No, iTunes was designed for organizing music. How you got that music was a separate function, and you could split out the CD ripping functionality and still have the primary function of iTunes.
Well, being able to rip music off your CDs was literally advertised as an iTunes feature; Apple promoted iTunes after its introduction in 2001 with the slogan "Rip, Mix, Burn." And Apple did get accused by various industry players of promoting copyright violation. I wouldn't say that iTunes was "designed for copyright violation" any more than I'd say youtube-dl was "designed" for it, but Apple definitely understood that iTunes had value to people who wanted to make digital copies of media in ways that did not strictly fall under fair use guidelines. :)
but Apple definitely understood that iTunes had value to people who wanted to make digital copies of media in ways that did not strictly fall under fair use guidelines.
Ripping CDs for personal archival copies had already been characterized as fair use by the courts by the time iTunes was first released. If it hadn't been, the industry players wouldn't have just "accused" Apple of promoting copyright violation, they would have done something about it. The music industry has always been very aggressive about protecting their IP rights.
It would have been very different if iTunes had the slogan "Rip, Mix, Burn, Share."
Well, being able to rip music off your CDs was literally advertised as an iTunes feature; Apple promoted iTunes after its introduction in 2001 with the slogan "Rip, Mix, Burn." And Apple did get accused by various industry players of promoting copyright violation. I wouldn't say that iTunes was "designed for copyright violation" any more than I'd say youtube-dl was "designed" for it, but Apple definitely understood that iTunes had value to people who wanted to make digital copies of media in ways that did not strictly fall under fair use guidelines. :)