a single protected digital format, Apple’s FairPlay-modified AAC format,”
Unlike Microsoft, who generously includes support for Apple’s protected AAC files on its own line of Zune music pl–
Oh, wait a minute…
Remember the days when accusing Apple of a monopoly was the one of the most far fetched ideas ever?
How far we’ve come in 10 years.
Trace this lawsuit back to the stink and you’ll find M$ money… Guaranteed!
@And Then There’s This
“The highly overrated Steve Jobs . . .”
My 5700 shares of AAPL have increased 130%+ in value in the past twelve months thanks to Steve Jobs and his leadership of Apple, Inc. What have YOU (and the WinTrolls who live under the bridge with you) done that is even remotely comparable in that interval?
Yes, there is a “Steve” that is highly overrated, but his last name is BALLMER, you moron.
I accuse MacroSloth not supporting MP4 as everyone else does.
They have EMBEDDED the encoding under the WMV file format yet tweak things further such that ONLY Winblows Midia Glayer can only play it back.
FLIP 4 MAC is owned by MacroSloth…
The US Government should realize that EVERY thing good on the MAC has eventually or will be eventually be CONSUMED by MS hence a possible death to Mac development one day.
Toast – went to Roxio – and Roxio now owned by MS.
FireFox – Mozilla engine – code found to contain some lines of Explore – now owned by MS.
Flip4Mac – developed a bridge for WMA/WMV on Mac – now owned by MS.
There are other examples.
Slowly MS is eating away at Apple development and partners… WHO is the monopoly here.
Specially WHEN you consider Quicktime, iTunes, iPod, iTouch and iPhone work on BOTH platforms.
Apple has played pretty fair if you ask me.
92% market share on a Windows OS is not a monopoly
BUT 90% of a Media device is?
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Zune Tang gave me a interesting idea just days ago…
indirectly of coarse… if iTunes did sell WMV and WMA files as yet another offering – say for all those other media players… why would this be BAD?
I think it would be a GREAT move for APPLE!
BRILLIANT indeed. Apple DOES NOT need it’s PLAYER to accept the media format… but to offer the files it’s good business… business that could RAISE iTUNES to 100% market share!!!
WMV & WMA – go figure… crappy formats but if iTUNES did wish to sell them it wouldn’t be hard at all.
Careful what you wish for Craig Briskin, Steven Skalet, Alreen Haeggquist, and Helen Zeldes THIS could be settled and APPLE still would GAIN market worth.
Duh!
Huh?!
all files sold on itunes work on mac and pc
100%
are we really going to open this door?
IF WE DO
MICROCRAP SHOULD BE FORCED OUT OF BUSINESS
KILL KILL KILL
you fsck with apple to long, now we are going to kick your ass
SUCK IT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
@Steve516: But America is the most charitable country on earth. And that’s why we all have buckets of money to spend.
@And Then There’s This: Congratulations, you managed to type in 58 words that make absolutely no sense whatsoever, in English or any other language.
Steve Jobs is universally acknowledged to be the most valuable CEO on Planet Earth. If he were to be suddenly unavailable to Apple through sickness or accident, the company would immediately lose at least 25% of its value, and probably more. For reference, that would mean the evaporation of about $50 BILLION in stockholder value. That is roughly equal to the entire market value of Dell.
So, dude, I don’t know what solar system you inhabit, but I’d say it was probably impossible to overstate or over-rate the importance of Steve Jobs.
And while buzz has an effect on the day-to-day price of a stock, long term growth — say, the kind that Apple has consistently experienced since the return of Jobs — only happens when you are building long-term value. As an Apple stockholder since 2001 (paid $9 a share), I am very, very pleased with Steve’s leadership and the diversification of Apple’s product portfolio.
You and Laura Whats-her-name, who put a sell on Apple at $111, ought to get together. You are obviously both clueless.
@MPC Guy is obviously “limited” in his knowledge of things technical.
I don’t have an iPod, and I’m sitting in a bar “taking my iTunes purchases with me”.
If you’d like me to spell out for you how I’m doing it, I can, but I’d prefer it if you’d engage your brain for a minute and take a few guesses.
(hell, my 11 year old nephew figured it out)
@ Military Police
I haven’t received my buckets yet. How do I get those?
Just a bunch of lawyers looking for a buck!
Apple didn’t create the mp3 format?!
Why don’t the lawyers go after real monopolies like Oil Companies, Banks, Rupert Murdoch …
… or are they too CHICKENS#!T ?
This lawsuit is BS, big time. Apple stockholders have nothing to fear. Why doesn’t someone sue Microsoft for not coming out with a Mac version of Microsoft Access ? Isn’t that the same type of situation ? If that were the case, Apple could sue every manufacturer of software that hasn’t been made theirs Mac compatible !
This has the smell of Microsoft all over it. The judge should dismiss this suit and imprison the lawyers for creating frivolous lawsuits that delay people with legitimate lawsuits from being heard in court, while a judge wastes his valuable time with this crap.
Apple HAS the market share they have because the public has given it to them. Apple does NOT control the market. They influence only, as an entity with the level of market share has earned. There is a big difference between being popular and a monopolistic robber-baron. I hope Apple does pay these guys to go away; I hope they bury all the attorneys that thought up this frivolous lawsuit.
Adobe has done so but learned quickly.
But what has Microsoft done for Mac.
Office still works, an older version of Windows Media Player is available, but Explorer was vapourized.
Microsoft CHOOSE to stop Mac development.
They gave then took away.
Any software company can do it… but that should be noted as illegal. If a company can prove they are loosing money on a particular platform then perhaps it is ok… but to cancel development for strategic reasons should be further investigated.
Maybe this is why FireFox is owned by MS then.
But to gain some customers in software, and have them locked into using the applications – specially software that is purchased… like Adobe Premiere or AfterEffects then to stop the development leaves a lot of customers hanging dry… forcing them to flee to a different OS… that is MONOPOLISTIC practices… this is where MS is involved too and indirectly and directly.
RON