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Real Responds to Apple's Hacking Claims
ack154 writes "An article on VNUNet gives a sharp response from Real regarding Apple's recent claims of Real using "hacker tactics" to allow music from the Real store to play on the iPod. Real states: 'Compatibility, choice and quality are critically important to consumers and Harmony provides all of these to users of the iPod and over 70 other music devices including those from Creative, Rio, iRiver and others.' The article goes on to outline what they say is a 'clear precedent' for what they have done. And in case you were under a rock it all seemed to start here earlier this week."
Sure. Reverse-engineering is a hacker tactic.
So?
That doesn't make it illegal. Rather it is specifically allowed by law.
(Yes that even means the DMCA, for interoperability purposes.)
What a stupid attempt at guilt-by-association.
Compatibility? Did you say choice for consumers?
.rm format so I can use any player to play it?
How about opening the
Everybody who's willing to defend Apple in this case, ask yourself, were you also willing to defend Lexmark when they sued an after-market toner maker? This case doesn't seem all that dissimilar to me.
This from Real, the company who, not even 5 years ago, had a player so bogged down with spyware and other junk that it had become a four-letter word to practically the entire tech community? Real, the company whose player had auto-starts and other background automation that was nigh impossible to disable?
I think they need to examine their own products before they accuse Apple of denying choice and quality to the customer, in so many words.
Just my $0.02 worth.
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Basically issue here is that the folks who designed the iPod and the iTunes music store really cared about the music, whereas Real is concerned with making money by delivering media rather than caring anything about the media per se. Let me repeat that for the folks at Real........It's about the music.
Oh, please. Apple is a publicly-traded business. They've always been about making money.
I love Apple dearly, but let's face it: the whole reason they've locked down their FairPlay DRM exclusively to iTunes and iPod is because they control both. If people only buy music from iTMS, they're more likely to buy iPods; similarly, if other companies licensed FairPlay for their music stores, they could use it in other portable music players so people could use iTMS and play those songs on non-iPod players.
Apple exists to make profits, and the iPod is currently their key profitmaker. They want to lock as many people into it as they can. Since they're not a monopoly, they're legally allowed to do so, and since they do it so darned well, nobody really complains. But it's lock-in nonetheless.
Apple makes a lot more money selling iPods than they do selling songs on the iTMS.
-Tom
Apple has worked damn hard to get the record labels to get on board with this while giving end users reasonable liberties with the music they paid for.
This is the "Great Lie" of the pro-iTunes crowd. There's no substantial difference between iTunes and services like Real, and the RIAA has been very clear they aren't playing favorites. (And if they did give anyone a special deal, they could be anti-trust trouble.)
This effort by Real undermines this process and will only serve to make record labels more unwilling to participate in electronic delivery and dissemination of media
Why would the record companies care if a song is sold through Apple or through Real? It's all the same money to them.
My main question is this: Why does this bother Apple? Everything I remember reading said that Apple was either making very little or potentially losing money on the iTunes music store, rather using it as a means to sell more iPods. If this is the case, you'd think that Apple would be thrilled that someone else was giving consumers a reason to buy one of their products...
I'd _love_ Apple to hit Real with DMCA related lawsuit. Not because I think what Real is doing isn't great (unlike most of their other activities), or that DMCA is a "Good Thing" (tm), but on the contrary -- until commercial companies themselves start getting hit with too-relaxed DMCA definitions (as opposed to individuals), their lobbying efforts will likely keep the law on the books. If the content industry big shots start getting tangled in zillions of IP/copyright related lawsuits, perhaps the laws will be moderated to the point they make some sort of sense...
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Similiar Apple has no business controlling what others do with their hardware. If people want to replace the software on it so it can be used with another service then that is their right. Just like ford can't say anything about you converting a petrol powered car to a gas powered car apple should keep it mouth shut. Anyone defending apple is a sucker for advertising. Just because Apple had that 1985 ad doesn't mean it is really a freedom company. Carefully read Mac owners posts and you will see that Apple is just an MS without the money but a "cooler" image.
Just replace apple with MS and see if you think the same about the story.
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Apple is pissed for several reasons. First and foremost because the iPod isn't just a music player, it's a bundled music solution, since techies love that word. You get a fantastic sexy little jukebox and the elegance of having it work with iTunes, nearly transparently.
I doubt it's "competition" Apple is all that concerned about since Real wont steal too many customers on their own. It's bundling. What do you think Microsoft will pressure PC companies into shipping instead of iTunes? Yeah, something that claims "compatibility" with all systems.
Apple wants everyone to experience the elegance of the integration with iTunes and the iPod. They want you to synch your music with iTunes, and buy your music with iTunes. Then being so impressed with how nice and impressed how everything works go out and buy a Mac. Think Trojan Horse, only it's a mid-to-long term strategy for Apple.
Apple is also undoubtedly concerned about having to support Real's song delivery system since people having trouble getting music onto their iPods will blame Apple. Real's notoriously secretive UI-unfriendly software will undoubtedly
I agree with Apple opening up the iPod. But I also believe the style in which Real did this was totally disgusting. I had little respect for Real before this, and even less afterwards. No matter how much they claim the moral ground this is an act of desperation. An act that while is a movement in the right direction for the industry was riddled with pettiness and beligerence. And is clearly being done to save a company that created it's own destruction with it's inferior software and horrible policies towards it's users.
Something intelligent here.
Beat me to it, AC. That they locked RM is the thing that irritated me the most about Real and why I have long since dumped them. Make no mistake at what they said: Consumers should be given a choice, not people. Consumers are required to buy something to be consumers, people do not. What's going on is that they want rights for their business to not be reduced, only people's rights; thus, a captured market with no recourse but to be dependant on the businesses. If we're going to live in a DMCA world, then Real should have its butt raided by the FBI.
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seriously though, if it's ok for Real to reverse engineer to create interoperability, how was it not ok for John DeCSS to reverse engineer to make linux interoperable with the DVD format?
The DMCA allows an exception "solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other that this section" 17 U.S.C 1201(f)(3). (emphasis mine)
The judge in the SCC/Lexmark case read this very narrowly and said that since the algorithm came on a chip, it was non-exempt hardware instead of software. This case isn't allowing software/software interoperability (like Wine offers), but it's data/software interoperability. Big difference; if the DMCA allowed that, then DVD-playing would be legal (same interoperability, except in reverse)
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Arguably, since Real isn't licensing FairPlay, I would point the finger at them.
Let's play hypothetical: Apple comes out with iPod mini 2.0 with a 6 GB drive and loads of new touches and features in the firmware. Joe Windows-User has bought more than few albums on Real's store and is interested in upgrading from his old Rio player. He knows his songs from Real are "compatible" with the iPod, so he goes and buys himself a mini 2.0. He goes home, hooks up the iPod and goes to install his songs - and they don't work.
Where does he go for support? Apple never worked with Real to make those songs work, thus Apple won't care. Will Real just sit and point the finger at Apple for "disabling" the iPod, even though Apple may not have purposefully done anything to disable Real's music? Will they change Harmony to work with the new iPod and then allow their users to download new copies of the songs with the new Harmony code in them to make sure they work?
It strikes me that Real has to count on their buyers never upgrading their iPods, or using them with anything other than Real's jukebox app, for this to work with no issues.
As a support professional, I would be telling my boss to stop this before things get too messy. I'm not pro-DRM, and I don't agree with Apple's "hacker" statement or invocation of the DMCA, but I can see some practical issues here that always arise from making a machine do something the vendor didn't intend and I wouldn't want to take the phone calls on the support lines once the fit hits the shan...
I think what the fuss is really about is that Real wanted and alliance with Apple, without being very friendly about it by threatening to seek to team up with Microsoft if Apple refused, and Apple refused them anyway. Now Real has forced the issue. It seems that the CEO of Real Networks, Rob Glaser, is being very abrasive in his business dealings. Real has already been criticised for some of their questionable practices by consumers and doesn't seem to be a reputable company to be involved with.
If Real can crack the iPod, then someone should be able to make tools for converting unprotected .rm formats to .mp3 because that doesn't circumvent any copy protection and shouldn't be subject to the DMCA according to Real's argument. Does anybody know of any?