Apple Sued for MP3 Player Monopoly, Thuggish Tactics

Dailytech reports:

The new Apple has built itself on its iconic MP3 player, which grew to a commanding market share and now holds roughly 90 percent of the hard drive-based MP3 player market and 70 percent of the total MP3 player market. This dominant position has led many; including readers at DailyTech to suggest that it has a monopoly on the market and may be abusing its position. Now a Taiwanese competitor, Luxpro has accused Apple of holding an abusive monopoly, formerly filing charges in Arkansas court.

Luxpro has had a lengthy and heated legal war against Apple over the last few years. The company was originally founded in December of 2002. In January of 2004 it released its first product -- the EZ Share MP3 player. Following its minor success, Luxpro proceeded to introduce new players. In March, 2005, at the CeBit trade show in Hanover, Germany it unveiled its new model, the Super Shuffle MP3 player.

Apple was not happy.

[lord_monkey]

the tile is wrong the monopoly has nothing to do with the lawsuit.
it should say "apple is being sued for bulling small companies"

Oh if they release a Gaming console then we can see cage fight between MS and apple. while Sony is just looking at the side line :P

[thereapersson]

And I am pretty sure that MS *would* turn all their attention to Apple.

I'm actually suprised that Apple hasn't come out with a console yet, especially considering that they do so well with the iPod brand, AND are experts at making software and hardware work flawlessly with one another. Well, at least software and APPLE hardware work together... *cough*iTunesforWindows*cough* .

[Rhythmattic]

As for a gaming console, Apple tried and Failed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

As for monopoly, Apple is now in the position of "90% of the hard drive-based MP3 player market and 70 percent of the total MP3 player market"

Isnt that just a conundrum as microsoft has the same for desktop OS's ?

Monopoly is through iTunes, BUT, at least apples portable media devices support OPEN STANDARDS.
As for MS ? WMA, WMV....... Basically, MS's only standards are there own.

BTW, OSX is based on another open standard, UNIX.

[BYE]

Who cares? They make great products, that's what counts.

[Rhythmattic]

Yep.

[IdleLeeSiuLung]

I'm re-hasing my original message, for some reason it didn't show up:

That proves my point!

When MS does something wrong, everybody throws up their arms. When Apple does something like this, it get's ignored and applauded for making great products. MS gave a away free stuff then got sued. Apple is barring other MP3 makers from making their product and to compete to push prices down. Who is doing the most damage to the consumers?

If the accusations are true, Apple is definetely abusing it's monopoly power to pressure retailers to sell it's product only. I hope Apple get slammed with a $1 billion fine if it is true. No company shoudl be above the law!!!

[gololo]

@IdleLeeSiuLung
I think they got to the top because they made the best mp3 players...and just look at the iPod Touch/iPhone...so if they have a monopoly it's because of their product quality. Microsoft have a kind of dark history since its beginning (if not, just look how Windows came to be). However, MS does have a bunch of great products, unfortunately they do get treated harsher in some cases.

[Enigma_2099]

My negative opinion of Microsoft notwithstanding... I have a question....

HOW IN THE HELL DID MICROSOFT AND SONY COME UP IN THIS CONVERSATION?!?!?!?

[Kaneda]

the different between Apple and M$ is.. Apple make great products that other company can't match. While M$ makes suck @$$ products...

[PimpHandStrong]

they make good stuff

My ipod doesnt have a 50% failrate and my itunes is very easy to use!

[dirtrider]

what else have you ever bought that had a 50% failure rate? just had to ask, cause if i know what it is ill make sure i wont make the same mistake you did- allright? anyways lol at the pic.

[josh14399]

apple make the best mp3 players no other companies can make quality products like they do.

[dericb11]

But if you block other people from coming out you will stay the best without having to the best. If this lawsuit helps other company's come out this is good. Why you ask? Well more MP3 Players means more idea and/or new products.

Imagine a "Ear-plug MP3 w/Voice Activation and 20GB". OK so we won't be seeing that soon but blocking other people slows it from happening.

[SaiyanFury]

My 8GB SanDisk Sansa supports all open source media AND I'm not locked down with iTunes. I can copy music that I buy wherever and whenever I want as much as I want. And it only cost me 75 dollars. The closest iPod? 150.

[BYE]

Yeah just look at Apples product quality, slick design, best materials, best software inside, affordable!

They can't be touched in the MP3 player and notebook market, in fact they deserve to be monopoly, if one company does, then Apple.

[SaiyanFury]

Many other PMPs have great software onboard and perform admirably. Most use pretty damned decent hardware and have a low hardware failure rate. Most are also quite stylish. PMP hardware manufacturers use the same kinds of materials for their units' construction. ABS plastics for the outer shells and so on with variable amounts of sheen. LCD screens. Materials are all the same, Apple doesn't use any 'better' quality materials to construct iPods, they're the same as any other brand. My 8GB SanDisk Sansa looks quite stylish to me, but because it's not white I can see how that's not 'as' stylish as an iPod /end sarcasm. Sorry, other than name recognition and trendiness, Apple has no other leg up on the competition, and the steeper price you pay only drives their revenue stream back into their marketing to get more people to buy the recognized name.

Apple deserves to be the monopoly? Well then there would be no competition to lower prices and drive innovation. Corporate prices would be out of control and very few people would be able to afford them. Sorry, I'm in favour of Luxor and good luck to them in their lawsuit. Maybe on some small level this will humble Apple and companies might be able to produce a non iPod-based MP3 player without fear of reprisal.

Also Apple having a monopoly on the PMP market in the US is contradictory to the spirit of enterprise in the country. The spirit of this country is freedom. Freedom to choose and make your own choices. Not just in the US but people around the world want to enjoy the freedom of choice. Many people want to make up their own minds as to what they want to buy. If Apple was the monopoly, there would be no choice. No freedom. You'd be locked into their draconian DRM policies and you'd only have 2 choices: Our way or the highway. I support freedom of choice everywhere in the world, and Apple's practise of trying to monopolize the market is wrong.

[gumgum99]

not yet, anyways

[zag]

It was creative thatcameoutwith HD MP3 players theywere greatblow away the apple crap you get now.

You could open it up dump in a new 3.5HDD and back then 300gig HDD had just come out.

Apple come out with the crap called ipod, and thensue creative for the sliding/rolling menu system saying Apple came up with it complete BS.

Creative had HD mp3 back in the mid 90's

[Rageanitus]

but I find sony mp3 players make the best sound and battery life on their walkmans. This is something that is very important for portable devices..... But then again ppl care about image also and owning an ipod is "COOL"

[Pixel_Addict]

How the times have changed, Microsoft is losing its dominance in the software market while Apple is growing in popularity in both the PC front and controls much of the MP3 market.

Ever wonder why MS charges 100+ dollars for software that quickly becomes out-dated and buggy? Cause very few have the sense to question it.

[tk]

MP3 is a format that any company can use to build a MP3 player. The Apple product is a luxury model. It is expensive. It is not undercutting the price, and it is not in any way preventing others from competing.

Apple's only guilt is that they build a very very good product, marketed it so well that the consumer wants an Apple - not any other MP3 player. I know - I bought my wife one - as she refused to have any other cheap MP3 player.

Whoever is suing Apple should have found something different to sue about.

[Senbo]

throughout the history of mp3 players apple was always behind in features. the only reason they sold well was because of their top class adds and how easy thy made their stuff to use.
why would an easy to use product sell well? very simple, it was fairly new tech (mp3 players) and there is way to many ignorant Americans that refuse to educate them selves. apple still makes their money by tacking away that requirement. iphone anyone?

btw the rest of the people that bought the ipod where/are blind sheep trying to be "cool"
so what I'm trying to say is that ipod is not a luxury item

ps if you got any other implications from what i have written your smarter then i thought you were

[SaiyanFury]

Yep. That top dollar you spend for an Apple product doesn't go to product development, it goes straight back into the marketing plan to try and convince more people to buy the brand. Something that, to date, has never worked on me. I don't like being locked down into a proprietary product.

[tk]

You can not sue someone or a company because their product sells well. There must be more of a reason than that. For example - MS is known to modify API's in Windows versions or with Service Packs to sabotage their competitor's products. Now for that you can sue - and MS was sued and lost a number of times. Or you can sue if a company steals your source code - like MS stole code from Quicktime - they had to settle with Apple for that - part of it was to continue Office for Apple.

Or like MS got sued when they tried to force hardware companies to not distribute competitor software. They lost those as well. What you can not sue for is like the iPod. It is a MP3 player. They did not steal code. They did not cause competitors to not compete. They just marketed very well - and the market wanted Apple iPods. Like my wife and daughters. I bought two cheap MP3 players and they turned their noses up. I had to get my wife the iPod - costed a hell of a lot more - but she was happy. I must say it was much better than the cheap MP3 players in quality as well.

Now the company with the cheaper or better MP3 player can not sue Apple because my wife says no thanks to the Zune or the other MP3 players. Not because of features - but because when she goes to gym, everyone has an iPod - and nobody has a Zune. Just the way the market works.

[Senbo]

let me be honest, i didn't read the article. after reading the headline i started reading the comments and i stumbled upon this "The Apple product is a luxury model." so i replied with a long winded comment just to conceal a few implications. some hard (good job Fury)some easy to understand; but in the end i was just blunt "so what I'm trying to say is that ipod is not a luxury item." so where did them two paragraphs come from i don't know maybe thy weren't for me. the last paragraph seems to prove one of my easy implications (i don't mean to insult your wife just calling it how i see/read it) "btw the rest of the people that bought the ipod where/are blind sheep trying to be cool"

ps i was surprised abut your reply i thought you were going to reply in one of two way (or both)

#1 you where going to profess your credentials.
#2 you where going to point out the lack of grammar such as a sentence that could have been worded better or the capitals and missing punctuation or even the spelling.

but i guess i was wrong.

[tk]

I most probably don't reply the way you expected... but here goes again...

- Hating a company is not good enough reason to sue them...
- Apple becoming such a brand recognized item that other MP3 players don't sell is also not anti-competitive, and also not a reason to sue
- There needs to be proof of anti-competitive behavior, and in the case of the iPod, there is none

What we have is monkeys jumping up and down demanding blood - as long as it is not their own. This kind of behaviour is even more mindless than the consumer buying the fashion accesory for no other functional reason - same as why woman wants diamond rings. Any reason? No - they want it because they want it - and because diamonds was very well marketed to become the proof of a man's love for his woman. Neither of which is really true - but there you have it - the consumer wants it because the consumer wants it. If you are not getting a piece of the action - then there is no point in suing the successful vendor out of spite.

[Senbo]

so.. ya i didn't see this one coming ether. I thought you would have understood that i was mainly talking(writing) about how apple products are not luxury items. i will say it again, i did not read the article, therefor i don't know about their reasons for a lawsuit. considering that "Hating a company is not good enough reason to sue them..." but is a good reason to get laughed out of court, i have not sued or plan to sue apple. i just dislike the fact that they contribute to the constant stupefying of Americans by catering to them.

'bout the dimods, each to his own, but they look nice and are luxury items.
Thy make you look rich and or show how much a guy is willing to fork over for his b***h. (ipods do one and it's not the latter) so the big question here is dose the amount of money that you can fork over for your woman show how much you lover her? i would have to say no but it definitely seams like it dose

edit: i think i see were you got the hole lawsuit thing, but considering that it doesn't make sense to sue someone because you hate them you should have thrown that implication out the window(which obviously would not have been intentional).

[Karum]

I love my iPod Touch

Just wish they came with much larger storage and much cheaper.

[pshizle]

zune =)

[SkyGamer]

I love my Zune too. I have the 4gb mini and it rocks. Especially since firmware 3.0. I've had many shuffles and 1 2gb nano and 1 30gb video and while they are good products, I HATE and LOATHE itunes/quicktime software as it is the worst. Works ok on a mac, but then it should. The only thing I like the ipod for is that you can use it as a mass storage device, the only feature missing from Zune.

[SkyGamer]

Yeah I know there is software out there that you can but with the ipod it is official.

[BYE]

If so many people like the Zune, I don't understand why it flopped.

[Kyur4ThePain]

someone has Apple envy.

[bouncybullet]

1 of Apple's iPods is called the Shuffle.

They're obviously going to do something about another company calling their MP3 player a Super Shuffle.

The people on this site are so quick to judge massive successful companies. They forget to use their brains before their mouth.

[Reibooi]

I hate Apple and I always have it's just that snooty attitude that they seem to have that I don't like and Not to mention the first and only Ipod I bought from apple was a horrible experience. It froze every day and when it finally did break the customer service rep basically told Me I was lying about it and they refused to have it fixed. There are plenty of MP3 players out there that are just as good as Ipods that dont come with the Elitist attitude Apple has.

[Kyur4ThePain]

Huh?

You mean the one that PS3 users have when talking about the Wii?
Or the one 360 owners have when talking about the PS3?
Or the one that Ford owners have when talking about Chevy?

I don't get what you're trying to say.

[Senbo]

i think what he is trying to say is that "I hate Apple and I always have it's just that snooty attitude that they seem to have." it would seem that he is yet to notice or perhaps get bothered by the snooty attitudes you seem to have noticed.

the grater problem is how can you tell that someone has a "snooty attitude" well i see it like this "i'm cool i'm hip i got an ipod" in comes apple " your just another customer and you ipod is not broken f-off"
"what a snooty person/company never again will i buy their product."

just to clarify, he thinks his cool, apple puts him in his place by not putting up with his lip, he thinks thy are snooty.

maybe if he had a grater love for learning he could find a real reason to hate apple or any company.

[joeynox]

I hate this whole monopoly thing with ms/apple. Any company that gets a product and they sell their product well gets sued for being a monopoly.I just cant stand this crap.These companies were once the little guy and now thye have blown up to be the big dawgs now the new little guys which all want to be the MS's/apples and such cry monopoly when they strive to be just like that

[bouncybullet]

Exactly.

I'm pretty sure that Sony would get pretty pissed about some random company releasing a game console called "Super Playstation."

[MagicAccent]

The point is that Apple is pretty much as close as you'd get to an actual evil corporation(as seen in every other action flick). I mean, think about it: suing everyone and everything, copyrighting everything(you cannot copyright and apple and then sue someone because they also happen to have an logo with an apple).
Why? Because they're paranoid, greedy and just reeking with evil.
Of course their products are good. If they weren't they wouldn't have this monopoly in the first place.