Quote:
Originally Posted by Jedi Ninja
I have no problem with that, but used to have a problem with the fact that music purchased on the iTunes store could only be played on Apple hardware. Apple still exercises some monopolistic control over the MP3 player market by controlling the market for content (songs). I think some people are willing to overlook this issue because they see this success of Apple's somehow countering Microsoft's monopoly in some way. Two wrongs don't make a right.
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Apple dropped DRM (from music and music videos) last year. I'd say 80% of their catalogue is now DRM free, with the rest still being replaced.
DRM was never Apple's thing anyway. It was the record companies. The only way Apple could reliably implement DRM that actually worked was to also control the OS of the device playing the music... the only way to do that was to restrict syncing to Apple devices only.
Since Apple was the first (and only, really) company to successfully implement DRM that actually worked, they got the head start on all the songs from the record companies. Gradually, as time went on, the need for DRM lessened and that opened the doors for places like Amazon to distribute "DRM-free" music.
Anyway, it's all moot. Rest assured, when it comes to music, Apple is DRM free too now. It doesn't mean that other companies should be able to steal their iTunes software, though.
If Palm wants to put out their "iPhone Killer #4454677" phone, then they should also write the sync software to go with it. Expecting to be able to just piggy-back onto iTunes is kinda like Quebec wanting to separate, but still use the Canadian Dollar.
Add: In case anyone's wondering, there is nothing preventing people from buying DRM-free music from iTunes and manually copying it over to their Palm Pre (or any other mp3 device). The major reason that Apple is legally entitled to block 3rd-party devices from actively syncing with iTunes, is because they still sell/rent DRM-protected movies and TV shows. Since they have no control over the Palm OS (or any other device's OS), they are force to block those devices in order to 100% guarantee DRM protection to the movie/TV studios.