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Does iTunes Play Fair?
iTunes is to music what Google is to search. Since launching in 2001, the music player has become a fixture -- thanks largely to the success of the iPod -- and the iTunes Store the largest music retailer in the business. But being the biggest boy on the block has its drawbacks.
Apple's FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) software, which restricted where and how music purchased in iTunes could be played, had detractors from day one. But European consumer groups, always a stickler for market power abuses, cried foul in 2006, calling the Apple DRM illegal "lock-in technology." If you own a song, they said, you should be able to play it on whatever device you like.
In February 2007, Steve Jobs posted a defense on the Apple site, pinning the blame for DRM on the music companies. "DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy," he noted. If the big four music companies would agree to drop their protection requirements, he said, Apple would be happy to sell DRM-free music. A deal was struck, and two years later, Apple removed DRM protection from its entire catalog.
But iTunes' stature has invited other scuffles. Palm has tried to piggyback on the software by allowing Pre users to sync their smartphones in iTunes. Apple updated the software to disable "devices falsely pretending to be iPods," and Palm responded with a workaround. The battle continues.
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