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Real Networks Hacks iPod; .rm & Real Store for iPod
alphakappa writes "According to Cnet, Real Networks is expected to announce on Monday that it has found a way to make its songs play on the iPod. Now songs bought from the RealPlayer Music Store can be played on the iPod. Earlier Real had made it possible for songs bought from iTunes to be played on RealPlayer by transparently starting the iTunes authentication in the background. However since Apple has not licensed the technology to make file formats playable on the iPod, the latest Real initiative could be construed as reverse engineering. How would this fare under the DMCA? Or is it just for the tiny ones?"
This probably involves re-encoding songs to AAC, as well as some jumbo-mumbo with DRM. I really doubt they managed to hack iPod per se, just marketing smoke and mirrors for obvious practices.
I'd like to introduce you to Apple's legal team. Please assume the position.
--Residential Interior Design
...because apple doesn't want them to?
After all, the DMCA wasn't designed to protect copyrights -- it was designed to prevent competition.
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Would you like to upgrade to Real 9?
I'm glad I'm reading this stuff finally, and I recommend that you all buy a quick primer (if they exist) on intellectual property. If you had, you'd know that the DMCA only prevents reverse-engineering of copy-protection methods. It does not prevent reverse-engineering of patents, and it does not remove the originality clauses of older IP laws. Therein, the DMCA will still allow Real to do whatever they want with the iPod.
The only problem that I might see is a license violation for every user that installs these songs onto their iPod. After all, the iPod has a software license, I'm sure, that limits use, and it will be interesting to see if Real is breaking that contract. I don't know how they are binding the Helix copy protection to the iPod without installing software on top of the iPod, but if they have found a legitimate work-around, I congratulate them.
The Political Programmer
Real Media on an iPod can mean only one thi--- BUFFERING... 0%... 13%... 27%... 34%... 58%... 72%... 88%... 97%... 100%... --ng to consumers: More choice!
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Does the Real store have any songs that the iTunes store doesn't? Have there been a lot of Real customers clamoring for this?
This sounds like total PR BS from Real - they are just mad that Apple (rightly) gave them the brush-off earlier, and they are under the mistaken impression that Apple or iPod users give a hoot about RealMedia format. I mean, if you have an ipod and use iTunes already, what possible reason could you have for wanting to put
That's not quite correct. It only needs to bypass a copy control measure, and not fall under the interoperability clause.
Also from chilling effects:
The resulting program must only interoperate with the reverse engineered software, however, and cannot interoperate with the technologically protected content (movie, book, video game, etc.) itself.
Seems that Real must have run afoul of this at some point in their quest to work with Apple's DRM.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
That's a cleanroom implementation, and is usually used when you want to copy the functionality of someone's work and not run afoul of copyright laws.
The key in the cleanroom approach is that you already know how the copyrighted work... works. That would be after any reverse engineering, or if you happened to somehow have copyrighted sourcecode or schematics, etc.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
> BUFFERING... 0%... 13%... 27%... 34%... 58%... 72%... 88%... 97%... 100%
You should be so lucky
BUFFERING... 0%... 13%... 3%... 1%... -5%... 72%... 21%... 97%... 10%... 107%... 4%
Real uses 192kbps AAC wrapped with their own Helix DRM (realplayer 10 says it's "RA10," but I don't think such a codec exists). Apple uses 128kbps AAC wrapped with their PlayFair DRM. Both places sell for 99c for each track.
:)
Considering both use AAC, maybe it was simply a matter of fooling the ipod into thinking Helix DRM was PlayFair DRM. And even though Real's choice of AAC seemed strange way back when RP10 was released, I think now it's starting to become clear why they chose that...
Strategically, this doesn't seem out of place with what Real's been doing recently. They seem to want to become the endall beall solution for Internet media: releasing Helix Player under GPL, making RealPlayer able to play QT, ITMS, and WM in the same player, and now this.
Here's RealNetworks press release about this system (called Harmony). They also announced that a public beta version of RealPlayer 10.5, which contains this technology, will be available here tomorrow (Tuesday).
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
It was last November when Steve Jobs admitted that Apple made no money from the iTunes Music Store, and that pretty much all the money goes to the labels. Sure, in the six months since some more economies of scale may have kicked in, but we've heard nothing to contradict this yet:
Apple will always have the advantage in the music store -> iPod battle because the iPod needs iTunes, and iTunes has the music store built in. So Apple remains the first stop for people looking for something to play on an iPod, by definition.
Meanwhile, we're supposed to believe that Apple are somehow worried because Real have taken a bite into this profit-shy business in order to give people another way they can put music on an iPod, thus allowing Apple to maybe ship more units? I can't quite imagine Steve Jobs crying into his breakfast cereal over that one.
Of course, Apple have an opportunity here: the opportunity being the chance to extract license fees for putting Real's software on the iPod. They can wave around the threat of the DMCA and an expensive lawsuit for a while. Then they can pull out the carrot of integration: giving Real the chance to put their player on the iPod without having it break every time the iPod software was updated. Meanwhile Apple get some nice pocket-change in licensing fees, and the chance to deflect some WMA heat by waving the banner of a more open music-playing platform.
Charles Miller
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
It'd be good if this lead to a test in court of the validity of shrinkwrap licences
More likely, Apple will release a iPod update with COOL NEW FEATURES L@@K which oh yeah, btw, breaks compatibility with real-purchased songs.
So then your iPod will not play your Real purchased library, until Real reverse-engineers it again, and who knows how long that'd take. So you'd have perhaps hundreds of dollars of songs on your iPod that you couldn't get to for an indefinite period of time; and Apple would just shrug their shoulders when you complain.
--
$tar -xvf
Real sells AAC files using a slightly different DRM scheme. But the important thing here is how the iPod works for encrypted files.
Basically, it reads the AAC file to get a user identifier. This user ID is equated with a key stored in a file on the iPod itself. This user key allows it to decrypt the encrypted AAC file, which it then plays.
So if you have an encrypted AAC file (these use AES encryption, I believe), then all you have to do to get the iPod to play it is to a) put the key in the right place and b) suitably munge the AAC file so as to enable the iPod to work out which key it needs to use. Part A is simply a matter of putting the key into the right file, part B is messing with several key headers in the "M4P" file itself.
In other words, it's not particularly difficult to take an AES encrypted AAC file, to which you know the key, and munge the file to get it to play on the iPod without actually decrypting the thing and without transcoding.
That's if they wanted to preserve the file's encryption. If they didn't much care, they could just as easily decrypt the thing and write out an M4A file, unencrypted. The iPod could play that just fine too, without messing with the iPod keyring file.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
if Apple doesn't sue Real, there isn't legal confirmation of anything.
IANAL but I work in the distribution end of the entertainment industry so I've had to pick up a more or less working understadning of copyright law.
if that understanding is correct, if Apple chooses not to sue, it does set a precedent. Not suing can be used by lawyers as a de facto acceptance of the practice, which in turn can be construted to be evidence that it isn't illegal. This is why Disney sues elementary schools that paint murals with Mickey Mouse; if they didn't, and someone made a hentai Minnie Does the Matterhorn film, Disney would have established a precedent that using their characters without permission is fine with them, and would have a much harder time in their lawsuit.
When the DMCA was written and adopted, it was acknowledged by the government as likely overbroad and that it would be up to the courts to work out the exact issues. So if Apple chooses not to sue, the courts then likely find that what Real did was not reverse engineering - they just don't work that out until the next time someone gets sued for a similar feat of reverse engineering.
So this is the Hobson's choice the DCMA visits upon Apple - either file an expensive lawsuit that will likely have backlash from industry intelligencia, or let it go and possibly open the door for all sorts of reverse engineering down the road - which is certainly good for consumers and engineers, but gives Apple less protection over its profit margins down the road, and could even lead to a class action lawsuit on behalf of the shareholders for not taking "vigorous" enough steps to protect intellectual property.
(Whether those protections are valid or not is left as an excercise to the reader, because it's sort of beside the point in terms of this discussion.)