Apple sued over 'music monopoly'
January 3rd 2008
InformationWeek reports that Apple is being sued by Stacie Somers, represented Craig Briskin and Steven Skalet of Mehri & Skalet PLLC, Alreen Haeggquist of Haeggquist Law Group, and Helen Zeldes for monopolistic behavior in digital music.
"Apple has engaged in tying and monopolizing behavior, placing unneeded and unjustifiable technological restrictions on its most-popular products in an effort to restrict consumer choice, and to restrain what little remains of its competition in the digital music markets," the complaint states. "Apple's CEO Steve Jobs had himself compared Apple's digital music dominance to Microsoft's personal computer operating system dominance, calling Apple's Music Store 'the Microsoft of music stores' in a meeting with financial analysts."
The complaint states that Apple purposely "cripples" .wma playback on iPods powered by the SigmaTel STMP 3550 chip, calling the No 1-selling player's operating system "crippleware."
Editor's note: One can only hope the wheels of "justice" turn as slowly and inefficiently for Apple as they have for Microsoft...
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