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Apple Not Too Harmonious with Real
An anonymous reader writes "As if in answer to the question previously asked on Slashdot, CNN Money is reporting that Apple isn't all that happy that Real pried open the door to the iPod for its RealMedia files. "We are stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod." It should be interesting to see how this pans out in court, and if the DeCSS case serves as some sort of precedent."
With the constant Apple lovefests, the hatred of the DMCA and DRM, the dislike of Real Player, and the love of hacking.
First, the full Apple statement, since it's not referenced in the summary:
"We are stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod, and we are investigating the implications of their actions under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and other laws. We strongly caution Real and their customers that when we update our iPod software from time to time it is highly likely that Real's Harmony technology will cease to work with current and future iPods."
- Regarding the DMCA: you can't fault Apple for using a law on the books - passed by Congress (unanimously by the Senate), and signed into law by President Clinton - to protect its own business interests. If you don't like the DMCA, or aspects of copyright law in general, work to change the law(s), but don't fault companies or individuals for conducting themselves within the bounds of those laws while they are in force.
- What Apple says regarding breakage is true. Some might argue that any breakage would be intentional; however, you can certainly also agree that otherwise benign changes to the iPod or its firmware may indeed break Real's reverse engineering. Intentional or no, this would still leave customers who have purchased songs via Real out in the cold, which ultimately, to the average customer, reflects poorly on Apple and the iPod (moreso than on Real). Does Apple, or its customers, really want an environment where any changes to the iPod to add functionality or features can break customers' music that they've ostensibly legitimately purchased?
- The word "hackers" was successfully co-opted long, long, long ago ("a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system"), so don't fault Apple's (currently correct and appropriate) use of the word, and save us the tiresome lectures.
That said, yes, Apple could sublicense Fairplay, as they have done with Motorola. But still, it means both parties must agree, and doesn't excuse Real.
Others remember the continued arrogance and mistakes regarding OS licensing long ago. "Apple could potentially become the Microsoft of online music," they say. But this could only potentially happen by cannibalizing iPod sales. The iPod would be akin to the "PC"; the iTunes Music Store would be "Windows". (Remember: Microsoft never made computers). But for Apple, the iTunes Music Store is a break even proposition: its sole purpose from a business perspective is to drive iPod sales and adoption, and, to a lesser extent, adoption of other Apple products. Apple's iPod and hardware margins are to-die-for in the computer industry, while the iTunes Music Store, even after having sold 100 million songs, only recently made a "small profit". Additionally, Apple maintaining control over the whole process from end to end is one of the things that makes the iTunes/iPod experience so friendly and pleasing. This may no longer be true with other manufacturer's products.
I'm not arguing against for or against licensing here, only pointing out that it's more of a difficult situation than people make it out to be. The iTunes Music Store and the iPod, for Apple, are inextricably connected, at least currently. Allowing the iPod to work with other online music stores can be argued to hurt Apple's iTunes/iPod strategy, while allowing the iTunes Music Store to work with other players definitely hurts iPod sales. Sure, you can make all sorts of contrary arguments, but there are valid arguments just as contrary to those. All that said, Apple
If they CHOOSE to use the DMCA, then that's a choice they've made and one we can fault them for. There are laws that say my neighbors can't make loud noise at 5am. I have a choice whether I can go talk to them and get them to be quiet, or whether I can just call the police.
UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT: /--consumer choice?- <-<No.. . |
A SLASHDOT FLOWCHART EXCLUSIVE
Start:
Did a corporation use Was the encryption--Y-->Did someone reverse
encryption to prevent-Y->in question engineer the system,
their customers from pathetically weak? allowing for more
fairly using purchases? |
N-------N---<------<----N----<--+----<--
| \ Y
N<------N----<---Did the corporation Did this new<--+
| react violently, <--Y-software enable
| Was the<--Y--slander hackers, fair use?
| corporation and fire off legal
| Apple(tm)(R)? threats using DMCA to suppress speech?
| | |
| Yes +No-->Oh my God those assholes! It's time we put this source
|_ | code on a T-shirt! Time to contribute to the author's
\ / legal defense fund! Time to call our senator and tell
No big deal! him to repeal the evil, flawed DMCA! Time
Time to play "Quake!!!" to practice "civil disobedience!". Time
to write "distributed peer to peer"
corporate-subversion software! Time to call for a radical reform
of copyright laws! Time to decry Palladium(tm)(R) design and
distribution as a grand scheme to put us under the lock and key
of DRM! Time to raid DVD-Jon's jail cell with Dimitri as lead
commando! Time to hack Hillary Rosen's web site and deface statues
of Jack Valenti! Quick buy another 2600 T-Shirt!
By the way, wouldn't it be great if Devo was 99c a song?
God I still remember the HACKER MANIFESTO!!!!
From the bottom of the article:
"The reason would not be because Real is a threat (they aren't), but because of the precedent it sets," he added in the e-mail. "Microsoft will be coming out with their own online music shop this fall, and they will be a threat. Better to nip such competition in the bud." (My emphasis)
God forbid that we might have competition in the marketplace!
...was nothing. Ignore it. Who cares? No one is going to buy Real's crappy encoded format music. Apple looks like the bad guy by telling people what to do with hardware they purchased. Replace Real with some guy from Finland and ".rm" with ".ogg" format and see if you still agree.
What stealing?? You can only steal something that is someone else's property. What did Real steal, even if you include intellectual property as things that can be stolen? Did they infringe a patent? Did they infringe copyright? They they abused a trademark from Apple?
No, they simply reverse engineered FairPlay to create a product that can interoperate with the iPod. Is that also stealing nowadays? It's like saying that those companies making clone cartridges for inkjets are stealing from the printer manufacturers... Nobody has a right to a particular amount of profit, and depriving someone of profit by offering an alternative is *not* stealing, it's called competition in a free market.
Donate free food here
iPod plays Mp3s, AACs, AIFFs, and a number of other formats. They're not transcoded before the hit iPod. The iPod disk has a normal filesystem on it and all, so you can look for yourself.
Also, AAC doesn't inherently have DRM in it. Apple just wraps it in DRM for the songs they sell from their music store. I rip my music to AAC using iTunes and it is totally unencumbered by DRM.
Heck, AAC wasn't even around (at least, not the way it is now) when the iPod first came out...
A serious question for you:
Why shouldn't people be able to play music files that they have purchased, on a piece of hardware that they've purchased? The files are Real, the hardware is Apple. Why isn't that "cool"?
Gotta love the hypocrisy of /.. Apple threatens to invoke the DMCA against Real, and there's applause and cheers. Creative licenses a software patent to id, and there's mass boycotts threatened.
If Apple actually does invoke the DMCA, I'm not going to buy or use any of their products for the next ten years. Do the right thing, Apple: drop the DMCA threats, license to Real, and put on a good face about the situation.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I just can't escape the feeling that if the name of the company involved was anything besides Apple, 99% of the community here would be decrying their anticompetitive behavior. Would you be the saying the same thing if it was Apple adding iTunes compatibility to Sony's ATRAC only proprietary Netwalkman?
Someone's the bad guy here but it sure doesn't feel like Real for giving consumers more choice on their legally purchased hardware. Or did I miss the part where restricting how we could use our own hardware became "cool". That'd certainly be thinking differently.
DRM vs. DRM. A pox on both their houses.
sulli
RTFJ.
I just happened to look at the box of the iPod while moving this past weekend. The box says by opening this product you agree to the software license.
So here's my question:
If you're not using the software, can apple make you agree to the software license?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
They said no. No means no, it does not mean do it anyway. Technically, there have been arguments that Real is doing nothing wrong, but it feels more.....how you say....just, bad faith, bad form to me.
Yeah, and boo on Compaq for reverse engineering IBM's bios instead of just licensing it, and boo on everyone who hacked TiVo and wrote books about it.
Sorry, but unless Apple is going to lease iPods they have no control over what you do to the hardware you bought from them. If I wanted to write software that turned iPod into a toaster I am within my rights to do so.
I really can't stand the double standard people have regarding Apple versus all other companies.
Somehow this is different when we hack open Microsoft gaming consoles? Down with Microsoft for creating a closed format that we cannot do what we want with! How dare they!
Apple creates a unit that is closed, refuses to allow Real to come in and have an alliance for it, and so Real hacks it to do something cool. Apple "lays the smack down" and somehow that is a good thing? Killing innovation?
Zealotry is one thing but blatant fence hopping is another.
Erm, hold on. This makes no sense. What's your argument again? That Real is being unreasonable because Apple refused to cooperate with them, and then had the audacity to winge when Real did the work necessary to implement something by themselves?
Why the f--- is REAL in the wrong there? What next? Are you going to advocate makers of webcams, MP3 players, 802.11 adapters, et al, suing Linux programmers for ignoring their refusal to cooperate and working out how to make Linux interoperate with their hardware?
Maybe Apple should start suing its own customers too, just to keep its hand in.
I bought an iPod. At this point, Apple has no business telling me what I should do with it. Apple has no business complaining about third parties wanting to offer me things that work with that iPod. Apple should butt out and mind their own business.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This is unspeakably wrong! A company spends MILLIONS, perhaps even BILLIONS to come up with their own proprietary mechanism for exchanging files between their OWN services, and some damned upstart comes along, reverse-engineers it, and has the AUDACITY to make their OWN service interoperate with it...WITHOUT PERMISSION?!?!?
All of that money that the company spent, down the drain, because some "hackers" figured out how their carefully crafted system works! This is wrong and unfair!
Our course is clear! We must NOT support the evildoers who have committed this foul act of hacking! BOYCOTT! BOYCOTT!
We must NEVER use SAMBA AGAIN!!!!!
Wait...who were we talking about again?....
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
It is cool. And I think Apple knows it. The actual issue for Apple is "Hey! You're going to take business away from iTunes if just anybody can put any music on our iPod!" Which is total bullshit. They win either way- people are still buying iPods. People are still GOING to buy iPods. I notice Apple didn't say a word when the RealPlayer started supporting their format, why was that? OH, right- because there's no $$ involved in Quicktime.
For anyone making the argument that hardware should only ever support media/software/whatever made by the same company as the hardware, would you buy a car from Chrysler if you could only get gas from Chrysler or buy a Sony DVD player and only be able to play Sony Pictures (or subsidiary houses) DVDs in it. Hell no. You can put non-Apple software on an iMac, so why should you only be able to use iTunes with an iPod?
For ONCE Real is doing something that helps consumers, something nearly every mofo on
R(k)
Then let me be the first to say: Apple is wrong on this one.
I don't know where these companies got the idea that they somehow maintain "rights" over their products after they have been sold to customers (yes, sold; "licenses" are a distubingly popular myth, but a myth nontheless).
Apple has a very peculiar history in the PC industry. Their first product, the Apple ][, was created by a guy who took whatever parts came readily to hand and hacked them together to create one of the world's first personal computers. I own a copy of the Apple ][ Reference Manual, which contains a complete source listing of the ROM, as well as a schematic of the machine -- indeed, the very embodiment of the "Hacker Ethic." Such open disclosures would give today's industry executives and lawyers fits of apoplexy. Yet, despite this open disclosure of "proprietary technology", the Apple ][ sold millions of units, and put Apple Computer on the map as the pre-eminent personal computer maker.
Then the Macintosh came out in 1984, and Apple started down the path of becoming a closed-architecture "proprietary" information hoarder. ROM listings were not available. Schematics were not available. This didn't stop people from "prying open" the Mac and learning what they could about it.
Now we have the iPod, and Apple is making the unconscionable claim that no one has the right to pry open "their" product and learn how to make it do things. That they are shocked, simply shockced, that anyone would adopt the "tactics and ethics of a hacker" to manipulate an iPod to their own ends. This from a company that was founded on the tactics and ethics of a hacker.
So, let me be the first to say: Apple, you're absolutely dead wrong about this. Real may be a bunch of assholes for other reasons, but in this case, they have done nothing wrong. Look to your own history to understand why. By making such a claim, you are repudiating your own origins and your founders -- you are, in effect, claiming your own company has no right to exist.
You owe Real an apology. You owe your founders an apology. And you owe us an apology.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
It's actually very logical. Apple derives value from producing a complete system. If Apple opened the iPod to, say, Windows Media, they would be relying on (and having to support) Microsoft's DRM technology. Same with Real- Apple has to worry about calls from customers who wonder why their Real files won't play on the iPod. If Apple makes a firmware change, they have to test against Real's (undocumented) hack. Remember, (l)users don't always make a distinction between vendors, they just want their $XXX gizmo to work, dammit! If I buy Real files that work today on my iPod but not tomorrow after an Apple software update, whose fault is it? Should Apple be required to maintain and pay for compatibility?
The other issue, of course, is that if Apple adopts (or permits) other DRM technology, they lose value/exclusivity/licensing opportunities for AAC/Fairplay. It's the same principal as calling for a native Windows API (like Wine or Crossover Office) built into OS X. It's technically feasable to build VirtualPC functionality into OS X, but then third-party developers would abandon Mac software development completely in favor of one (Windows) codebase that would run anywhere. Apple would cede control of third-party development to Microsoft and be screwed. If Apple allows third-party DRM to work, nobody licenses Fairplay and Apple always has to incorporate Windows Media changes.
Finally, there is a simple and legal way for any vendor to sell audio which can be directly used on an iPod. Numerous formats are supported by the iPod/iTunes/QuickTime platform, including MP3, WAV, AIFF, Audible, Apple Lossless, and AAC. Nothing (except the greedy record labels) is preventing Real from selling music in a supported format. After all, you don't hear Apple complaining about allofmp3.com do you?
Yes, and if you buy an iPod and make it so that your real files can work with it, that's fine and dandy. But you aren't Real. Especialy if Real starts advertising as "iPod compatible" you run into the problem of this being an unsupported hack, which most of the consumers won't understand.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
How many iPod users are going to say after this patch makes their iPod's CrashMatic 3000's It Real's fault, versus calling in the support lines and bitching in public about how iPods are all crappy and unstable.Apple is protecting their brand and image from potential harm caused by Real's medling.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Yes, and while we're at it, I would like a PDA that lights my cigarettes and wipes my ass for me.
/. bitch about the iPod not having x encoding format or x obscure-as-shit Operating System Compatibility, I would probably have about $40 U.S. Sir, the dead horse you are beating is little more than so much decomposed mush now. Let it go. Please.
I want it to be able to light normal filtered class A cigarettes, but also include support for 100s and unfiltered.
I want it to support 1-ply AND 2-ply toilet paper and be forward-compatible for new multiple-ply standards in the future.
I would also like it to be child and babysafe, so that if a toddler is within a certain proximity of the machine it will not light cigarettes and will only use baby wipes.
Furthermore, it must be fully compatible with my OS/2 Warp box.
And I would like a pony, but that last one is optional.
Anyone that does not acquiesce to these demands is being closed and proprietary. For shame!
Apple's possible legal action aside, the iPod is an example of product implementation where their goal was to do one thing and do it well: let people play tons of music on a well-designed, portable device. Google did the same thing with search by keeping it relatively simple.
If I had a nickel for everytime I heard someone on
I think that all Apple can do in this case is make it blatantly obvious that if you install any 3rd party software or patches from any other company on the iPod the warranty is void and support is discontinued. I think that if you buy an iPod then you own it, but if you modify it then you're on your own. The selling point of the iPod is that it is a seamless integration with iTunes. The average user won't be able to understand that their problems were caused by Real instead of Apple if their iPod quits working. Unfortunately, this is the corporate equivalent of the "fight or flight response". Real has 1 (one) digital player that supports their format. Apple has 1 (one) that supports their format. The player that supports Real's format accounts for maybe 1-2% of the market and is dropping, Apple's player accounts for 40-60% of the market and is increasing. Real has realized that their only hope for survival is to get their format on the iPod. If Apple agreed to let them in it would be no problem. If Real figured out how to do it without screwing up the iPod, no problem. Real has essentially squatted in Apple territory and placed Apple in a bad situation. If they break Real's hack, either accidentally or intentionally, Apple looks like the bad guy to the consumer. The only other option is to support Real's hack, essentially condoning their squatter's rights. Apple absorbs all of the responsibility, while Real reaps the rewards...Option 3, which is a very Microsoft style tactic, is to sue the other guy until they give up or run out of money. Either way the problem is solved. Eventually Microsoft is going to enter this fray like a bull in a china shop and we'll all lose...
Why doesn't anything interesting happen when I have mod points?