News Europe Strikes Back at iTunes

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/06...ack_at_iTunes/

[rupbert]

UK should get involved.

If Apple want to keep it to their own hardware, at worst offer an incentive like lower prices.

[yahooadam]

as above
The UK needs some fair use laws like the US, we get ripped off and can do less with it, quite frankly they should stop ****ing around with illegal, and unjustified laws and wars, and actually solve issues that the people want dealt with

[olly_lewis]

Great, for the EU at least, but will it see the light of day? Remeber the French legislation that would allow the DRM apple uses to be open source, but that fell through, to my dismay, but they did settle. Will this turn out like that? I think so...

[Firehed]

Well in theory, it's a Good Thing, but I doubt much will come from this. However the idea that Apple has a monopoly on the player market is absolute BS - there are dozens of other players available that are both cheaper and fuller-featured; people just want iPods more. That's not Apple's fault, so to speak.

Still, DRM-less music would be nice. I'll stick to "ripping" my own stuff for now.

[Fusen]

so it's not microsoft's fault they have a monopoly over OS' as clearly there are HUNDREDS of linux distros which are FREE and also quite a few people would say "have better features"

that arguement doesn't stand one inch,

oh what a surprise I see you have a macbook pro

ahhh the joy of fanboys :]

[yahooadam]

Originally Posted by Firehed

Well in theory, it's a Good Thing, but I doubt much will come from this. However the idea that Apple has a monopoly on the player market is absolute BS - there are dozens of other players available that are both cheaper and fuller-featured; people just want iPods more. That's not Apple's fault, so to speak

however itunes will only support the Apple players (ipods) and there arent really any other good services

[samkiller42]

way to go France, its a great idea, i have a creative Zen Vision M, which is about 999% better than anything apple could or can bring out, however i have an iTunes account(dont ask) and its a shame, because all the music is copy protected and is in an mp4 or m4p format, which is stupid, so yea, EU vs Apple, EU wins, hopefully

[ogi010]

well it may not be good or bad news for the US, but this is good news for consumers somewhere...hopefully something will come out of it.

for the time being, just buy your music from www.allofmp3.com ...songs are about $0.10 ..usually less ...and in mp3 format (I think there is the option for ogg format too)....at whatever bitrate you want

not sure if it's legal in the UK, but it's legal to download in the US (although the record comapnies will never admit to it)

http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3faq.htm <-- for legal info

Ogi

[DXR_13KE]

the problem with windows is that if you want to use a certain game or software made for windows you can only use it in windows. this could change if M$ oppened a little of the code so coders could create a linux distro that could run any windows software in a native way. and dont tell me cedega and wine runs all windows software, because it sucks at it and you have to pay for it.

as for this EU VS APPLE business, i hope the EU wins this.

[Kipman725]

this has nothing to do with music lovers. Itunes is encoded at 128kbs... urgh.

[Lazarus Dark]

this has nothing to do with music lovers. Itunes is encoded at 128kbs... urgh.

agreed. i won't pay for a music service untill they offer lossless. maybe 128kbps is ok for your headphones, but i mostly listen to music in my car and lossy compression sounds like crap through my stereo. cds are still better, cheaper, i OWN it, they cant turn it off if i dont pay the bill, it wont stop working if thier service stops because its obsolete. so unless they offer fifteen bucks a month for unlimited lossless music that i can put on any flash card or drive to play in my car, i dont really care.

except maybe any victory against drm makes my life easier, but if not ill just learn to crack the cd's/dvd's/blurays that i PURCHASED for personal use and remove drm. they can't win

nana-nana-na-na

[eddtox]

I think this can only be a good thing. It's one step forward in differentiating between the content and the providers. It's one thing to create a monopoly by providing better products/services than your competitors, it's quite another to force a monopoly by restricting the use of said products/services. I, for example, happen to think that the iPod is brilliant (as is iTunes for that matter), however, I refuse to use either because I don't agree with their business strategy. I know people will say that apple is a business and it needs to make money, but I actually think that if they "opened up" Ipod and iTunes, their business would benefit (I, for one, would get them both). Currently I reject products (/services) from a variety of companies including Apple and Sony, not because they are inferior, but as a matter of principle and I think that if more people were to do the same progress would be much quicker.

-ed out

-ed

[Nature]

Could I put my regular downloaded Mp3's on an iPod?

[themax]

Yeah, I believe you can import them into an iPod in itune format (or whatever it uses).

[Firehed]

iPods play MP3s natively. You just need to import them into iTunes' library first, unless you want to use some roundabout method for transfer.

Fusen - I've been using Windows almost my entire life; the MBP is about a month old. I feel that Apple has created the best product and has gained its market dominance through that - there are dozens if not hundreds of other players available, and every one of them will play ripped CDs and I haven't heard of one that doesn't have at least one completely legal download service (which takes out allofmp3 at least in USA, as it's grey area at best right now).

Microsoft has a monopoly because every single PC in the country that you buy off the shelf will have Windows preinstalled on it - you're forced to purchase a license whether or not you want to or plan to use it. While this doesn't apply to DIY'ers, we're in the vast minority and even still, a large portion use Windows (and are arguably forced into it because of the need for interoperability with their market-dominating product). M4P files only play in iTunes or on iPods just like Protected WMA files only play in Windows Media Player or on PlaysForSure devices, but nobody seems to complain about that. You buy an iPod, you buy songs through iTunes, and you get Fairplay-protected files, which incidentally are the least restrictive. You buy most other players, you'll have a couple of service options but all are going to be a buck a song if it's not a subscription thing, and have much more invasive copy protection.

So get your facts straight. It's not, "I want an MP3 player, my choices are: iPod," whereas it is, "I want to buy a computer, my OS choices are: Windows." People have dozens of choices for MP3 players, and they'll all play MP3s. When you buy a computer, you have three OS choices: XP Home, XP Pro, XP MCE.

[MrABC]

Originally Posted by Firehead

M4P files only play in iTunes or on iPods just like Protected WMA files only play in Windows Media Player or on PlaysForSure devices, but nobody seems to complain about that.

The EU has got MS to remove Windows Media Player from Vista for sale in the EU so that people have a choice as to what media player they use in Vista. It's probably the same with Apple.
I think your right in saying that nobody complains about playing protected m4p/wma files but the majority of wma files can be played on all sorts of players while m4p are only playable on ipods. I reckon that the majority of people that are complaining are the people who hate/dont want the ipod but want the songs in apple's music store because let's be honest, apple has literally taken control of the majority of online music sales (you do find tracks on their not available anywhere else cos of it) - hence, if you want to buy these tracks, get iTunes - if you want to listen to them on the move, buy an ipod.
I do like ipod's anyway, so i don't have a strong opinion on this topic but having the consumer have more choice over what player they can put their m4p files on is a plus. It won't happen though.

[woodshop]

Apple should just stop business then. It's their DRM scheme it satifies the RIAA for once and they payed for it's development. Apple did the work to get the deals for the Songs and they run the servers for the iTunes service. I think it's only fair that after all the work they did that they make it exclusive to their m3 players.

I would have an entirelly different opinion if the song prices were unfair but as it is iTunes is basicly a service for people who buy iPods.

If Apple wanted to get around the lawsuits they could probably simply just make iTunes a service avaible exclusivly to owners of iPods.

[otispunkmeyer]

hope so, i would like to use my sony player with something other than the horendously crap sonic stage, and the down right ghastly connect software.

those 2 pieces of software alone make me wish i had an ipod, coz ive bought a few tracks on itunes, and nearly all my previous cd rips, (done in MP3 of course) were also done through itunes. the foldering systems are different for itunes and sonic stage so when i import albums to sonic stage....it imports and files the songs in the album 1 by 1... its annoying having 40 seperately listed tracks all belonging to one album and not being put in a folder.

[Salazaar]

I think that the point might be that some digital content is available exclusively on itune (which is fair, they pay for it) but that it is only usable on iPods (which is a lot less fair), and that these countries are trying to open the content up to any mp3 user. But I might be wrong.