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Update on Playfair

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gonna-get-messier dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A few weeks back, Slashdot reported that Apple had sent a cease and desist letter to Sarovar.org, the Indian site hosting the Playfair project. This is the first incident in India where a corporation has used legal means to shut down a Free Software project. Some of the prominent members of the Open Source/Free Software community in India have issued an update on this situation. There is also an interesting post in the FSF-India mailing lists."

5 of 370 comments (clear)

  1. Coverage on K5 also. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some nice discussion here.

  2. Hmm.. by bigattichouse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Need a good ol' fashioned Chinese to-hell-with-western-law hosting... works for spammers, why not legit projects that exist in that legal grey-zone?

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    meh
  3. Read the "Terms Of Service" by supercobrajet428 · · Score: 5, Informative
    A Quote from the "Terms Of Service" which you MUST AGREE TO in order to purchase tracks from the ITMS:


    Any burning or exporting capabilities are solely an accommodation to you and shall not constitute a grant or waiver (or other limitation or implication) of any rights of the copyright owners in any content, sound recording, underlying musical composition, or artwork embodied in any Product.

    You agree that you will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any other person to, circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service or used to administer the Usage Rules.

    The delivery of Products does not transfer to you any commercial or promotional use rights in the Products.

    It's not really a question about whether it's ethical or not. If you have music from the ITMS, you bought it from Apple, and YOU AGREED TO THESE TERMS OF SERVICE. If you make a piece of software to "circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service" than you are breaking your contract with Apple, and thusly breaking the law. It's pretty simple.

  4. What scares me... by faaaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...is not the fact that Apple went after PlayFair, that was more or less expected. What scares me is the fact that a large part of the slashdot crowd are siding with apple and big media on this one. Hacking your DVD-player is okay, the right to fiddle with your own devices shall not be infringed upon. Media files, however, are sacred. You shall not use them in any way big media does not approve of.

    And why? To please big media, otherwise they would not venture into this internet selling thingy, posts explain. Anyone who does not accept the control big media is forcing upon buyers is a damn dirty pirate, responsible for the thousands of plagues in the world and puts 'us' in a bad light. The brainwashing is apparently working.

    Really, what's the difference between deCSS and PlayFair? I don't recall anyone posting that Jon Johansen was guilty.

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    we come in peace / shoot to kill
  5. Apple is taking a bad rap for this... by Llywelyn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In truth, however, this is probably a very good move on their part.

    Apple knows this technology is completely irrelevant, that it is "no big deal" from a technical standpoint and they expected something like this to be created from the beginning (Steve Jobs said exactly this--that they couldn't protect digital content).

    As a *political* move, however, it makes a lot of sense. They aren't actually suing people RIAA style and I doubt it will ever come to that--instead they are just shutting down the servers that host it via C&D letters. If they didn't do this, they would be at risk of the music labels deciding that they aren't doing enough to protect their interests and *backing out*.

    If you get this off P2P or FreeNet then good for you, you are an irrelevant statistic as far as Apple is concerned.

    The comparisons to DeCSS really miss the point. DeCSS was big in part because there was no way to watch DVDs under Linux and because the MPAA really wasn't expecting it and tried to shut it down completely. With FairPlay there is a way to play it under Linux (though yes, there is a loss of quality) and they did expect it, so what they are doing is protecting their interests with the RIAA by giving a good go at it.

    It doesn't matter if they "succeed" so long as they are actively pursuing it to the extent of the law.

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    Integrate Keynote and LaTeX