The Coming iPod War

The posters at iPodlounge are miffed, not surprisingly, at the latest offensive in the music industry wars: in a gambit to blunt Apple's hardware and software music dominance, Sony BMG and EMI record companies plan to release more CDs that can't be copied into iTunes and, in turn, played on iPods. The companies say their new coded discs are part of an anti-piracy campaign -- designed so people won't be able to illegally share the files they contain -- which just happens to run on Windows Media Player, made by Apple's archnemesis Microsoft. Everyone is hoping for a truce, Variety reports; the labels want to be able to sell files that work on iPods but Apple is refusing, preferring to keep its monopoly on the iTunes Music Store. Bloggers, many of whom already are either pro- or anti-Apple (or Microsoft, for that matter) are choosing sides. Wil, siding with the big labels, says Sony BMG's decision "makes sense, for a change." Seth Anderson sums up the case for the opposition: "If I purchase a new CD, and cannot listen to it on my iPod (or on iTunes for that matter), the CD is a useless piece of plastic to me, as I haven't placed a CD in a CD player in years."

Posted by Philip Ewing at June 21, 2005 12:47 PM

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