It's all just noise right now, but the United States Justice Department is purportedly having a "very preliminary conversation" with
Apple regarding the company's music business, wondering in particular if anything it's doing (or has done) would violate antitrust legislation. According to unnamed sources familiar with the situation, DoJ staff seem most interested in whether or not Apple's dominance in the market enabled it to unfairly prevent
Amazon's music service from exclusively debuting new songs. Beyond that, details of the investigation are few and far between, but it's coincidentally coming down on Cupertino when its
iTunes numbers are on the up and up. The latest NPD research figures show that over a quarter of the music purchased within the US is now procured through iTunes -- 28 percent, if you're looking for specifics, which is up 4 percentage points from Q1 2009. Meanwhile, Amazon has pulled into a tie with Walmart for second place, which may or may not coerce Wally World to ditch its morals and finally start stocking that uncensored version of
My World 2.0.
posted May 27th 2010 10:44AM
Engadget loves their Justin Bieber.
@BlueSpud45
That is also the first thing I thought of when reading this article..
Major Lolz Found
OMG BONUS TRACK VERSION!!!11!!1!
@BlueSpud45
what's german? we don't say that in america
@BlueSpud45 i thought that. I went "Are they all Justin... nvm, yep."
Bleh. The worlds music sense is going downhill with it's tech sense. (since? I just woke up lol)
@BlueSpud45
perhaps part of the investigation is whether apple threatened to stop selling justin beiber if he continued to plug the Xperia X10...
@Rick James lol, actually Bieb has a new title now. Thanks to google, he got the 7th spot for the most popular woman of the web. http://j.mp/bieber-is-the-most-popular-woman
@BlueSpud45
Engadget has Bieber Fever.
Justin Bieber explicit albums? lolz
@Snarf101
Bad boy, bad boy.
@Snarf101
HAHAHAHAHAHA, I wonder what kind of crazy ass warning Eminem would get if Justin Bieber is "explicit"
@Snarf101
They have to put 'Explicit' for any of his tracks recorded live. Mainly because you can clearly hear people in the audience calling him an annoying ****.
What, you havent heard his 2 Live Crew covers?
When saying that Amazon has pulled 2nd with Walmart, does that include physical and digital sales?
@xolan99 .. Yes it's CDs and downloads.
I see what you did there with that iTunes screenshot Engadget... touche.
Must be a slow year at the DoJ. Can't think of any better use of my tax dollars.
@Motlee They could investigate you; I heard you've been abusing your monopoly by making everyone go directly to jail and not collect $200.
@N900 Sure, It's fine to own Park Place, but slap a couple hotels on that mother and all of a sudden you're the bad guy! WTF? Just tryin to get mine!
Since when is Justin Bieber explicit? Lots of teenage mom's wouldn't approve.
@esposimi It's explicit because of the passion in his music.
@Robert Jordan I wouldn't call Justin Bieber's stuff "music".
@Robert Jordan
Define "passion."
Hi Apple,
Welcome to market domination and anti-trust lawsuits!
Love,
MS
@DirtyVegas .. On what basis ?
Apple doesn't have a monopoly in anything other than iPods.
@DirtyVegas
Not a big deal.
Love,
Steve
Sent from my iPhone HD
@DirtyVegas
"Apple doesn't have a monopoly in anything other than iPods"
I think you just answered your own question.
@taligent
seems like you're confusing "market leader" with "monopolizer." There are plenty of other mp3 players on the market, and numerous other digital download sites to choose from. Being popular isn't a crime.
@admlshake Okay lesson time:
A monopoly is legal.
Abusing your monopoly is illegal.
Windows, Office, iPod etc are legal.
Microsoft bundling IE to take out Netscape was considered illegal.
Apple hasn't done anything with the iPod to actively take out Zune for example. Unless you have some example of when this has happened ?
@DirtyVegas
Exactly. Normal business parctices are considered 'competitive' until you reach the top of the heap. Then those same practices are called 'anti-competitive'.
While I can see Apple getting the DoJ smackdown at some point in the future, I doubt this investigation will amount to much.
@eyerot Wrong. Just because you are market leader doesn't mean that the same business practices you do suddenly become anti competitive.
It is only when you reach a monopoly position (i.e. the barriers of entry for competitors are sufficiently high) _AND_ you try and deliberately make life even more difficult. That is when you will start seeing DOJ lawsuits at your front door.
@taligent
From the article:
"DoJ staff seem most interested in whether or not Apple's dominance in the market enabled it to unfairly prevent Amazon's music service from exclusively debuting new songs."
@taligent
Do we need the bring the Adobe debate here?
@jgpuff .. I know. I was asking why DirtyVegas thinks Apple is in for a world of lawsuits ?
@jgpuff
Not sure how choosing not to actively promote a product (ie, a song) is considered anti-competitive. They still offered the song for sale. Now Apple should promote every song? The labels chose to market their songs on Amazon, instead of iTunes. Exclusive marketing agreements are quite common.
@taligent
I think his point was, now that they are on top (for however long thats going to last) that they can expect more of this, and to be looked at under a microscope more often. MS gets sued for various things a few times each week.
@taligent
iPods are not a market, they're a product line. Mobile music players (which would include CD, MP3, and other players) are a market. Apple has a majority share in that space, but certainly has competition and no monopoly.
Same applies to the iPhone, which itself it not a market, its just one of many very highly competitive offerings.
There are equally many places to get MP3s from, but even MP3 sales are not a market, the online music market is only a sub-market in the music biz, with online CD and DVD-audio part of that, as well as subscription services, streaming services, and then there's always Walmart and BestBuy to go buy physical media.
In MP3 media, Apple has very strong market position, and a strong foot for negotiation. They set a maximum price, and terms for sale, and do not allow lock-in or exclusivity deals that are not shared to other partners equally. They're the single most consumer friendly music vendor, and enforce equal treatment of the distributors. They renegotiate contracts periodically, and adjust terms within limits, and even agreed to tiered pricing recently. They stand against DRM and are working to remove it from more aspects of their shop than just Mucis, but that's a contract term Apple has to get them to agree to, and it worked for mucis since there's no DRM on a CD to begin with, but there is for TV and DVD to that's a harder sell and it has not happened yet (though some books are DRM free).
iTunes may bully the media conglomerate, but how about instead of looking into Apple, we look into the likely illegal and pricefixing pressure the media groups put on other companies instead. The DRAM exchange was rules illagal, i see little difference between that and the Music biz, and I see Apple using it;s market power for the good of the consumer and to battle inside negotiated dealings, which it is NOT illegal to do. (it's only illegal to be both a monopoly AND be anticompetitive or abuse power for profit).
@zelannii
Yep. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on anything. Only people who are unfamiliar with the meaning of the word "monopoly" would think they did. And as mentioned above, the only thing Apple did to prompt this investigation was to say that if Amazon was going to get an EXCLUSIVE deal on an album, to be able to sell it before Apple was, then Apple wasn't going to ACTIVELY PROMOTE that album.
How in the holy shit is simply NOT PROMOTING an album ILLEGAL? I would like for somebody to fucking answer that. Apple is still selling the album, Apple is not preventing Amazon from selling it early or promoting it themselves. Where is the problem?
@taligent Pretty sure it was a joke...
@admlshake
Are you saying Apple has a monopoly on their own product? Wow.
Just in case you are confused, you can't have a monopoly on your own product.
@taligent
Whether or not they're a monopoly, whether or not their practices are unfair in the eyes of us engadget nerds, it's up to the DoJ to decide and prosecute. But the more Apple dominates in a segment/market, the more their actions will be investigated.
... And I was kidding, and looks like more people agreed with me than you.
As a side, I couldn't care one way or the other with mindshares, marketshares, practices or whatever (getting tired of all the fanboy action here). Multiple companies make quality products and I'll buy what I want depending on the product and not how I feel about its CEO. I suspect majority of the consumers are similar.
/thread
@DirtyVegas
They will probably look at iTunes, see that it has exclusive content that other providers cannot have. Which would be fine if everything could connect to iTunes, but only iPod/Pads can. They will probably make Apple open iTunes for all players, or stop them from having exclusive content. Just a hunch.
@(Unverified)
What exclusive content would that be, then? Would it be anything like the exclusive content that Amazon is getting, which is specifically why Apple isn't going to promote that content?
If exclusive content is a problem, then the DoJ should be going after Amazon, obviously.
@DirtyVegas Toyota has a monopoly on the Prius too, maybe Honda should sue them for not being allowed to build the Prius? The logic of this place is astounding.
@taligent
Excuse me, but I think you were a little dismissive with a broader point that I made.
Competition is necessarily an attempt by all competitors to outdo their peers. In the abstract sense, that means that a successful competitor is the last one standing. For any business, monopoly is the goal in the capitalist scheme. They have ended the competition.
And while, in theory, a state of monopoly is ultimately detrimental to the market, no existing company is ever going to pull punches just because they are approaching total market domination.
So while the legal definitions are obviously nuanced and tortured, and realities of the free market necessitate some intervention, the very notion of 'anti-competitive practices' within the realm of business is *conceptually* absurd. I glossed over the premises for comic effect (which you failed to recognize), but I think the argument is still valid.
And try not to begin replies with the word 'Wrong.' That's no way to have a discussion.
@taligent
where did you see a single time monopoly mentioned i nthis investigation.
read before you speak.
it is the dominant part combined with abuse of the dominant position in a predatory way.
gee! only 2 options, either you are what people here call a fanboy (the blind-fanboy kind) or you are illiterate, where you have enough knowledge to read , but cannot comprehend what you read
comprehend
NOTE: comprehend: To perceive and recognize the meaning
just in case you fall under the second option
Engadget is hopeless. Okay so the issue is that Apple allegedly told recording labels that if they exclusively put songs on Amazon that they would stop actively promoting the label. By actively promoting I mean the big shiny banners you see when you first go into the store.
The DOJ is investigating because if you consider the iTunes Store to be a monopoly then the actions could be considered as being "pressure" on the labels not to do exclusive deals with Amazon.
But of course it would be hard to argue that Apple has a monopoly of either digital or total music sales.
@taligent It could run deeper than that, for all we know. But that does look like the gist of it.
@taligent
One need look no further than steve's bedroom whispers to Rupert, and to book publishers that had the power to derail Amazon's attempt at more consumer friendly eBook pricing model. It seems to me that they are exerting influence that might be construed as illegal by the DOJ. I hope they go down for it.
Apple will do what all the other big companies do, throw some cash at the problem until it goes away.
And who is this Justen Bieber chick, and why did her parents name her Justin?