ITunes Customer Wants A Bite Of Apple

WebProNews (WPN News) ^ | January 6, 2005 | Chris Crum

[bwteim]

ITunes Customer Wants A Bite Of Apple

Chris Crum | Staff Writer | 2005-01-06

http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-45-20050106iTunesCustomerWantsaBiteofApple.html

Thomas Slattery of California has filed a lawsuit against Apple claiming that it is not fair that he has to use an iPod to listen to iTunes songs.

According to the lawsuit, "Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice."

A BBC News article claims that,

"Mr. Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who ‘was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod' if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to."

"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," the lawsuit said.

George Mason University anti-trust law professor, Ernest Gellhorn thinks that Slattery must convince the court that the iTunes brand is its own separate market from the rest of the online music market.

Apple has made no comment regarding the lawsuit.

[bwteim]

This lawsuit is a natural progression in a world today when most do not want to be held accountable for their own actions.

[Rutles4Ever]

Oh, please. Talk about a judicial hellhole... Idiots like this should be required to pay an Idiot Tax.

[Andyman]

Jeez Loo-eeze. Burn the songs to a CD, then rip them back onto your PC in whatever format you want. How many brain cells does it take to figure THAT out?

[handy old one]

Instead of filling suit. Design your own and market it quit you complaining baby!

[Born Conservative]

There really needs to be more diversity with portable digital music players...

[bwteim]

The same guy might sue if he forced to pay an Idiot tax.... :)

[oceanview]

itunes can burn the songs to CDs. case dismissed.

[Rusty Trucks]

All the music you have on there was free you baby, why don't you use all the money you saved from stolen songs and buy an iPod. You make the rest of us look cheap!!

[bwteim]

I'd be willing to see more compatibility with shower heads for a start ...

[bwteim]

Also see

Apple sued over iTunes
"Jobs plays monopoly, claim"

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20544

Portion:

"[Slattery] claims that Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and 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.

Behind the scenes it appears that Slattery has a bit of an Open Source agenda. He claims that Apple turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice, even where players exist that would otherwise be able to play these music files absent Apple's actions."

[SaveTheChief]

The man is an idiot, plain and simple.

Don't want to listen to AAC files? EASILY turn them into CD or MP3 format using iTunes, which is the only way one can access the store anyway.

[bwteim]

Regarding burning CD's agreed - and then he could use: "the portable hard drive digital music player of [his] choice"

It sounds like it would never make it, which means it just might

[bwteim]

How many brain cells does it take to figure THAT out?
---
Obviously more than Mr. Slattery has in operation at any moment ;)

[oolatec]

This guy is a moron. Who forced him to use the ITMS in the first place? Nevermind that you can just burn the music to CD and re-import with any audio format you want...

[backslacker]

He can use the following programs to convert:

http://www.gates-of-heaven.com/ Tutorials/m4p%20to%20mp3.asp>

1. Convert from M4A to M4P using Hymn.
2. Convert to mp3, wav, etc using dbPowerAMP.You can also adjust the bit level.

That's all!

[antiRepublicrat]

This might fly if there were little or no competition for iTunes. iTunes has a majority of the market due to being first (standard thing in economics), but there are other strong competitors like Napster. There also are strong, viable competitors in the HDD mp3 player market, although none are as good as the iPod.

Now that takes part of the legal stuff. I still don't think it's a good idea for Apple to be doing such lock-in. Better to learn to play well with others before their marketshare eventually drops.

[Paleo Conservative]

Rutles4Ever The same guy might sue if he forced to pay an Idiot tax.... :)

Maybe someone will write a book, Idiot taxes for DUmmies.

[bwteim]

Thanks for the links.

[bwteim]

LOL

[bwteim]

Perhaps, but about 4 months ago would have been a good time to buy some stock while they have been so hot.