Apple sued over iTunes
p2pnet.net News:- Apple’s insistence on drastically restricting the playability of music downloaded from iTunes has come back to bite it.
Again.
Thomas Slattery is an iTunes user who claims he was, "also forced to purchase an Apple iPod" if he wanted music to go, says Reuters.
So Slattery is suing Apple for unspecified damages.
As the world, with RealNetworks to the fore, knows, mp3s downloaded from iTunes at an exorbitant $1 a go will only play on systems stipulated by Apple, iPods and computers being two such.
Well, that’s not quite true, actually.
During the summer, Apple was "stunned" when RealNetworks "adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker" by launching Harmony, an application specifically designed to allow Real users to buy mp3s from the RealPlayer Music Store and play them on an iPod and other portable music players.
And before Harmony came Hymn, which lets people play iTunes downloads on anything they choose, not to speak of Jon Lech Johansen’s FairKeys, "a tool which lets you retrieve your FairPlay keys from Apple’s servers".
True to form, Apple tried to nail both.
Now, "Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa," Slattery charges, according to the Reuters story, adding that Apple "declined to comment".
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See:-
forced – Lawsuit Claims Apple Violates Law with iTunes, Reuters, January 6, 2005
ethics of a hacker – Apple and Real hack it out, p2pnet, July 31, 2004
Hymn – Return of Playfair, p2pnet, May 11, 2004
January 6th, 2005 at 5:39 pm
1. Thomas Slattery needs to get a life. The last thing this world needs in another lazy bastard trying to sue his way into infamy and riches.
2. Thomas Slattery needs to take 5 minutes of time and learn how to use iTunes. He’d quickly discover that he can burn a CD from iTunes and then rip it using a myriad of software tools, including those provided by other services like Microsoft, Sony, Virgin, Real, etc.
Idiot.
I just hope the judge in the case is a Mac user.
January 6th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
Apple doesn’t sell mp3s. They sell FairPlay-protected MP4s (AAC format). These files will play on any PC or Mac capable of running iTunes. iTunes can also create non-DRM’ed MP3 or AAC files from your CDs which are NOT copy protected, and the MP3s will play on ANY portable.
The only restricted files are those purchased from the iTunes music store. You’d have to be pretty clueless not to realize that the iTMS files will only play on an iPod portable, it’s stated by Apple in no uncertain terms. How many files did this guy buy, anyway, before he realized that it won’t play on a Rio?
1- You won’t be able to buy legal music without DRM. It ain’t gonna happen.
2- Apple’s iTMS/iPod combo is widely considered the best legal download implementation.
3- Apple, as always, maintains tight control over its hardware and software. Partly, this is for technical control so thay can manage the user experience from end-to-end. Partly, it’s financial survival. Personally, I like to see Apple make a profit. It pisses off Bill Gates.
January 6th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
Americans sue when they spill hot coffee on themselves, insisting the coffee is too hot!!!! This is no surprise, it’s a land with many nutcases and morons.
January 6th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
The point is that Apple uses the legal system to prevent end users from fair use and using the data how they want to.
Your personal attacks are irrelevant and gratuitous.
Also, to imply that if the judge is a mac user they would disregard the law to arrive at your emotionally derived reaction only suggests that for you the legal system is only a way to settle scores.
Having to burn a CD (which might not be possible) is not the preferred way to transfer music files. You just convert them.
Dictating what the user may do with something they purchased breaks the rights of the customer.
If you sell a hammer to someone you don’t force him to agree to conditions of use. That’s up to them.
January 6th, 2005 at 8:33 pm
When you buy a file you should at least be allowed to convert it to other DRM formats.
That’s not unreasonable unless you want to enforce a monopoly.
Note that I did not imply that Apple should offer the conversion tool, but rather that is should be allowed to operate i.e. by not spuriously suing conversion programs.
“1- You won’t be able to buy legal music without DRM. It ain’t gonna happen.”
Yes you can.
http://p2pnet.net/story/3098
“Sergei:We pay license royalties for all objects of copyrights without exception, i.e. for all our files: both requiring payment and free.”
The law of he US is not valid outside of it.
And limiting yourself to the US is ignoring most of the world.
Just because it’s different it doesn’t make it worse or illegal.
“2- Apple’s iTMS/iPod combo is widely considered the best legal download implementation.”
By who? Apple? Those who bought an iPod?
What makes you think that legally downloading files for example in Canada where there is a levy to pay of fair use by citizens would be worse?
Did you perhaps conduct an international survey on this matter?
“3- Apple, as always, maintains tight control over its hardware and software. [...] It pisses off Bill Gates.”
Excessive control would be used to create a monopoly, which would be illegal.
So you don’t oppose the monopolies, rather you want to like the monopoly holder?
How is that any better than supporting Bill Gates?
If you support monopoly you help keep them in place.
But if choosing your dictator rather than being free is what makes you happy, go for it.
January 6th, 2005 at 8:52 pm
Suing for everything does not seem to improve anything for people except the bank accounts of lawyers.
Clearly the “everyone who has money can sue” approach is not making the land freer since the poor are left without any recourse.
Conversely those with lots of money can make laws and enforce them, which means their interests are (over)served which is not much good either for others.
And the whole situation creates an atmosphere of ‘only the rich can have “justice”‘ that somehow seems normal to people.
So how can one make the system work when only a few can afford to defend their rights?
I guess by suing for those who can’t at the slightest provocation.
Better ideas would be welcomed.
January 6th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
Quote> “I just hope the judge in the case is a Mac user.”
If “Mac user” means he is as bone-headed a Mac sycophant as you are I hope not. I think Apple computers are good products. SOME of the people who use them (and PCs to be fair) are another story…
January 7th, 2005 at 1:04 am
Doesn’t gates own apple?
January 7th, 2005 at 1:41 am
Ummm, I don’t consider myself to be an overly patriotic American but I think it’s safe to say that the USA does not have a monopoly on “nutcases and morons”. True, Americans may be way to quick to sue, but, there’s lots of wackos all over the world. No Surprise Really…
January 7th, 2005 at 1:52 am
We’re getting a bit far afield of the Apple story… That’s okay by me. DRM “protected” files? Infected. DRM “enabled” players? Scumware.
My comment? Power/money is crack for the rich. They juz can’t get enough…
Power corrupts. No exeptions.
January 7th, 2005 at 10:32 am
Not being an ‘american’ yet having followed the case I must say it did have some serious merit to it.
If you never bought a cup of tea or coffee which was so friggin hot, that you couldn’t even hold it in your hands, let alone sip from it half an hour later, then you will never understand this.
The lawsuit totally made sense: You super heat coffee and hand it to someone, who will drop it in his lap because it is so hot, and also as a result of the heat, gets seriously burned – you better think about what you’re doing. There is absolutely no reasonable need to superheat drinks, but plenty of dangers in doing so.
But looking from a totally different plane of view:
Who shall decide what you can sue for and what you cannot sue for? If you have the right to sue, you have the right to sue. Once you start limiting who can sue and for what, then you lost your right to sue.
Life is such, that no thing can have only benefits, without having it’s negative consequences as well. You cannot have 100% of the population to be above avarage, not even 51% if you know what I mean. In order to have geniuses, you have to have morons too, in order to have nice people you have to have crooks as well. You can’t have one without the other…