Apple Maintaining Stand of Competition Not Cooperation
01.03.07 - 02:18pm
Salman Momen, head of media technology at Capgemini Telecom, Media and Entertainment, stated back in May that “By opening its iTunes Music Store to devices other than iPods, Apple would gain increased music market share whilst retaining its mantle as the music industry saviour.” Apple has decided this is not the case and has since been fighting lawsuits and legal bills in various countries.
Melanie Tucker has filed just such a lawsuit claiming that Apple illegally prevents music from iTunes being played on rival music players. The suit calls for damages for anyone who has purchased an iTunes track or iPod player. It also asks for a ban on the tie-in between iTunes’s tracks and the iPod stating that the link between iPods and iTunes is an “unlawful acquisition or maintenance of monopoly market power”.
The suit was filed in July but only recently became public when a judge refused to dismiss. Apple wanted a dismissal stating that “anti-trust laws, in short, require companies to compete, not co-operate with each other” and that innovation would be stifled if interoperability was required.
The French have already passed a bill designed to promote interoperability between media formats and devices. The bill which Steve Jobs labled “state sponsored piracy” was created to allow for digital music bought and thus owned to be played on whichever music device the owner wishes. Therefore making it illegal for iTunes to restrict its music to only being played on iPods.
Denmark, Norway and Sweden are also among the countries unhappy with Apple’s lack of interoperability with music from iTunes. They all agreed last June to take the issue head on and threatened Apple with various fines. All in all Europe as a whole has showed dissatisfaction with Apple and iTunes.
So far the lawsuits have had no effect on Apple’s stand to not allow interoperability.
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