This case goes back a while …
Emails and a video deposition by Steve Jobs are likely to form key elements of the evidence in an iPod-related antitrust case against Apple which opens in California tomorrow, reports the NYT.
The case goes back more than a decade, to the time when iPods would play only music purchased from iTunes or ripped from CD, with consumers unable to play music bought from competing stores. The class action alleges that this amounted to anti-competitive behaviour, and that consumers were forced to pay higher prices as a result …
As in the long-running ebook anti-trust case, emails written by Steve Jobs are expected to form a significant role in the case.
Mr. Jobs’s emails and videotaped deposition taken before his death, plaintiffs’ lawyers say, will portray him as planning to break a competitor’s product to protect Apple’s grip on digital music.
“We will present evidence that Apple took action to block its competitors and in the process harmed competition and harmed consumers,” said Bonny Sweeney, the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer.
One email, sent by Jobs in 2003, related to Musicmatch at the time it was attempting to open a music store to compete with iTunes.
We need to make sure that when Music Match launches their download music store they cannot use iPod. Is this going to be an issue?
The case has taken a long time to get this far, combining multiple lawsuits from over 900 filings spanning more than a decade.
Apple will be bringing in the big guns to defend itself, fielding both Phil Schiller and Eddy Cue as witnesses. The company is expected to argue that it had the right to protect its music business from competitors, and that consumers benefited as the price of iPods have fallen over the years.
Apple has long described iPod as “a declining business,” sales down a quarter in its latest earnings report to just 2.6M, against 39.3M iPhones.
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cool
So the lawyers get richer still…! How is it anti competitive to sell something to someone who knows they can only use cd’s or music purchased from apple prior to buying it, then say they could not buy for someone else… Of course they could always buy music from elsewhere, in the form of a CD and then it would work on more than just MP3’s as well… Ridiculous…!!!
Really? Let’s put the nail in this coffin – there were other music players available at the time. No one was forced to buy an iPod. If they win anything but costs against them, I’ll be surprised.
So the question is what sort of formats original iPod supported? I took it for granted it was originally an MP3 player, so does this case doesn’t make any sense. But was it otherwise? Did original iPod only supported certain format or wouldn’t allow any other way to import files to iTunes back in the day? I find this difficult to Google-out.
Also, Steve’s email could be interpreted as “make sure we do not spend resources on supporting whatever format that store uses”.
Any and all MP3s would play on any iPpod, regardless of where it came from. Any and all AAC without DRM would also play. The iPod was ably to play pretty much anything that was remotely common at the time. Literally any music from anywhere.
What it would not play, and does not play now, is music protected with proprietary third-party DRM, and non industry standard formats like Ogg and FLAC, among other less common ones.
It is hardly Apple’s fault that other companies were unwilling to push their music in a compatible format.
Ok, looking at the internet archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20011024015856/http://www.apple.com/ipod/) looks like iPod was indeed MP3 player. So the question still stands whether original iTunes allowed MP3 imports. Even if it only worked with CDs – technically you could burns your MP3s to CD and rip them back or just use virtual CDs of some sorts.
I find this case not holding any value.
I think the argument here is the same presented by developers of Internet browsers who sued Microsoft (Windows Explorer) a couple years back for not including their browsers as a choice to consumers. If my memory serves me correctly Microsoft lost the argument. The Microsoft case was an Anti-Trust case as well.
I would argue that FLAC is an industry standard…
I had an original iPod. I ripped all my CD’s to go onto an iPod and took it overseas to Iraq & Afghanistan. It was amazing! I refused to buy digital music at the time, though, because there was no open standard. Each store was locking you into their DRM which could only play on certain players. There were other dumb restrictions like only being able to download the song 3 times, etc.
I had choices and I chose to vote with my wallet. Nobody forced me into anything.
This is one of my problems with movies. I burn my own movies from DVD/Blu-Ray because buying from stores locks me into their specific stores and players or restrictions like need to always be connected to internet.
So I can sue Ford because their fender won’t fit on my Honda? Therefore their parts are proprietary and therefore a monopoly?
Oh, you can put a Ford fender on a Honda. It may not fit well.
That wasn’t the case here though so your analogy is all wrong.
Nice try.
Ugh… DRM, burn it with fire! Even coffee pods these days have DRM. http://www.slashgear.com/keurig-2-0-pod-drm-will-lock-out-unofficial-coffee-pods-03319137/
Why aren’t these people suing the record companies who forced Apple to implement this DRM in the first place?
Just playing devils advocate.
The email is sent to who? marketing or hardware?
In it he says that “they”, meaning Music Match and talks about the launch specifically. So it may refer to promotional material from Music Match.
Music Match cannot name the iPod as a supporting device at launch.
This is as stupid as Sony suing Microsoft because you can’t play an Xbox game on a PS4…