Jari Ketola
6 Jan 2005 10:02
An unsatisfied customer has sued Apple Computer Inc. for "forcing" iTunes customers to buy an iPod player if they wish to listen to the music purchased from iTunes on a portable device. The customer, Thomas Slattery, is seeking an unspecified amount of damages. Apple uses their own FairPlay DRM protection on iTunes which is only playable using either the iTunes software or an iPod player.
Antitrust experts see the lawsuit as a long shot. The key would be to show that iTunes is a market of its own with no real alternatives. There are, however, several competing digital music stores in the market that provide the same or similar content.
"Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa," the suit charged.
Finding the case against Apple would pretty much outlaw all proprietary DRM schemes. Obviously it's highly unlikely that the customer will win the case, but at least the issue with iTunes' DRM is brought to wider attention.
Source: Yahoo