Apple jackboot hits iCommune (updated)

"Apple Computer has forced a developer to stop distributing a plug-in that turned Apple's iTunes music player into a peer-to-peer music sharing client. The plug-in, called iCommune, allowed iTunes users to browse the music libraries of other Macintosh PCs over a network and stream or download music from the remote libraries," reports ZDNet UK. "In a keynote speech last year, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs also demonstrated an iTunes feature strikingly similar to iCommune," says the report. In a comment to this post, Ian Betteridge argues that "The feature that Jobs demonstrated last year was auto-discovered streaming from iTunes (via Rendezvous). iCommune, on the other hand, allows music sharing. The two things are not 'strikingly similar'." However, this does not affect the fundamental problem, which is Apple's efforts to limit and control third-party developers.