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Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov As I understand it, Apple agreed twice in the past not to get involved in the music business. This is (at least in part) a contractual dispute. I think the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords are quite likely to take a different view of the argument - Apple Computers may not be selling vinyl or CDs or tapes, but to suggest that iTunes and iPod are simply data storage and retrieval devices unrelated to music can't be right. |
True, it's a contractual dispute, so any judgement is going to turn on the precise wording of the contract. Have you read - all of - the contract? If not, then this is just supposition, and pretty pointless.
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Originally Posted by Barry As for ESG, the point is that if it's just data storage, earpieces are not required. Only if it's an audio retrieval mechanism will earpieces be required. |
There's never been in existence a data storage device which doesn't include a suitable retrieval mechanism - it would be as useful a paperweight, so I don't see that you can or should separate them. Alternatively, you can argue that the earpieces are a separate device and not part of the iPod (which they are, in fact.)
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Originally Posted by Barry It's also worth pointing out that a true data storage device, like Compact Flash, does not itself interpret the data, but requires another device - digital camera, PC - to convert the data into a form humans can interact with. |
By that argument even the computer is a data storage device (for images) and it's the video screen that converts the data to human-readable format (unless you can stick your finger in the VGA socket and make sense of the voltages you feel at your finger...) That certainly applies to the iPod/headphones too.