I agree with Norway. When I buy music I want to be able to play it in any media player I want and not to be limited to iTunes that takes somewhere between 75 and 100 MB of my memory.

It's about time somebody started making trouble for Apple not just Microsoft.

They should let capitalism sort this out. Enough people purchasing other media players will make it worthwhile for itunes competitors to offer more. Competition might also make the people giving exclusive contracts to itunes to rethink this policy. Competition could also make itunes open up to get to customers that purchase competing media players. Consumers control the market.

f there's one thing that will one day make stop visiting this site, it's the constant slandering of Europe and europeans by certain staff members and regulars. While some criticism might be valid, there's no reason to be so damn smug about it. If you need an outlet for your political views, then do it elsewhere.

They own it, they can do and say what they want.

The question isn't whether they can, it's whether they should. It's their choice of course, but I doubt the anti-european propaganda that keeps sneaking its way into wincustomize is good for business. I sure as hell don't feel like buying any Stardock software when it's painfully clear that the company is run by narrow-minded, holier-than-thou American idiots. But then again, I am european so I guess they don't care if I buy their products anyway.

And non-stardockians can say what they want?
The way I see it, they can say whatever they want on WC along with any other user here. WC might be run and funded by SD, but it's still a forum. And you can look at it this way: even if they didn't post any of their views here, their views would still be the same. Doesn't change who the company are. At least you get an opportunity to make a counter argument.

What you fail to realize is that Apple has to pay a royalty to the recording companies
for that large downloadable library. The library is a proprietary piece of intellectual property for which Apple charges you, the user, a fee.

Second, Apple shouldn't be forced to allow their proprietary product to be used on any machine. It is an infringement on Apple's commercial, intellectual property rights to be forced to provide a service - downloadable on any format - for which Apple has already used their R&D funds to develop.

Thirdly, the whole matter seems a bit silly, pointless and moot as you can burn any of the Apple formatted music to a CD which can then be converted into any format you want - you could even play it on your Zune, if you are silly enough to buy one.

It always fun to watch the EU constantly go after US firms: Boeing, Apple and Microsoft, for example, for their ability to develop products that become the standard for the world.

The European system of education and government greatly inhibits your ability to
develop products the world really wants. For example, how many TGVs have you exported, or have you noticed that Boeing surpassed Airbus in sales this year and will in 2007 as well. These court and government decisions are example of your unending jealousy of American technological hegemony.

The European system of education and government greatly inhibits your ability to develop products the world really wants.

I would really, really, really like to hear sucre4 elaborate on this a bit. I hope it doesn't mean what I think it means.

The question isn't whether they can, it's whether they should. It's their choice of course, but I doubt the anti-european propaganda that keeps sneaking its way into wincustomize is good for business. I sure as hell don't feel like buying any Stardock software when it's painfully clear that the company is run by narrow-minded, holier-than-thou American idiots. But then again, I am european so I guess they don't care if I buy their products anyway.

Perhaps you should get your government to prevent people from visiting this site. After all, we can't let the market decide whether a given behavior is acceptable or not. We need learned elites to tell us what to do instead.

BTW, most Stardock products are made in Europe. 

But it is true, the company is run by a holider-than-thou American idiot who thinks anyone who makes purchasing decisions based on the personality of news posters rather than whether the product or service meets their needs is too dumb to be their customer.

Why should someone have to deal with that pain in the ass? (burning their purchases to a CD and then ripping them) Most people have no idea how to do that anyway, nor have the time or energy. Why should people have to buy the music, buy blank CDs, just to listen to a song on a non-iPod mp3 player?

So the answer to dumb lazy people is to prevent all people from being able to purchase the music they want?

Norway: "Hello, I would like to play my Xbox 360 game on my Nintendo Wii."

Microsoft: "Sorry, you can only play Xbox 360 games on the Xbox 360."

Norway: "What? That's not fair. Very well, then no one can buy Xbox 360 games."

Microsoft: "So to prevent the frustration of not being able to play Xbox 360 games on the Nintendo Wii you propose to make it that people can't get Xbox 360 games in the first place?"

Norway: "Yes."

Microsoft: "Wouldn't it be easier to just pretend that there are no Xbox 360 games and just buy Nintendo Wii games and let those who don't care to get Xbox 360 games."

Norway: "Isn't that...what's it called..oh yea, capitalism?"

Microsoft: "Yes."

Norway: "E-gads no!"

 

 

Your analogy isn't apt because console makers regularly make exclusive deals with game producers.

Midway on Playstation. GTA was for a long while only on Playstation.  They had exclusive agreements.

I simply trust the intelligence of people. I am very skeptical when I see people say that people are "too dumb" to make good decisions. I'm not saying you are but this thread reeks of elitism.

The market can decide for itself. It is almost never a good idea for a government to step in and force its population to choose differently.

It means what it means, nothing is hidden. The European systems of education is elitist on its face. Europe, denies the ability of all to attend the best European schools, thereby restricting opportunity, economic development and spawning frustration. Do I need to go any further than the riots in France last year to show a clear example, or how the Turks are treated in Germany. In the United States our universities are open to all, you are only limited by your drive to succeed. That is why everyone want to come here to go to school.

You may be offended by this, but it is true, what goes on in your soccer stadiums, your streets, your culture and your schools are the product of a society that does not provide opportunity to all. Life is good if your are a Parisian, or the citizen of any other western european capital and you are part of the elite, it is, fill in the expletive, if you are not.

European governments and the large business enterprises work hand in hand in the development of industrial policy, anti-trust policy. For example,in France, the elite,in general the graduates Les Grandes Ecoles, just migrate between government civil service and business based on which politcal party is in power. It's the same people, employment for life, you can't fire them.

Also, the states pick business winners and losers and have a great hand in what new technologies are to be developed, Airbus is a prime example. A companion notion to the picking or winners and losers in this faulty concept of the protection of the so-called national champions. The free transfer of capital, M&A activity is limited by virtue of the protection of business, not are market power considerations as in the United States. For example - you want to know why there isn't a worldclass French computer industry? It is because the French goverment protected Machines Bull and prevented the import of IBM products in the 1970s and 1980s. This policy stunted the developed of a competitve computer industry in France. By the time the French government realized what they had done the game was over. French business can't get the Bull products replaced fast enough. As any France Telecom employee, they'll tell you.

Further, the social costs, read taxes, of hiring employees, starting new entreprenurial businesses or tasking risks has a permanent chilling effect on Europe compared to the US or Asia.

All of the above, as I said earlier, has a chilling effect on the development of products that have a universal appeal. You have bureaucrats, the product of an elitist,
educational system directing industrial policy. Under such a system and culture, Jobs and
Gates would not have been able to succeed. Their only recourse is to try to implement the same restrictive practices on US business competing in Europe. It has failed with regard to IBM in the past and Microsoft, Apple, now.

may I point out that, as someone mentioned above, the ipod was developed by an englishman ?
may I point out that, if Boeing surpassed Airbus last year, that means that Airbus had the market before ?
the computing industry is based on work of Turing, an Englishman.

Poor frogboy. Yep, the socialist state of mind is everywhere. I live in Europe and I see it everyday. We can not decide for ourselves, noooo that would be too dangerous. So the state comes in and forces everyone to behave the way the state thinks they should behave.

And because the state mandates this behavior by law, that is by compelling people by sheer force, we have no choice. Whole generations are spoon fed this socialist way of thinking by the schools, the state will take care of you, by the news papers, yea there is a problem what will the government DO about it and actually almost everyone else.

No, most posters above me are not socialist in the sense that they would identify themselves with it. But they ARE socialist in the sense that they accepted the most basis premise from socialism. And that is that the state must take precedence over the market. That is, that the force of the state is better most of the time, than the voluntary cooperation of the market. The market is hated or at least distrusted and the government is seen as essentially good and trustworthy.

It was not always like that. Once the market was seen as trustworthy and most people distrusted the state. But now even after a century were the state perpetrated the most horrible totalitarian crimes in West and eastern-Europe, Russia, China, North Korea, Cambodia and many other countries my fellow Europeans have learned nothing. They are still in essence state worshipers! And that my friends is socialism in its essence! What we see here is the victory of 40 years of indoctrination of cultural Marxist philosophy.

Frogboy within a few decades Europe will be a museum for Americans and people from Asia. Companies will have left Europe and its collapsing welfare states with high taxes and idiotic economic laws. And while the European culture of enlightenment and the free market will be forgotten I can perhaps earn a few bucks by being your tour guide in the European wasteland that cultural Marxism will have created.

Well I just have to say:

Way to go Norway!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now if we only could get the sniveling cowards in congress to stand up for the populace (read customer's rights) by getting tough on BS DRM, authentication, HDCP etc. etc. then maybe we wouldn't need such drastic measures by other countries...

I am all for content producers protecting their property/IP but when it begins to hamper my ability to enjoy goods I have paid for, in the manner I want to, then it has crossed the line. In the early 80s things were onerous: disks allowed only one install of a software, and you had to unistall before moving to a new system. Of course if your computer crashed before you unistalled said software you were left w/o back up... Companies saw the error of their ways and immensly relaxed the BS. It was during this time that MS became the giant it is and BG gained a net worth of $100 billion... Windows sold extremly well with just astupid serial number as protection...

Companies now see the internet as a panacea of big brotherhood wherethey can secretly keep tabs on their costumers vis a vis servers required for updates, registeration, authentication, and other bloated BS. All of this might give them a short term boost in sales but in the end will be self defeating.. Maybe not for MS (who controls 99.99999999999% of the real market) but for everyone else it will be a problem eventually...