03/20/2008, 5:45pm, EDT
Thursday, March 20th
eMusic CEO: unlimited iTunes is anti-trust material
Despite a lack of official word from Apple in terms of a "Comes with Music"-style unlimited iTunes download plan, the concept is drawing heavy criticism, especially from eMusic CEO David Pakman. Many in the industry are trying to predict Apple's moves before any official announcement [1|2], and Pakman claims that a potential unlimited plan would rank Apple alongside Microsoft in terms of monopolistic behavior, due to the company's market dominance with the venerable iPod, according to Wired.
"They're basically saying, 'Let's give a piece of every iPod sale to the record labels in exchange for bundling in all the music you can eat with every iPod'" said Pakman. "That's classic Sherman Antitrust Act behavior. It's called tying, and it's where a company with a monopoly position in one market uses that monopoly position unfairly to compete in another."
Pakman draws parallels of the scenario to Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows, which arguably killed Netscape as a neck-and-neck competitor.
"The troubling thought to many of us is that it's a very logical step on Apple's part," admits Pakman. "But because they're a monopolist, they're going to be held to a different standard."
Filed under: iPod, industry, audio
Other story tags: iTunes, Comes With Music, eMusic
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I mean, I'm all about criticizing Microsoft about things, but I at least wait until they actually do it?
Gosh, back when I had eMusic, I got an RCA Lyra (shudder) and an allowance of music with it.
And Apple is not a monopolist by any means
"a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service"
There are both many other mp3 players and music stores to choose from. Just because Apple makes the most popular one, does not make them a monopolist.
And.. I saw this on Wiki about the Sherman Act
"The Sherman Act was not specifically intended to prevent the dominance of an industry by a specific company, despite misconceptions to the contrary. According to Senator George Hoar, an author of the bill, any company that "got the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could" would not be in violation of the act."
You dont have to buy an Ipod .. you can choose from dozens of other music players.
You wont have to buy a premium Ipod, you could choose a non premium Ipod without the all you can eat.
Even if you were forced to buy the premium Ipod (at your choice) you can still buy music from other sources and put any mp3 on your ipod
eMusic translation .... "shit we dont like having to compete with itunes"
Itunes / Ipod have only become popular because it's the peoples choice .... no one forces people to buy Ipods or use itunes and you have plenty of other choices ... it's simple , those other choices are not as good so people dont choose them.
Can somebody explain to me what anti-trust is? According this the article above, it seems to be the notion that a company utilize and partner with other services to create a whole package much greater than the parts which create it.
Now, if creating this relationship with the music industries created an environment that blocked or hindered other services, that could be anti-trust. In this case, consumers choose one environment over another. These people confuse anti-trust with consumer-choice. Nothing prevents me from buying music from eMusic except my choice. And, the only thing that would prevent me from using uMusic on an iPod would be eMusic, not Apple.