Trying to make Applesauce


Does anyone really believe that the French law is aimed at protecting the consumer?
This article shows a curious twisting of the facts.

The company created the market for legal music downloads, why shouldn't it dominate it? Why should the French government help competitors like Microsoft or Sony to get a foothold in a market they have proven incapable of competing in? And why should Apple be subject to antimonopoly legislation when rivals like Microsoft traditionally have not? To free marketers, it's government meddling at its worst.

Apple didn't create the market for legal downloads, they just figured out a way to do it better than the competition.

No one is holding a gun to someone's head and forcing them to buy from the Apple Music Store.

From Apple's viewpoint, the only reason the Apple Music Store exists is so Apple can sell more iPods. Apple barely makes a profit on the AMS, they make a healthy profit on the iPod. It is the hardware and software integration that has made the iPod a success to be envied.

Apple is not preventing the sale of other music players. It is not even preventing the use of iTunes and the AMS to put music on other music players (although quality WILL take a hit). It's just refusing to give away the golden goose.

Considering Apple's history, that is hardly surprising.

Chances are, you are reading this on a computer that owes it's operating system to Apple. Xerox PARC developed the ideas of the GUI, but it took Apple to put them in a machine. It took Microsoft years to get it right, and that was with full access to Macintoshes from the prototype stage onward. It wasn't until version 3.1 that Microsoft Windows started getting close to something that could rival what Apple was already doing.

So no, Apple isn't going to open up the DRM codes.

In fact, if this goes forward, I expect Apple to pull the AMS out of France.

Disclaimer - My last four computers have been Apple Macintoshes. I have an iPod that I use for music.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Thu - March 23, 2006 at 04:43 AM  Tag


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