U.S. urges countries to turn down heat on Apple

Antitrust official says foreign governments' regulatory second-guessing could harm consumers it aims to help.

The story "U.S. urges countries to turn down heat on Apple" published September 13, 2006 at 4:39 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[toosday]

He's Been "Lobbied"

Hehe... I wonder how many of Apple's lobbyists had to pay Mr. Barnett a visit before he threw them his support?

[umbrae]

All he needed was a free iPod...

nb

[df561]

He's right on target

government interference in the EU is setting up an economic war.

[damph]

The US complaining about interfering with technologies?

The US only seems to care about 'interfering' when it is in favour of consumers, rather than copyright owners (aka big business).

One of the most damaging pieces of legislation introduced in the last ten years, at least with regards to stifling new technologies, is the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Its overly-strict DRM provisions do everything but state outright that they don't want any innovative technologies that might challenge established industries. And now they're forcing them on the rest of the world through bil-lateral agreements.

[huddie klein]

Yes,

they talk about europe applying restrictions, but as far as I know, european countries have only been asking apple to REMOVE restrictions...

I believe this to be a smoke screen of carefully mis-stated half-truths...

[umbrae]

Agreed...

DMCA is huge contridiction. Is is legal to make duplications of copyrighted content under "fair use"; however, it is illegal to do anything to circumvent DRM; therefore, you cannot even make "legal" duplicates since you would have to circumvent DRM to apply "fair use".

2000, the year the US government starting blessing monopolies again.

[jypeterson]

Other Comments?

It is interesting to read these other comments harping on whether the official was owned by Apple, et cetera as well as DRM and removing restrictions. Please remember that DRM was heavily lobbied by RIAA and record companies were getting slaughtered by illegal downloading. That isn't Apples' fault. They are just abiding by their contracts with the record companies, not to mention the emerging video content providers.

What these countries are trying to do is to lobby the opening of the protection structure that is tied to the iTunes store. This would only serve the Microsoft also rans who are having a difficult time in making money due to the poorly designed and implemented Microsoft business strategy. Consumers want an easy to use product that works, every time. The hardware producers, the online music stores, and the software provider (Microsoft) all have different agendas and issues to make a workable solution. This solution has not worked as their may be a great device that works, but it has problems with online stores due to Microsoft's software or vice versa. This isn't Apple's fault, and if Sony had gotten into the game sooner with a solid strategy, Sony would have a greater market share from an end to end system.

The legislation in other countries is just a push by online companies, Microsoft, et cetera who have the most to loose from an Apple dominated product and online store (not to mention the retailers such as WalMart, Virgin, et al. since Apple is now the 5th largest retailer of music in the US).

Always follow the money...

[techned]

Itunes is not monopolistic

I think the big fear that the Senator (or is it Congressman) is trying to make is that Government has a limit to how much it can legislate technology before it begins messing things us for everyone.

There is a big difference in regards to how Apple does business for Itunes, in comparison to M$ for Windows.

Having ITunes just cater to Ipod devices only is not a monopolistic action, since both are Apple products - it's basically the same as any hardware and software combination.
Apple does not have to support other MP3 devices if it does not want to, as much the consumer does not need to have ITunes on their PC or Mac to play media content.

The big fear in this though is that such action could also include M$ in regards to how it packages Windows, especially Vista.
But M$ is different in this regards, not only does it provide the OS, which OEMs quite literally manditorily load into their hardware and sell, but also competes in other software that run in Windows.

If you think about it - Apple's Itunes affects a small segment in the total software industry, despite that it supports a very popular device; it is pigeon holed to that device until that particular part of the media industry forces Apple to begin supporting another device, if said device proves more popular than the Ipod. In comparison, to Windows, M$ controls how your PC works and what software can run on it and can adds features into its OS that attempts to either close out or give M$ a significant lead in areas where software companies compete (like security, utilities, media, Office suites, etc.) to run in Windows.