March 13, 2006

French look to open iTunes to other music players

France is pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer to open its iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the computer maker’s popular iPod player.

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The reason that stuff like this is important is that closed systems almost always stifle innovation. Currently you can only listen to songs (and audiobooks, podcasts, etc.) that you’ve put in iTunes if you have an iPod. By opening up iTunes to other devices there would likely be increased competition in the device player market which would lead to technological advances and drops in pricing.

Apple no doubt feels that by controlling both the software (iTunes) and the hardware (the iPod) that they can provide a superior user experience. To a certain extent that’s been true to date. If you’ve had a chance to compare the iPod/iTunes/Fairplay DRM package to the alternatives you’ll likely agree.

But to move forward these systems must become more open. I had a chance to watch a great presentation a week ago on the subject of the future of media and a great quote from Rob Lord was included:

“What if Internet Explorer only went to Microsoft’s site?”

If that was the case we would be back in the dark ages in terms of web development. Fortunately Microsoft allowed users of Internet Explorer to go other places besides microsoft.com. Let’s hope that Apple does something similar and opens up iTunes and the iPod to competing music and spoken word services and players. That’s something that would be in the best interest of everyone.