A new antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple on Dec. 31 claims the company has an illegal monopoly on the digital music market. The plaintiff, Stacie Somers, and her representation claim that Apple is dominating the market for online video and music sales, as well as the digital music player market, and that its position is a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. “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. More specifically, the complaint takes issue with Apple’s refusal to support Microsoft’s proprietary Windows Media Audio format. “Apple’s iPod is alone among mass-market Digital Music Players in not supporting the WMA format,” the complaint says, while listing several competing music services that support protected WMA files. This specific complaint is based on the idea that the music labels “are generally unwilling to license their music for online sale except in protected formats,” a statement that seems to lack credibility in light of recent moves into DRM-free sales by industry heavyweights EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group.
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