7/30    So apple is unhappy about RealNetwork's move to have its music
        play on the iPod, this sounds like, Sony is unhappy because
        their Discman plays CDs from other labels!! Does this sounds
        stupid or do they have real control over what can be played on
        the ipod?
        \_ you can put mp3's on it w/o complaints from apple, but they dont
           want you hacking their drm.
           \_ I can see not wanting people to hack their DRM to take the DRM
              off of songs you bought at the iTunes store, but Real made it
              so you can put songs *into* their DRM system.  To continue the
              Sony analogy, it would be like other movie studios helping you
              convert your VHS tapes to play on a Beta VCR.
              \_ All which will help the sales of the BetaVCR, so I don't see
                 what the big deal is. Just when I start to like Apple, they
                 try to patent GUI again. :)
                 \_ The problem is the iPod is the top-dog of mp3 players, so
                    by making it only work with ITMS they can prop-up the
                    barely-profitable, highly competitive online music sales
                    part of the company with the highly-profitable, market
                    dominating music player.  If the iPod plays songs from any
                    store, it'll sell more iPods, but it just became a lot
                    easier for any other music store to beat ITMS.
                    \_ But Apple has admitted that iTunes is a loss leader
                       designed to sell iPods.
                       \_ ITMS is actually slightly profitable now.  I can
                          see why Apple wants to own the dominant music store
                          and not let say, Microsoft own the market.  When the
                          online music market has a shakeout, and it will, the
                          dominant company will be in a better position to
                          negotiate with record companies.  At that point I can
                          see Apple flexing their muscle a bit.
                          If Apple has determined that the iPod not supporting
                          other stores does minimal damage to iPod sales, then
                          why would you want a slight boost to one product at
                          the expense of massive losses in another?
                          \_ They might not like it, but by threatening legal
                             action they look like assholes, and at least in
                             the right world, would lose.
                             \_ two cases: m$ and sco. the former uses this
                                method and often wins (the battle if not the
                                trial) while the latter seems to be loosing
                                with this tactic. it will be interesting to
                                see how various courts rule on this (if it
                                gets that far.
                                \_ You are loosing a battle too.  A battle with
                                   spelling.
                                   \_ i fight battles worth fighting. for this
                                      one i accepted a truce - i spell check
                                      when need be.
        \_ On a separate note, my iPod does not play some mp3 files without
           any explanation, I am suspecting it having something to do with the
           mp3 being DRMd. Is there any freeware/software that removes those
           stuff and make it to be a plain mp3 file? thx.
           \_ Test if a plain-old mp3-player proram can play them, eg. XMMS or
              Winamp.  If they can, it's a iPod problem, if they can't you're
              Winamp.  If they can, it's an iPod problem, if they can't you're
              going to have to find out what kind of DRM they're wrapped in.
              \_ Yes, winamp can play it, so does WMP. So I guess it's an ipod
                 problem, damn it.
                 \_ There's a slight possibility Winamp is detecting the DRM
                    passing it through to some WMP DRM library.  Can you try to
                    play it in some minimalist player program?
           \_ Eh?  MP3s don't have DRM, unless you're using mp3pro or some
              other variant.  Maybe the iPod just doesn't like the bitrate or
              sampling rate of those files.
              \_ He seems to think he might have some DRM'd file named as MP3.
                 FWIW I've seen un-DRMed AAC named MP3, but Winamp freaked out.