Apple Computer is being sued in California by an iTunes customer
who says the company breaks antitrust laws in refusing to make
iTunes compatible with any music player other than its own iPod,
according to a report by Reuters.
The Digital Rights Management (DRM) software of the iTunes music store allows songs to play on the iPod, a PC, or to be burned to CD for playing on a home stereo or personal CD player. But iTunes tracks are not compatible with players that rival the market-leading iPod.
According to Reuters, Thomas Slattery has sued in a San Jose district court, accusing Apple of unlawfully bundling, tying and/or leveraging its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal on-line digital music recordings "to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa."
A similar argument was dismissed by the French Competition Council in November. That case followed a complaint from the French division of internet retailer Virgin Mega alleging that Apple acted anti-competitively in failing to license the DRM software in its iPod. Basing its reasoning on principles of European competition law it said that access to Apple's DRM software was not essential in order to support the development of the on-line download market.
