A decision to watch...
 

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For decades there has been a focus on Microsoft’s questionable business practices. There was a time when the US government’s anti-trust authorities threatened to break up the company. Then, of course, the White House changed hands and under a new Attorney General, pressure in the courts relaxed.

For years the European Union has been threatening to slap Microsoft with even greater fines (they’ve already paid $ 690,000,000), if the company does not convert to what EU authorities and courts consider acceptable business practices.

Now a decision is due: more here and in this analysis .

The issue is simple:
What are the limits to the behaviour of a dominant company to its rivals?
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MS lost
 

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Microsoft lost its appeal.

Right on!

Maybe M$ can now incur some nice fat fines for the horror otherwise known as Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Worth noting, before we attack MS over this, is the impact this case will have on other companies. Not just MS.

The iTunes/iPod relationship, for example.

Dunno if Safari can be counted (It's included with OS X, but not integrated into the OS as IE is). But that's one. NovaScotian said another (iTunes/iPod).

Anyone remember the Eolas case? We are sort of on similar ground here.

I don't think so. You can use iTunes without the iPod and the iPod without iTunes. They don't need to be separated because they already are.

The important point that a lot of people seem to have forgotten is that M$ has a monopoly, and that it was abusing that monopoly. That is against the law in both the EU and the US, and M$ lost both cases (still on appeal in the US I think).

The examples listed above don't sound like companies with monopolies, and so the ruling doesn't apply.

Some reflections on the EU court decision
 

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There are European countries, including Norway (not an EU member), that have making noise about iTunes. And it could be argued that Apple has a very dominant position in online music.

However, one is not entirely "locked" with iTunes/iPod. And file formats can be converted. Furthermore, I think the option of non-DRM music changes the picture somewhat.

And on top of that, iTunes is hardly inseparable from the OS. It even exists in both OSX and Windows versions. (A nice move.)

This is not some "queer and quaint socialist", draconian European legal decision, as I have seen some suggest elsewhere.

As Bramley points out, Microsoft is considered to be in transgression, of not just European Union Directives (law), but American law as well! The Yankees just haven’t pursued the cases with steepest consequences quite as diligently. (And I’m not thinking about the case now being appealed, but before that.)

I have not studied the analyses of the EU legal decision in detail, but there is little indication that it is unreasonable, IMHO.

Nevertheless there are Microsoft defenders with the strangest pipe dreams -- such as suggest that Redmond tell Brussels and The Hague to "shove it", and simply drop the sale of Windows in Europe.

Nice thought, though. :)

-- ArcticStones
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Given that the US has a population of 303M reasonably well-educated folks, and the EU if 493M of the same, I don't think they'll tell the EU to "stuff it".

I would tend to disagree. This is currently an issue of contention in Europe, where several parties are trying to force Apple to open up its DRM so that iTunes music can be played on something other than an iPod. This requires Apple to open up its DRM, which it is refusing to do.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070122-8676.html

Just because third party apps exist to (illegally?) circumvent Apple's DRM to allow iTunes protected purchases to play on other players, doesn't mean that the iPod and iTunes aren't married together. Until the bulk of Apple's iTunes library is available DRM free, anyone can argue that for practical intents and purposes (which includes the majority of lay-users) iTunes is locked to the iPod.

It's kinda sad that in small countries like Romania that have been under communism until late '80 or early '90, the word 'Mac' or 'Apple' doesn't really exist. I lived there for 12 years, and until I came to the US, I didn't even know there was another computer other then Windows. There is probably barely a Mac every 100 sq kilometers in Romania, and that is because last year Apple lunched a Romanian version of the Apple website, and a Romanian Apple Store. Though in Romania almost anyone has a computer, they are all Windows running PC's. The only thing Apple is famous for in Romania, is it's iPods, most people have no idea that Apple makes computers, and not iPods. It's not that people don't like Apple computers, it's just that m$ has been around for much longer, and has become a 'way of life' for a person that buys a computer. It's not that they have to choose between something else. It was really sad to go to Romania this summer and having to use an old Pentium 3 computer with 128MB RAM, running Windows Millennium (it was my dad's 'super-cool' computer that was left behind when I moved to US)...



P.S. Romania entered the European Union in January of 2007, so in your face Norway! (lol, joking :D)

The DRM is only there because of the record labels, and the DRM free music can work with the iPod or other players, so once again there is no iTunes - iPod lock in. If you don't like DRM, talk to the labels.

Wdympcf has a point...
 

Nevertheless Wdympcf has an important point, because Apple is not allowing other music player producers to make devices that play their proprietary AAC format. And the last time I checked, you couldn’t purchase tunes from the iTunes Store in mp3 format.

This situation does arguably create a certain iTunes – iPod lock, although it certainly isn’t absolute. Precisely this inflexibility is the crux of objections raised by Norwegian consumer protection authorities, as well as those of certain other European nations. You may scoff at them, but I don’t think they are entirely irrelevant.

However, this strategic advantage and the way Apple has played it, seems a far cry from the practices that Microsoft has engaged in. At least according to prosecutors in both the European Union and in the United States of America.

You are confusing the issue. The issue is not DRM free music. And the issue is not the record labels (although I do take issue with the fact that they insist on DRM). The issue that is being discussed is the whether the iTunes/iPod relationship can be considered a locked relationship or a monopoly of sorts. Let's focus on that and leave our dislike of DRM and greedy record labels out of it.

The iPod has the lion's share of the market for MP3 players. iTMS has the lion's share of the market for online music sales. The majority of music available for purchase online cannot be purchased without DRM. iTMS DRM'd music can only be played on iPods. DRM'd music from other online stores cannot be played on the iPod.

Since iTMS dominates online music sales and iTMS DRM'd music can only be played on iPods, other brands of MP3 players have a severe disadvantage in the marketplace against the iPod. Since the iPod dominates MP3 player sales and DRM'd music from other online music stores cannot be played on the iPod, other online music stores have a severe disadvantage in the marketplace against iTMS.

These disadvantages will be relevant to the companies involved until online DRM-free music becomes broadly available. The point that NovaScotian was making is that many (especially the companies at a market disadvantage to Apple's technology) would consider this a monopoly of sorts. Apple can leverage its massive iTunes catalogue to sell iPods and leverage its huge iPod penetration to sell iTunes DRM music, thus effectively stifling competition.

The issue will be moot if and when DRM is gone, but as long as DRM shrouds the majority of music available online, it is a potential issue.

Note: I was busy writing this while ArcticStones posted his reply!

AAC is NOT their proprietary format. Any player can use AAC.
The iTMS dominates music sales because the other online stores are terrible. That isn't Apple's fault, and they shouldn't be forced to provide their competition with a decent store. Would you expect Walmart to provide shelf space for their competitors?
True, and DRM isn't Apple's fault either.

Yes I agree there are many problems that occur with in this type of technology that make it not only hard on the consumer but not fair. For example, Apple only supports its products. So, if you buy an iPod you better use iTunes or you get no support. Then iTunes doesn't even support all formats out there. What if you want to take advantage of some of the very nice and very free (and DRM free I might add) lossless audio codecs out there, that have tremendous compression rates. FLAC for example. You are stuck buying a product. I hate it when Mac people say, "Oh well I don't support large companies like Microsoft." Or they type it out like M$, or windoze...

Yeah, if you support Apple you are just supporting another big company, and on top of that a closed platform. I am not saying MS is innocent, but some of their products are actually good.

Sure there is Linux support for iPods, and there are haxies out there that let you get around the basic designs of itunes. Or how about how you can't download itunes with out installing and downloading Quick Time. Hmm, Apple this reminds me of what MS did with IE.

Also, Apple won't give us tech people virtualization. I went to some Leopard server training last week and during one of the breaks I had a conversation with two Apple engineers giving the training about virtual machines and OS X. They asked me why I would even need virtual machines. I stopped for a second and was thinking to myself, this is a trick question. Why not use virtual machines, I can list 1,000 reasons why they are so useful all sorts of people and that is not always exclusive to the IT crowd. They said, buy our hardware. This is a total MS move on their part. I don't care how you cry and whine how apple is a hardware company and making their OS virtual will lose sales. NO! It will increase sells, it gives people more flexibility, more flexibility means more interest, more interest means more sales. Hell, make it so Apple virtual machines only run on Apple hardware, I don't care! GIVE ME VIRTUAL MACHINES!!! At that point an alien burst out of my chest and ran rapidly around the conference room out of frustration. I mean, I understand you are there to sell your company, cool I get it. However, tunnel vision answers don't please your customers.

Not exclusive to record labels, DRM is in everything these days. What do you think software activation is? It is a form of DRM.

I'll vouch for that's being exactly what I meant.

Edit: I'll go a step further and add that that was the way several European governments saw it too.

cwtnospam, you are still missing the point. If Apple opens up its DRM to all the other MP3 player manufacturers out there, then those MP3 players would be able to play iTMS purchases too. That would force the iPod to compete directly with other players, and it would have to survive on its own merits. If Apple opens up its DRM to other music stores, then those music stores could sell iPod compatible downloads too. That would force iTMS to compete directly with other stores, and it would have to survive on its own merits.

If both the iPod and iTMS are as superior as you say, then they should maintain their dominant market position even with direct competition. At the moment, it is debatable whether that direct competition can exist.

This is not about whether it is Apple's fault or not (so please stop jumping to their defense like I'm attacking them - I happen to like Apple). If Apple didn't have a dominant market position in both areas, this wouldn't be an issue at all - they could market the iPod and iTMS in any way that they wanted. The fact is, though, that Apple does have a dominant market position and as a result they have to make sure that they are not engaging in anti-competitive practices.

Incidentally, I think that ArcticStones meant to say "their proprietary DRM crippled flavour of the AAC format". Just paraphrasing here.

No, you're missing my point. The iPod by itself is just a good music player with a good interface. The iTMS by itself is just a good place to get music at a fair price. It's the combination that makes a great product, and no company should be required to help their competitors make better products. The fact is that the iTMS and iPod are in direct competition with all other music players and their stores. Some people have a problem with the fact that the iPod/iTMS combination is winning against them all, but winning isn't anti competitive.

Okay, then why is it so hard to get other purchased music online from other music stores on your ipod? What if you want an iPod but want to purchase them from a different online store and use iTunes?

You are forced into a product.

You don't even have to buy the songs from iTMS, you can get them from where ever else. I, myself, just add the songs that I download from CD's and internet to my iTunes library, and then drag and drop it into the iPod.

Because of DRM, and probably also because the other music stores just aren't very good. There are lots of people developing software who shouldn't be. Just one look at most corporate software demonstrates that.

Or because Apple makes it hard for the iPod to work with napster or RealMusic store. I know things have changed recently but in the beginning it was ITMS or whatever. Felix, I know it is possible to rip music of your own, or to copy DRM free music, but what about music you buy from a different online store?

I refuse to purchase online music until they completely remove DRM. I also think the iPod should be pure drag n drop. It should mount as an external drive and you just drag all your music in your ipod (arranged by folder, with support for several folders deep) and be done with it. The iRiver does this, but too bad it doesn't have the UI of like a touch screen iPod or iPhone. However, from what I have read online the iRiver has pretty good reviews.

But it isn't up to Apple to make the iPod work with somebody else's music store. It's up to that store to make software that works with all mp3 players including the iPod.

Drag and drop is great for the technically minded, or those who want to manually manage their music collections, but that's a very small percentage of users.

No, it is kind of up to the developer of the product to supply a SDK, at least that is my standard understanding of how that market works. Apple doesn't so they can dominate the market and seal you into their product. Smart marketing, but its the same thing MS does.

Yeah, I am going to say that nothing is easier than drag n drop.

I buy from the iTunes store because 1. It works with my iPod, and I'll never ditch my iPods, 2. The DRM isn't as restrictive as most and it leaves plenty of loopholes that can be taken advantage of, and 3. It feels better than others.

There's two ways to look at that. On the one hand, firefighters often use fire to fight fires, and make no mistake, the mp3 wars is an Apple vs Microsoft battle.
On the other hand, what's to stop another vendor from developing an iTunes plugin that takes the DRM free songs they sell and puts them into iTunes? Certainly not Apple.

For a small collection, sure. A big collection takes more than drag n drop. It requires organization, and that's what iTunes is for.

Okay, i see your point there. But I despise and disagree with how iTunes organizes my music. I hate how if it is hip hop they list all the sampled artist. I have a Wu Tang song that samples Biggie Smalls, and they freaking put him as an artist. They don't even sample his voice, it is the beat. Now iTunes thinks it is a biggie smalls song, and this drives me nuts to no end. I refuse to let iTunes organize my music. Or lets say that its a rock song featuring some other artist on vocals, iTunes will try to associate that song with the other artist, even though it was released on a different album and published under a different artist.

My music is strictly organized by this structure and this is way I prefer it. Root level directory is a folder called 'Music', then there are sub directories of albums organized by artist's name and then sorted alphabetically. So, my Wu Tang song that samples a Biggie Smalls beat is under the Wu Tang folder and I know exactly where it is. If I want to find a specific album, I open up that artist's folder then I simply choose the album. This also acquaints me with what songs are on what album, so when I decide to spend some money on ebay I can buy it on vinyl. Yes, I am a record nerd. I have over 200 vinyl records and I like to get music digitally, learn about it, then go out and buy the album.

In all honesty winamp is the best mp3 player I have ever found and it only runs on windows which is a shame. It has a 'play folder' feature which allows me to play either a whole album or whole artist, or multiple folders if I select so. It also takes up very little resources and has a very customizable interface. I mean I can download 1000s of themes for it.

Sure, I probably don't fall into the 'everybody' category when it comes to music collections and organization. However, this is how I have always done it since the very beginning years ago when MP3 was first developed and then massively shared over the internet. I am a collector and like to collect whole albums and I like how I organize it, it is efficient for me to do it this way. iTunes, iPods, and the ITMS does not allow me to accomplish this. I wish it was more flexible, not how Apple thinks you want it, how you think you want it.

Use Smart Playlists. Seriously. I'm not big on manually organizing my music, but Smart Playlists can be addictive. It's amazing the things you can do with them. Where the files are actually stored or what iTunes labels them as scarcely matters if you use them.

I've tried smart playlists, I am anal about it because I run rsync scripts to back up music from machine to machine remotely. I like everything to be organized where I put it, not how some program wants to organize it. Like I said, i am not a typical user, I care about small things like this.

However, now that the iphone is unlocked and cheaper, I may be getting one soon, plus I may be working part time at the local apple store and an employee discount would help me want one more. The thing is, I just want to push my music over wireless and not even deal with ever touching my iphone (or ipod) with the itunes client. it bugs me, and it makes me not want to use itunes.

I mean I am the type of user where I don't have any extra icons on my desktop. The first thing I do on a user's machine is grab all the icons and files on their desktop, and toss them all in one folder called "stuff" or whatever on the desktop. I can handle a folder or two but that is it. I guess you could say I am OCD about digitally organizing data, haha.

I guess that's the part I'll never understand. I know there are others that feel this way too, but I just don't get it.

You could spend tons of time organizing folders of songs the way you like them, but you could do the same thing with each block of every file you store on your hard drive too. I just don't see a benefit to doing either. What matters in the end is how easily you can get to the files you need, not where or how they're stored.

I am just OCD about my digital files is all. When you streamline everything to your preference and finely tailor the details of how you want it, you tend to stick with that method because it works for you. My whole music collection is synchronized (a bit over 40gigs in size) between several desktops and one laptop, and of course my file server. I use one machine to rip new music, with the codecs and quality I want then I sync it to my other machines. For example a few weeks ago I did some work for Anodyne Records. They are a good customer because they pay me in cash, put me on the guest list of local concerts, and pay me in merchandise. So they gave me a new copy of the Meat Puppets new album on their label for helping out with their computers (I had restored back ups of their financial data, pretty important stuff). I take it home and do what I do with every CD I buy or obtain through bartering, and I ripped it on my Linux box in FLAC. Then I converted an extra set of the FLAC to high quality VBR MP3 files, leaving the FLAC intact on my Linux box. Then using rysnc with the -u flag I sync my whole music directory to my other Macs and PCs. I have a 5.1 sound system shared through a KVM switch, so I need all my systems to have my complete music collection. The -u flag only copies new files (or it updates) to the remote sync.

So as you can see I have a methodical system of redundant back ups and the ability to play music on any of my machines which shares my 5.1 speaker system via a KVM with audio support. There is a method to my madness, and this is the most optimal way for me to do what I want to accomplish.

Now I also run audio and video out of one computer into my TV and eventually want it to run out to a receiver and a really nice stereo system when I get around to spending several thousand dollars on that, but it is something I am planning for.

I like having back ups, just in case. Back ups are good. Then I can just re-run my rsync script if I have to blow out a machine or if I have to replace a faulty HD. It only takes a few moments to copy 40 gigs of music via the network, and if I get a partial recovery from a failure the -u tag only copies files that aren't already present.

Like I said, I am kind of OCD when it comes to this.

Tom, I understand your feeling about iTunes. The music isn't what I'm OCD about. I'm compulsive about my photos, and therefore have avoided iPhoto because of its proprietary method of importing and organising.

I'm okay with iTunes, because I don't much mind how it organises the files.

I want my images in folders, and the folders where I say. I back up things systematically.

I'll probably use iPhoto at times now that it can import as an alias rather than the true image, because it is pretty integrated with many other things which could be fun to use. But I prefer my own anal way of organising.

Do I hear an echo?
 

I hate to say it, cwt, but you’re sounding like Steve Ballmer.

Ow!

I can see how people might compare this to Windows and IE, but it really isn't the same at all. There's really only one thing stopping a competitor from selling songs for the iPod, and that's their own DRM, not anything Apple has done to keep them out. Heck, there are plugins to add audio interviews to albums in iTunes! How hard could it be to put songs in there too?

There are plenty of third party plug ins and applets for IE too, but that doesn't excuse how MS tries to lock you into a product. it is the same thing with the iPod and the ITMS

There is no way for IE plugins to allow you to use another browser on sites that require IE. Plugins for iTunes can allow you to use songs and other information from vendors other than the iTunes store with your iPod. It's not the same thing at all.

Firefox has an extension called run tab as IE, which opens IE in a firefox tab. IE also has java plug ins developed by third party to integrate it. Autodesk uses IE for all its online licensing, they develop their own tools for it.

You are referring to what is known as Active X, which is a MS only technology and only works in IE. Most web based companies have moved over to open source based technology that supports all platforms. MS is trying to lock you into that product, just like how Apple is with iPod and ITMS.

If you mean that Apple is locking you in by not writing the plugins for their competitors, I guess you're right. Why wouldn't you expect vendors like Creative to write the plugins?

Can you elaborate as to which plug-ins those are? Are they legal and do they support DRM? Because last I checked, Apple will not update their firmware to support anyone else's DRM. And Apple won't open up their DRM to anyone else. That blocks DRM'd music from other stores from being played on the iPod. The only way that I know of to play DRM'd music from other stores on the iPod is to use technology that violates DMCA, and thus is illegal (at least in the US).

If Microsoft said that they were not going to support Java in IE (ActiveX or nothing), and they refused to open up their API so that third parties could write plug-ins to add Java support to IE, then Microsoft would be acting in an anti-competitive manner. You could argue that it's not their fault that IE is the most successful browser. You could argue that it's the combination of IE and ActiveX that makes it such a "great" product. You could argue that Microsoft isn't responsible for writing their code such that other technologies can compete with them. You could also argue that web designers have a choice when designing their webpage (whether to support IE only code, or W3C compliant).

cwtnospam, you have used each and every one of these arguments (with the appropriate iPod and iTMS substitutions) to defend Apple and the iPod/iTMS relationship in this thread. However, none of those arguments hold water. The courts would still find that Microsoft acted in an anti-competitive manner. If the courts could find that Microsoft was acting anti-competitively, then they could just as easily find that Apple is acting anti-competitively in this case.

If you still can't see the logic here, you will need to go and review some anti-trust legislation and look at some prior rulings on anti-trust in order to see how governments view anti-competitive activities.

A Microsoft plug-in that I want!
 

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Plugins for Microsoft products? Yes, please!

I would like to plug a decent electronic dictionary into MS Word. Specifically the Oxford Dictionary (such as the one that ships with OSX) and Bokmålsordboka (a Norwegian dictionary) to replace Microsoft’s own word lists, which in my experience are of abominable quality.

I want to use these seamlessly for spell check, and more.

You would think this would be easy, right?
So did I. And yet I have found no solution.

A couple of years ago at MacWorld in San Francisco, I cornered a middle-upper level Microsoft employee and presented my wish, asking what was available. His answer? As far as he knew, nothing was – and according to him it simply wasn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Hopefully someone here can tell me that I am wrong, that he is wrong, and that there is a wonderful solution out there that I have somehow overlooked.

Best regards,
ArcticStones
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Check my previous posts in this thread for links that claim to allow audio to be added from other sources. Do they support DRM? Probably not, but I suppose they could if the developer desired it. That's my point, it's DRM that is the problem, not the iPod or iTunes.

Your logic is correct, but the comparison between the iPod and the internet doesn't hold. What Microsoft has done is use their power with large corporations to push highly proprietary ActiveX onto the web, forcing people who don't want to use Windows and IE into using them. I'm one of them.

There is nothing that Apple is doing that forces users of competing mp3 players to use the iTunes music store or use the iPod. If you have a Creative Zen, you can get all the same music anywhere but the iTunes store, and that doesn't harm you at all. I can't get to my corporate site on my Mac without using Windows through virtualization or emulation. That does harm me.

In retrospect only iPods work with ITMS, and your ipod doesn't support other online music stores. In fact Apple sued real media when they tried to add iPod support for their music subscription service. I think since then it has been rectified but only after a court case. Also, apple locks you in to their system. You can't even virtualize OS X, which is a huge pain in the ass for people like me, who regularly use virtual machines as a basis of which to test things, not to mention its benefits for the user base.

Every single MP3 playback device allows you to rip your own music DRM free, that is a non issue because every product allows that. Now, when you look at content online for purchasing music apple traps you in their platform.

Also, using your logic, it is your Corporations fault for designing a heavy active X website which you need access to.

Any store that sells DRM free music can work with the iPod.

Yes, it's their fault for being suckered into it, but it's still a much bigger problem, and not even close to being unique to this company.

I was referring to subscription music services, yahoo music, napster, and real's online audio store.

Well, if you want to talk about huge rip offs, let's talk about renting. :D