--- In [email protected], Eugenio Perea <euge...@...> wrote: > > Harold,
I'm Harry. Harold's a different guy and might take offense at being linked to me. :) > > I read all your links and they basically say the same thing: people > don't like that iTunes songs don't work on other players and that iPods > don't play songs from other stores. > > I see nothing wrong or illegal in making sure that the music player I > make only plays music bought in my store and vice versa. I risk becoming > irrelevant if the market doesn't like it, but that's my strategy and my > problem. Well from those links, the courts disagree. They believe it violates fair trade. > > If that were illegal, all the printer manufacturers would be sued to > allow all cartridges to work with them, regardless of who made them. > Likewise with cartridge razors and all the businesses that rely on > "refills" Ink refills are not really a separate product but an actual part of the printer. A better analogy is Micro$oft making IE the only browser that would run under windoze. Of course, Micro$oft tried to argue the browser was just a part of the OS. They of course lost that one. There was also the really sleazy practice of stating that iTunes was compatible with all media players. Then after people had downloaded $$$ of songs to their computer they'd go out and buy a cool media player just to find out that while iTunes the SOFTWARE would work as stated, the songs they had already invested in from the iTunes STORE would only play on an iPod. Most just traded in their media player for an iPod and went on. Apple totally took advantage of the Napster paradigm to leverage sales of iPods. > The problem here is that everyone and their uncle owns an iPod. They > want to have their cake and eat it, too. Everyone and their uncle owns one because of the sleazy practices above, and some slick marketing. > > Just to be clear: I hate DRM, I abhor technology that doesn't follow > standards, I only bought my first Ipod a few months ago because my > Archos Jukebox was getting ancient and I don't buy songs from iTunes or > anyone else. I'm a Linux hippie. I rip songs from my CDs to Flac. I > don't own a Mac and I think that Jobs can be a bloody bastard when he > wants to, which is fairly often, and that his opposition to DRM comes > from market greed and not from the goodness of his heart. But I still > think I'm right: DRM came from the RIAA, not from Apple. Yeah, I am a linux guy as well. Mainly because Micro$oft and Apple both have questionable business practices. My treo is my media player and I am perfectly happy with that. I can even stream shoutcast. I also agree that DRM came from RIAA or was at least gleefully adopted by them. However, Apple also gladly latched on and put it to their own nefarious purposes. My point was that the RIAA didn't force it on Jobs. He gladly adopted it cause it suited him. He is ditching it because of the lawsuits against him. :) I am in no way a supporter of the RIAA. YMMV, -Harry
