Is Apple in violation of the Sherman anti-trust act because of the tactic it uses to dominate online music? That’s the claim of a new lawsuit, reported in Information Week. Among other things, the suit alleges that Apple went out of its away to make its iPod hardware incompatible with the WMA format. Then again remember that Apple will be getting stiff competition from Amazon’s DMRfree music store. I’m not sure how much of a future the suit has.
Now what about Amazon tweaking its Mobipocket format for a new Kindle format and slashing best-seller prices—thereby affecting the independent retailers offering Mobi books? I doubt we’ll see anything in the near future. Damages at this point would be too hard to prove. But what if the Kindle does catch on in a major way, once E Ink prices come down and supply goes up? No legal conclusions or accusations here. I’m just raising the questions.
One argument against a lawsuit against Amazon: The possibility that e-books could reach Macs/iTunes in a major way. Here and here and connect the dots if you’d like. Thanks, Tamas.
And speaking of Amazon and its proprietary ways and the effect on competition: Check out thoughts from BookSquare and Mike Cane’s new blog. The issue isn’t just standards and Amazon vs. Sony and the rest in the E Ink wars. BookSquare’s Kassia Krozer worries about Amazon’s control of the searching process.
That lawsuit doesn’t seem to have any merit whatsoever. It’s not over Apple’s use of DRM and the proprietary interface to the iPod (requiring you to use iTunes) – the plaintiff is claiming that they’re being anticompetitive because they don’t support WMA – another proprietary, licensed, DRM-riddled format! Should they be required to support every crazy locked-down format one might want to acquire music in?
Also, this quote thoroughly puzzles me:
“Apple’s iPod is alone among mass-market Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format,” it states, noting that America Online, Wal-Mart, Napster, MusicMatch,Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Music, FYE Download Zone, and Virgin Digital all support protected WMA files.
Do any of those companies provide their own hardware?
In contrast, Amazon’s flagrant modification to the mobipocket format to avoid compatibility with Kindle _does_ seem like an antitrust issue.
I highly doubt there are any antitrust issues with Kindle. Antitrust laws are not about keeping monopolies from forming; they are about keeping entities from abusing a monopoly in anti-competetive ways, to preserve the monopoly or to strongarm their way into another market.
Can Amazon be considered to have a monopoly in any market whatsoever? I doubt it. Without such a monopoly, they don’t have the leverage to strongarm markets (their own or any other) – at least not by the current definitions of our antitrust laws.
"Addressing his first point, assuming the DOJ case has merit, and the publishers colluded to raise prices, that means THEY BROKE THE LAW.
And now we're ..."
Is Apple in violation of the Sherman anti-trust act because of the tactic it uses to dominate online music? That’s the claim of a new lawsuit, reported in Information Week. Among other things, the suit alleges that Apple went out of its away to make its iPod hardware incompatible with the WMA format. Then again remember that Apple will be getting stiff competition from Amazon’s DMRfree music store. I’m not sure how much of a future the suit has.
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That lawsuit doesn’t seem to have any merit whatsoever. It’s not over Apple’s use of DRM and the proprietary interface to the iPod (requiring you to use iTunes) – the plaintiff is claiming that they’re being anticompetitive because they don’t support WMA – another proprietary, licensed, DRM-riddled format! Should they be required to support every crazy locked-down format one might want to acquire music in?
Also, this quote thoroughly puzzles me:
Do any of those companies provide their own hardware?
In contrast, Amazon’s flagrant modification to the mobipocket format to avoid compatibility with Kindle _does_ seem like an antitrust issue.
I highly doubt there are any antitrust issues with Kindle. Antitrust laws are not about keeping monopolies from forming; they are about keeping entities from abusing a monopoly in anti-competetive ways, to preserve the monopoly or to strongarm their way into another market.
Can Amazon be considered to have a monopoly in any market whatsoever? I doubt it. Without such a monopoly, they don’t have the leverage to strongarm markets (their own or any other) – at least not by the current definitions of our antitrust laws.