Yeah, I don't really see the case going anywhere. There is way too much competition to give it any merit. You can't punish a company for being successful, you can only punish them for preventing others from being as successful if they do it outside of the law.
Microsoft has been show to actively prevent other companies from being successful and those affected companies have sued and won (or settled) in many cases.
Apple's closed approach with the FairPlay DRM is something that currently allows them to hold onto their huge base of iTunes users but it doesn't prevent people from purchasing from other services. It makes things less convenient for us and I think it might ultimately backfire on Apple but I don't currently see anything unlawful about it.
-Kevin S.
I've gotta say, I'm kind of torn about this iTunes anti-trust case. To start with, I think it hinges on being able to show that the iTunes Music Store is a market in of itself. I think that's going to be hard given the number of other services there are for downloadable music. Admittedly, many of them are subscription and not purchase, but still...
But back to iTunes. Let's assume for a moment that iTunes is defined as a market unto itself. And now because I'm a huge Mac fan I will now pretend that this is an offering from some other company. ![]()
In my fantasy world this company has a music store that has 80% of the market. They use a closed DRM system that they will not license to anyone else. They're player is the only one that can play DRM'd music from their store. So if you want to buy music online to play on your player you have to buy the player and the music from the same place.
On the surface this sounds like an anti-trust issue, but as I said before it depends on iTunes being a market unto itself. If you count all the other services you can use with other players along with the fact that you can buy CDs and rip them to play on the "monopoly" player *and* all the other ones I'd say this is a long shot.
Then there is the bitter Mac fan in me that thinks if Microsoft can be found guilty of illegally maintaining their monopoly and then some how get a remedy that doesn't change one fraggin' thing about their business practices then I don't see how Apple can be forced to change either. I guess you can find Apple guilty too and apply the same non-remedies they did to Microsoft.
But here's the kicker. I really wish Apple would license FairPlay. I have an EyeHome to stream music and video from my Mac to my stereo, but it can't play DRM'd AAC files. It can play unencumbered AAC files though, so I am forced to DCMA violating tactics so that I can listen to music I bought on my stereo. It's the first time I've felt restricted by FairPlay.
OK, that was longer than I intended. Hey, maybe we should have a t-shirt contest for the longest post. ![]()

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