That's funny. From a pure business perspective oftentimes when you are the best in an emerging market (overall, digital download/tranfer of music is still emerging) you lock people in.

Sorry, sometimes being the best means you do lock people in. Locking people in often means more revenue/profit.

It also means the bullseye is that much bigger on your backside.

You always pay to play in the end....

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That being said, Apple has made the market (as it so often does) for the seamless, unobtrusive, connection between human and machine.

In this case the iPod/iTunes connection just works. Works for consumer and producer IMO. Flame me if you want, but the iPod is the market maker b/c of the near flawless integration (MS or Apple OS) between iPod & iTunes.

That's the difference in the end

"It doesn't mean Apple need to give up the whole stack integration - no one is saying iTunes has to work with any MP3 player - but that iPod users should be able to buy music from other stores, and people should be able to migrate their iTMS tunes onto another player - something you would all think was reasonable if you had purchased music stuck in WMA format, or if you are in a territory that claims it is illegal to transfer from CD to iPod."

Exactly WHAT is stopping you from converting music files from other stores and transferring them to your iPod? Everyone's kids are doing it left and right!

"I don't see how anyone can possibly defend Apple on this one - they're acting like idiots over licencing Fairplay, when they have the opportunity to turn in into a standard - everyone goes on about their right to defend their business model - well, this is what happens when industries don't self-regulate / do what is good for them and not for consumers."

So all of a sudden a business must change its model that works seamlessly and make exceptions to allow all of these other music stores in? Did you ever think that the deals Apple has made with the music industry is a part of all of this? If opened up to everyone, Apple cannot guarantee or enforce what the other companies do, but then I guess you think that they will be on the up and up no matter what. Nice utopian dream there sparky.

I am really amazed at the idiot to sane minded ratio around here. What do some of you people have against consumer rights? Do you really WANT to be locked to one mp3 player? Yes, it is a good one - easily arguably the best on the market, but what if it's not in say 10 years?

Let me put it another way - how would you feel if the CD's you bought would only run on one CD player made by the distribution company that sold it to you? For some reason I don't think you would buy those CD's, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why you would purchase from the iTunes Music Store. Yes the iTMS is a good user experience, but I wouldn't buy a locked down CD at Tower Records even if they gave me a backrub with it.

And please people, enough with the 'just convert the files' argument. Online purchased music is already bordering on too compressed. Using any method out there (aside from illegally stripping the drm out of the file) results in recompressing already compressed music. I don't think I have to spell this out, but just in case - twice compressed music is NOT twice as good.

you have good arguable points there, however...

The 8-track tapes I bought no longer work in todays vehicles and more than likely neither do my cassette tapes (because of their age).

Some of the first market CD's will no longer work because of the dye problems they first had.

Some of the standalone audio Cd burners such as RCA, put some sort of DRM on the copied CD's that prevents you from copying the CD's.

Asking Apple, Microsoft and every other software vendor and hardware developer to get together and develop products that work on all and everybody's software/hardware is basically like saying- no need to innovate, it aint worth it.

Another analogy would be like saying that all of Apple software and OS's have to work on anything that runs Microsoft and visa-versa with linux and anyone-else out there.

This isn't about apple, it's about business.

Now if I could only buy that Pepsi bottle without the Pepsi, but the Coca-Cola instead, because I like the labels more and the latter better, then the world would be better off.

governments to focus on Apple's small, non-critical, non-leverageable monopoly in iTunes and iPod when the real, criminal monopolist, Microsoft, is running roughshod over the law everywhere.

The thing with 8-track tapes though is when they were the format of choice, they worked universally in all 8-track decks.

And while I would argue it would be best for the industry to ditch DRM all together, if we're going to have it I really don't think it's too much to ask for a standard to be developed to be used by all hardware and software manufacturers. Format standards have existed since the beginning of recorded music and I don't see why it has to be any different now. Since iTMS is the dominate online music distro service, asking them to open it up seems like a no brainer.

So, just imagine for a second that Apple gets pressured into opening up Fair Play. The iPod will still be there, iTMS will still be there, all the other music stores and mp3 vendors in the universe would probably scrap anything having to do with Windows Media and switch ASAP to AAC with Fair Play. Apple will continue to dominate with their awesome user experience between the iPod and iTMS, and people like me _might_ actually buy a track or two every now and then because we wouldn't have to worry as much about investing in something that locks us into only one choice.

If Apple opened everything up, Microsoft would sense a moment of opportunity and really dig in deep to try to establish their own format instead of adopting Apple's. History has shown us that Microsoft does not always put the best product forward, but does an overwhelming job of dominating anything it touches.