DRM News

A government probe in to Apple’s business dealings appears to have expanded, according to the New York Post.

Earlier, reports surfaced of the Justice Department looking in to whether Apple was using it’s leverage in the music retail business to force labels to avoid participating in deals with Amazon’s music sales wing. Now that investigation has expanded to look at Apple recent dealings in iPad/iPhone development.

Specifically being looked in to are the reasons Apple banned Adobe’s Flash from being used in development for the iPad.

"The [Justice Dept.] is doing outreach," said one Hollywood industry source. "You can’t dictate terms to the industry. The Adobe thing is just inviting the wrath of everybody."

Added a senior source at a media company: "If Apple thinks it’s going to increase its monopoly with the iPad, it should look at the history of other walled gardens."

A walled garden is a service or system that puts restrictions on how users can access that service or system.

Many developers have already balked at having to essentially re-program their existing software for it to work on the iPad platform, and the decision to ban Flash has been highly criticized. Also, many have questioned Apple’s need to approve of any and all applications created by outside developers, which is also apparently under investigation.