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Again you are missing the point. We all know iTunes songs are marketed as a companion to the iPod. Were they also marketed as a plain old MP3 at any point. If so then the consumer has an expectation that any MP3 player will work.

Microsoft markets box games as a Xbox companion all the time. Do they also market it as a plain old game that will work with any system? No they do not.

guess what, you could use them with other MP3 players, I used them with my nokia and sony model phones, so is this a non story or is it compensation for stupidity....
 
Don't understand this mad situation one bit.
Years ago at the start, one could buy an iPod and download music from iTunes in AAC format with DRM that had to be used due to getting record companies to place they music online on iTunes,
first time ever no market existed before Apple's iTunes,

the iPod allowed any of the older MP3 (MPEG 1 Layer 3) Layer 3 files to be uploaded onto the device, in MPEG 4 that audio codec was replaced with a more advance codec AAC. So MP3 players were yesterday stuff like the Walkman.

The iPod was in fact a AAC Player with backward compatibility. Now comes the part were I don't get it at all.

If you downloaded a AAC file from iTunes one could create a CD of it and could then Rip to MP3 format that I myself did in them days and one could place them MP3 files on a old MP3 Player, so why do they think it harmed the MP3 player market?

Also claimed you could not transfer when you could is beyond me, perhaps these CEOs of MP3 Player market were so old they did't understand the new Digital world at all.
 
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BS

It's the music labels that insisted on DRM. Apple ditched it as soon as they could.

I understand that the lawsuit is about the idea that the iPod didn't support multiple DRM formats but that was logistically impossible. Apple's deal with the labels allowed iTunes sales only as long as FairPlay wasn't hacked. Apple had to work non-stop to stay ahead of attempts to crack it.

There is no way that Apple could open up their hardware to multiple companies using multiple formats and expect to maintain the same level of security. (Security that was, remember, required by the music labels in exchange for the iTunes music store to exist.)

These people wanted a miracle and are crying because Apple couldn't pull it off. It wasn't possible.

EDIT: A great Gruber article from 2006 saying just about the same thing. His argument is a little different but the conclusion is the same:

http://daringfireball.net/2006/06/drm_interoperability

I was at first going to weigh in with something akin to Apple being guilty as charged/alleged but after reading the above post and in particular the supplied link I have to admit I have changed my mind and that I was originally wrong. I have never supported DRM for either music or software. I hope Apple win this one.
 
What next people suing Apple because their iMac won't run Windows natively without other software?

People were told up front the 'limits' of the iPod, them made the choice to buy it and I never found it an issue, don't want to use iTunes MS then buy the CD and rip it, case closed!
 
MR Article said:
whose emails and a videotaped deposition taken before his death...

mathews_huh.gif
As if there were an alternative?
 
My take is that this is nothing more than a 'wild card' play by some lawyers hoping to make it big. If they win and Apple have to reimburse a % of each sale, to the average consumer it's meaningless, but the law firm taking 10% of everything gets a big payday, afterall, 10% of billions of small % adds up to a lot!

In terms of the merits of suit, my recollection is that you could play any 'standard' format on the iPod. For many years I used some of those admittedy dubious Russian music sites (allofmp3 was one I think) and I could buy vanilla MP3s, import them into iTunes and then use them with my iPod.

Music purchased through iTunes was restricted to the iPod/iTunes application, but could be burned to CD for playback outside of the ecosystem. As many have pointed out this restriction was a requirement of the record labels.
 
Apple dragged the lawsuit out until Real Player was squashed and and Tim Cook can say, well it wasn't my decision. And besides we don't even make them anymore! HAHA!

Case dismissed.

Apple's so nice and kind. NOT!
 
Maybe I am missing what this lawsuit is about, but i dont see how it has any basis at all - Does a company really have to ensure that their device works with all services and formats - and is there really a law against blocking services?

If the above is true and this lawsuit wins - doesnt it open a whole flood gate for pretty much every product on the market?

Software is written for only Windows or Mac - can I sue for not running on other platform?

My DVD player does not play BluRay discs...

My Nintendo does not play XBOX/PS games...

Streaming media players only support certain online streaming services and block others (Amazon Prime VOD / HBOGo are missing from many) - and almost all do not support local media files and those that do only a handful of video formats are supported...

Comcast cable box does not support time warner cable or DirecTV....

The iPod is like a portable version of iTunes - especially in the beginning - so yeah it used to only play files from iTunes....
 
Apple dragged the lawsuit out until Real Player was squashed and and Tim Cook can say, well it wasn't my decision. And besides we don't even make them anymore! HAHA!

Case dismissed.

Apple's so nice and kind. NOT!

HAHA! I forgot about RealPlayer - a perfect example - I remember a portable device that would only play RealPlayer files bought from the Real Music Store- where is the lawsuit against Real?
 
HAHA! I forgot about RealPlayer - a perfect example - I remember a portable device that would only play RealPlayer files bought from the Real Music Store- where is the lawsuit against Real?

I agree Apple is getting picked on because the iPod can play many different formats and MP3 from it's competitors and had the iTunes Music store and so they complained.

So if I have a bus pass can I sue the Taxi firms for not accepting my bus pass?
 
When was the last time you bought a CD?

I haven't in years and like most people I know, I get my music online.

I bought one Saturday, Nov. 29, 2014. Although I am slowly shifting towards digital media, I still like to own physical albums for the artists I really like. I don't fully trust our digital overlords to make our cloud purchases permanent over the course of our lifetimes, so I prefer something tangible if the media is really important to me.

You don't buy CD's anymore? That's fine. However, your experience does not entitle you to speak for everyone (unless you are a TV talk show pundit). :p
 
Did Apple ever claim or imply that music not ripped from CDs or purchased via iTunes could be played on an iPod? If not than I think this lawsuit is bogus. If a lawsuit like this are successful what's to stop someone from suing Apple because they can't install apps outside of the App Store on their iOS devices (without jailbreaking)?

The difference is that developers are still free to make those same apps for iOS.
 
I didn't buy Apple's DRM music because I didn't like the restrictions and purchased physical cd's instead. I fail to see the problem where such a choice existed.
 
Doesn't Sony and Microsoft do the same thing then with their games for the Playstation 4 and X Box? They require proprietary files for generic games (the games end up being ported to several systems, music files get converted to multiple file types with multiple DRMs) that are only able to run on their systems.

well said
 
Not really dirty tricks. But on the face of it, if I buy a mp3 player that is not an iPod, will all the songs I download from itunes work?

Yep. Convert them to the competing MP3 player format. Save/import to the app that will provide native support. The uploD to competing mo3 player. Done.

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I bought one Saturday, Nov. 29, 2014. Although I am slowly shifting towards digital media, I still like to own physical albums for the artists I really like. I don't fully trust our digital overlords to make our cloud purchases permanent over the course of our lifetimes, so I prefer something tangible if the media is really important to me.

You don't buy CD's anymore? That's fine. However, your experience does not entitle you to speak for everyone (unless you are a TV talk show pundit). :p

Yep with you. Afters years of downloading I'm reverting back to cd. Don't trust that ownership of digital files won't be removed.

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Don't understand this mad situation one bit.
Years ago at the start, one could buy an iPod and download music from iTunes in AAC format with DRM that had to be used due to getting record companies to place they music online on iTunes,
first time ever no market existed before Apple's iTunes,

the iPod allowed any of the older MP3 (MPEG 1 Layer 3) Layer 3 files to be uploaded onto the device, in MPEG 4 that audio codec was replaced with a more advance codec AAC. So MP3 players were yesterday stuff like the Walkman.

The iPod was in fact a AAC Player with backward compatibility. Now comes the part were I don't get it at all.

If you downloaded a AAC file from iTunes one could create a CD of it and could then Rip to MP3 format that I myself did in them days and one could place them MP3 files on a old MP3 Player, so why do they think it harmed the MP3 player market?

Also claimed you could not transfer when you could is beyond me, perhaps these CEOs of MP3 Player market were so old they did't understand the new Digital world at all.

Yep. You're spot on. ITunes provided the user to rip music to cd which you could import to place on any MP3 player. I know this as I did this myself. I also know this as people moved from iPod to archos which played MP3.
 
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This is a funny lawsuit*. The reason the iPod did well was because it was easy to use an iTunes was much better than Windows Media [songs still had the .wma at the end and editing tags was a pain]. It also ran AACs and MP3s quite happily, which meant by no means were you restricted to just buying stuff from the iTunes store and could theoretically buy songs from anywhere (including Napster at the time). The main issue (which for me, like others, was a non-issue) was that it didn't run WMAs, which RealPlayer and Microsoft stores sold their music in. They didn't run on the iPod, protected AACs didn't run on Zune's - it was competition, no antitrust here I'm afraid.

* Aren't most of them
 
Format wars

As old as electronically recorded music is the subject of format wars and competition.
It was the music industry that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age, or we'd all be buying Sony MiniDiscs or some other physically tethered music container format.

iPods had to carry DRM as mandated by the industry back then. Every corporation had their own way of locking down "purchased music", just like my CD player didn't come with an encoder to allow me to transport my past CD purchases to any MP3 player.

However, once ripped on any computer, PCs incl. you could choose to move your MP3s to any MP3 player incl. the iPod. You even had the choice of which format, AAC or MP3 among others. Once on the iPod the music moguls again demanded to implement barriers to disable easy sharing. Apple complied, but there were plenty of third-party software tools to allow you to extract non-DRM, CD-ripped tracks off of the iPod and onto anything else.

This is a frivolous lawsuit that's only about money and not righting a wrong, unless you extend the class action to included the titans of the media industry and the RIAA.

Currently we can still not play a iTunes purchased movie on anything but an iDevice unless you use certain 3rd party tools to circumvent that and of course there's a law against that.

So let's indite WB, Sony, RIAA, Universal, etc... for locking down your movie purchases more than ever during the VHS era.
 
Right, and that is what Apple is doing and I am not sure if that is in the best interest of the consumer.

I don't see where that is what Apple is doing. In any event, the best interests of the consumer really don't enter into antitrust law, which is all about the preservation of competition. It might be an article of faith that competition is good for consumers, ultimately, but the law does not directly concern itself with that.
 
Is Apple is guilty, isn't Sony as well?

How many devices has Sony released that require proprietary Sony software to use? Video cameras that record video in a format that only Sony's software can edit or work with.

Apple was promoting their own product and service, that is all. No case here.
 
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