Apple sued over monopoly practices

It appears that following my previous article about Apple charging too much for its music downloads on iTunes, one user has had enough. According to the BBC, he is taking Apple to court, because its iTunes software won't permit playing tunes on any MP3 player other than the iPod.

It is said that this practise is anti-competitive, and is turning an open music standard into a proprietary medium. Apple does this by using technology embedded in each song that prevents it being played on any other platform (apart from the PC itself, of course).

Californian Thomas Slattery has filed his case via the US District Court in San Jose, and calls himself an iTunes customer who "was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod" if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to".

As with all large companies, they become successful doing things their way, which by definition is not what everybody else is doing. The times, they are a-changing: customers are no longer prepared to let corporates dictate how they should use their products; it is ok to do things your way, provided you still allow me to be flexible my way. Apple, Microsoft, Sony et al: take note.