Comments on: Why is the EU fighting iTunes? http://comments.deasil.com/2007/03/16/why-is-the-eu-fighting-itunes/ escape colon w q Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:42:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Ben http://comments.deasil.com/2007/03/16/why-is-the-eu-fighting-itunes/#comment-312 Ben Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:55:03 +0000 http://comments.deasil.com/2007/03/16/why-is-the-eu-fighting-itunes/#comment-312 They're not fighting against DRM because DRM is an anti-piracy measure and you just gotta have something in place against those nasty pirates. ;-p FairPlay is fair game because they don't understand why Apple doesn't want to make it available to other companies to use. Hell, Apple can make money by licensing it! More money! What's the problem? =p And while the difference between Windows/IE and iPod/iTunes is as you say, I think the overall effect is similar though. Path of least resistance. People used IE cause it was there and it worked fine for the most part. iTunes, while not exactly bundled with every iPod, is pretty much THE de facto way to organize and download content with the iPod, so naturally people don't have too much of a choice but to download and use it. If you're saying MS/IE was worse because because you couldn't remove it, sure, but you didn't have to use it either. In some ways the iPod/iTunes tie-in is more restrictive than the MS/IE one because IE was just another browser. I could browse the web just fine without it for the most part (except for those stupid IE-only/ActiveX sites). Without iTunes, what can you do with an iPod? How do you get your music and videos onto it? There probably is some way to do it but for the average consumer, it's just easier to use iTunes. Not that I'm complaining, I happen to like iTunes and iPod (c'mon widescreen iPod!) but I'm just sayin'. They’re not fighting against DRM because DRM is an anti-piracy measure and you just gotta have something in place against those nasty pirates. ;-p FairPlay is fair game because they don’t understand why Apple doesn’t want to make it available to other companies to use. Hell, Apple can make money by licensing it! More money! What’s the problem? =p

And while the difference between Windows/IE and iPod/iTunes is as you say, I think the overall effect is similar though. Path of least resistance. People used IE cause it was there and it worked fine for the most part. iTunes, while not exactly bundled with every iPod, is pretty much THE de facto way to organize and download content with the iPod, so naturally people don’t have too much of a choice but to download and use it. If you’re saying MS/IE was worse because because you couldn’t remove it, sure, but you didn’t have to use it either. In some ways the iPod/iTunes tie-in is more restrictive than the MS/IE one because IE was just another browser. I could browse the web just fine without it for the most part (except for those stupid IE-only/ActiveX sites). Without iTunes, what can you do with an iPod? How do you get your music and videos onto it? There probably is some way to do it but for the average consumer, it’s just easier to use iTunes.

Not that I’m complaining, I happen to like iTunes and iPod (c’mon widescreen iPod!) but I’m just sayin’.

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