This column is not so much about concert taping, but rather a cover on the way new technologies have revolutionized the way we create, acquire, and listen to music; taping is just the most exciting and under covered aspect . When it was reported this week that the Justice Department was investigating iTunes for anti-competitive behavior, I decided that this was the perfect chance to broaden the scope of my column and tell you about why I hate iTunes. In fact, I hate Apple, their iTunes software, and their store in a way I haven’t hated a business in years. Because of its size, iTunes is the biggest obstacle to democratizing the music business. I know I’m being ornery, but no other company today plays a larger role in the way music reaches our ears and it is quite possibly the worst thing to happen to music since Don Henley.

I should be honest and admit that I probably wouldn’t have any problem with iTunes if not for its size and clout: iTunes accounts for 28% of all music sales in the U.S. and 70% of all download sales. Back in the late 90s and early 00s, I thought Clear Channel and Wal-Mart were the biggest threats to the music business and I could probably get a fair amount of people to agree with me. Wal-Mart was the biggest music seller, and Clear Channel was the single biggest owner of radio stations across the country. Wal-Mart’s market power allowed it to effectively censor and dictate terms to major artists. Clear Channel nearly single-handedly killed radio in this country by distributing ordinary playlists and stifling local choice.

Conversely, nobody cares about Clear Channel or Wal-Mart anymore. I haven’t even thought of Clear Channel in years, despite their former status as my most hated business. What changed? Both businesses are still thriving, but no one cares about radio or CD stores anymore. This is all thanks to the internet, which has replaced both radio and music stores as our means of acquiring and discovering music. And now thanks to the unique role the internet plays in both the acquisition and discovery of music, we have one business dominating both, in a way that Clear Channel and Wal-Mart never could.

To maintain their status as market leader, iTunes is employing some harsh anti-competitive measures. Just last December, Apple bought out the up-start competitor Lala just to shut it down.
They have also begun to use their market dominance and threats of retaliation to dissuade musicians and labels from giving deals to Amazon, their largest competitor. Apple has also taken measures to make sure that no other portable media player can sync with iTunes. Apple is using the same kind of anti-competitive measures that Bill Gates was demonized for in the 90s. Only they’ve been a lot better at getting away with it. In fact, Apple has done a good job of convincing themselves and us that they are the good guys.

I’ll give Apple and iTunes some credit. They couldn’t have gotten where they are without creating a great product and introducing it to the market at the right time. That product is the iPod/iPhone, not iTunes. In fact, iTunes is quite possibly the single worst music player I have encountered. It does not even allow you to organize your music library by folder name-something I have found essential to managing my 770 gigabyte collection. If a file is mislabeled or poorly identified, good luck finding it in iTunes. Sometimes iTunes sorting system appears to be totally random. iTunes also forces its users to endure constant updates that rarely serve any discernable purpose. I’ve already mentioned it, but it bears repeating: with Foobar, I can do everything iTunes can do with none of the frustrations.

In fact, Foobar lets me do one important thing that iTunes doesn’t: play lossless FLAC and Shorten files. Most music players can play FLAC files. iTunes is the rare media player that cannot play FLAC. iTunes’ failure to support FLAC is especially egregious since it has become as close as we are likely to get to an industry standard lossless compression format. To those of you who listen to nothing but MP3s and have never listened to FLAC files, this may not seem to be a big deal, but for anyone who cares about sound quality, this matters immensely. If you’re downloading lossless, you are almost always downloading FLAC. All of those taping sites I’ve mentioned before have FLAC files.

Of course, Apple has its own lossless format: Apple Lossless. I have never seen anyone use it to distribute files. In fact, neither does Apple, because iTunes only sells MP3s. I could almost accept Apple’s decision to shut out FLAC if it were part of a genuine attempt to promote its own lossless storage format. It’s a dick move, but it’s been done before and Apple wouldn’t see much financial gain as a result. However, no such thing is taking place, which leads me to believe that iTunes isn’t shutting out FLAC to promote its own lossless compression format, but to stifle the acceptance of lossless compression formats.

Maybe this sounds like the paranoid ravings of a madman –you wouldn’t be far off, but it makes sense. Lossless files are still roughly three times the size of MP3s. And while that translate to a negligible increase in home-storage costs (I have a 1.5 terabyte hard drive that cost me $150), it would triple the bandwidth costs in delivering music through iTunes. Would this triple the cost of music on iTunes? Since the current price reflects a lot more than bandwidth, I doubt it. It is possible it could double, and since albums on iTunes currently are not much less expensive than CDs, this would make downloading music more expensive than purchasing it in stores. Of course, this would never happen. Instead, the price of MP3s would be reduced, more accurately reflecting their value. Years ago, the record companies gouged us for CDs, today with the cooperation of iTunes and Amazon, they are gouging us on MP3s.

Now after a thousand words, we get to the heart of my complaint with iTunes. It’s not just a shitty program linking up to a shitty overpriced store; iTunes represents the triumph of the false premise that MP3s are equivalent to CDs. This is the same false premise that was used to justify suing college kids and single mothers for tens of thousands of dollars just for downloading a few low-quality sound files. iTunes has succeeded where the record companies never could. You don’t have to be an audiophile to recognize that MP3s should not be equivalent to CDs, which both include more audio information and an actual physical product. Furthermore, artists are not seeing any increased revenues through iTunes sales. The cost savings go entirely to iTunes and the record companies who don’t have to manufacture a physical product anymore. The same record companies that price gouged us on CDs are now gouging us for MP3s. You can thank iTunes for that.

The implications of this go far beyond “iTunes is ripping you off.” Digital file-sharing has the potential to radically transform the entire music business for the better. As a result of the declining costs of recording and distributing music, there artists who want their music to reach their listeners have no need for record labels and their lopsided contracts. The majority of musicians have never made any money from album sales anyway. The only ones who get rich are the record labels. The death of the recording industry means nothing to the bottom lines of most musicians. In fact, it can only help them. But now thanks to iTunes, the middleman is keeping the largest percentage of proceeds from music sales.

Nevertheless, I’m actually optimistic about the future of digital music. iTunes’ dominance can’t last forever. iTunes is not unique or necessary enough to dominate technology the way that Microsoft did in the 90s. Already, Droid is giving the iPhone healthy competition. Someone will start making lossless audio files commercially available at competitive prices. Kudos to Akron/Family for giving away FLAC files on their website. Eventually, Apple will no longer have the best portable media player out there, and its software will be next to useless. Apple’s decision to block 3rd party devices will be one of the giant blunders that puts Apple back to its 90s status. Well, here’s hoping at least.