[IP] Apple: Accessory To Crime?
Begin forwarded message:
From: Christopher Johnsen <cj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 2, 2004 5:32:53 AM EDT
To: "dave@xxxxxxxxxx" <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Apple: Accessory To Crime?
Dave,
I’m an IP’er. I work in the music business. A small record label. I
saw this article in the Boston Globe by Hiawatha Bray, a fellow IP list
member.
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/08/02/
apples_music_operation_hits_a_sour_note/
Apple's music operation hits a sour note
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | August 2, 2004
It's not enough to denounce crime and lock up criminals, say the
social scientists. We must consider the root causes of crime. Which
brings us to Apple Computer Inc., which is encouraging people to steal
digital music files, and undermining its own success to boot.
How's that? Apple's iTunes Music Store offered the first easy way to
buy music legally over the Internet. Surely that has helped to
discourage illegal file swapping. But there's a catch, as we saw last
week when a rival music seller attempted to crash the iTunes party...
Hit the link to read the rest. Hiawatha makes her dubious claim in the
final paragraph of the article.
My comments, should you find them relevant are as follows:
This journalist makes a ridiculous claim that because Apple's
best-selling iPod (3 million sold and counting) is proprietary in
nature, only playing music files from its iTunes service, which
utilizes its "FairPlay" digital rights management and does not allow
its files to be played on other digital music players, nor play files
from the other digital music services such as Napster, that it
effectively encourages stealing. Forcing people to go to use P2P sites
like Kazaa to get all of their music. That's like saying if I buy a gun
for home protection, Smith & Wesson is encouraging me to enter into a
life of armed robbery or murder. DVD-Audio discs don't play in my CD
player, SACD's don't play in my DVD player. Proprietary formats are
nothing new. Consumers make a choice. What levels the playing field is
equal availability of all titles in every medium.
When I buy an iPod, I understand going in that it only works with the
iTunes music service AND any MP3 music files I may already have on my
computer. I'm not sure I see how that suddenly implants visions of
criminality in my head. I own an iPod and I haven’t made a beeline for
Kazaa or any other illegal downloading service.
Apple has done more than ANY company to offer a legal, easy and
comprehensive system for consumers to download music from the internet.
Rather than demonize them, why not focus on the true culprits - the
music industry. If the industry would catch up and respond to consumer
demand, they would make ALL of their music catalog available equally to
all of the digital music download services and let the consumer make
the final decision about how they would like to access and purchase
their downloads.
All this journalist is doing is engaging in some kind of biased
vendetta against Apple and their cutting-edge products and making an
outlandish claim that buying an iPod will turn people into digital
music pirates. Nothing could be further from the truth and it is just
plain wrong to suggest otherwise.
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