iTunes Staffers Becomes Music's New Gatekeepers

WSJdpatton writes to mention The Wall Street Journal has a look at how Apple is shaking up the world of music retailing. "Apple -- now one of the largest sellers of music in the U.S. -- offers home-page placement in exchange for things such as exclusive access to new songs, special discount pricing or additional material such as interviews with stars. Most other big retailers, digital and physical, also seek exclusive offerings, but Apple is especially aggressive and has outsize clout when it comes to the slightly out-of-mainstream music it often emphasizes."

Re:The fine line is being danced around

[Andy_R]

No, it's abusing a monopoly that is illegal. From the Sherman act article you point to: 'According to Senator George Hoar, an author of the bill, any company which "got the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could" would not be in violation of the act."'

If it was illegal to simply be a monopoly, then that would give rise to all sorts of absurd situations. Apple would have to bribe other buinesses to set up rivals to iTunes, nobody could make anything patented (because a patent is a monopoly) and if there were 5 widget makers in the country, and 4 went bust the other one would automatically become a criminal!

Re:monopoly? hmm..

[an.echte.trilingue]

Their dominance is self-reinforcing because iTunes is the only way to manage music on your iPod.

I use a program called gtkpod to manage my iPod. I understand that amaroK works as well.