Apple Anti-Trust?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20070408/tc_nf/51252;_ylt=AvblDy1CfkupO0JouQTK1cMjtBAF


Since the emergence of digital music stores there has been much debate on their role in the music industry. Some view online music stores as the next big change in the music industry. While others view music available to download online as a a threat to the music industry, even if offered with the backing of the record labels. Most agree it's something that needs to be monitored and regulated closely. With this new anti-trust probe, it enables the European Union(EU) to regulate their record sales closely uniformly among the EU countries. Much like the US record labels want to keep their online sales closely monitored.

Unlike the shift from Tape to CD, I-tunes and the very few other online music stores prevent any sort of competitive buisness. Each store has ties to different record labels, thus different product. When the shift from Tape to CD happened, there would be different stores carrying most major music, allowing different prices and competitiveness. This is what the suit is aiming at, and I believe what the EU is doing is a very smart concept. This prevents I-tunes from locking prices at a fixed rate and having a strangle hold on the market.

This sort of thing should be carried over to the US. I believe if more online music stores opened up i.e. Best Buy selling digital music online or even a digital music kiosk in the store that one could bring an IPod to. SOmething that would allow people to buy and own the rights to a copy of music, and allow a competive arena for the comsumers benefit.