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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."
To make the, "How do you like them Apples?" crack...
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.
Since there isn't any explaination of exactly what they do we can't say for sure that they cracked the iPod to get their songs to play, but, Apple makes the product and who is Real to say that they must support Real files as well?
If they have reverse engineered the Fairplay DRM, or used the PlayFair code to somehow encode their files as legit FairPlay DRM'd files then there's probably(most definately) something wrong(legally) with what they have done.
Compatibility, choice and quality are critically important to consumers...
In regards to real player these attributes are best defined as:
Compatibility: Real files only play in real player
Choice: Choose between real player basic (spyware laden) or real player premium (less spyware laden)
Quality: Only the highest quality spyware included in RealPlayer
Riiiiiiight. Apple is whining about interoperability because they don't like music published by Real. In AAC format. At a higher bitrate. It all makes sense now.
Who are the consumers going to be pissed off at when their Real-purchased music quits working on an updated iPod?
Wake up.
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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Bullshit.
Apple/Steve Jobs is about making money and their entire history shows this. Their entire PR campaign is just that, a PR campaign. It isn't the way the company really does things.
If it was they wouldn't even be publicy thinking about using the DMCA on real nor would they be such hard asses when it came to people copying 'their' look and feel.
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.
if we stripped the DRM out of their music files so we can play them on whatever player we like.
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.
How, exactly, did you come to that conclusion? Just because Real can sell music with "simulated" FairPlay DRM doesn't mean they don't have to license the music first. They'll have to enter into contracts with those record companies before they can sell any of their music, same as Apple did.
Apple is stretching by threating to use the DMCA. Since this only works with Real's service, there's no copyright infringement going on, so copyright law should not apply. The intent of the DMCA was to protect copyright holders, not the middlemen.
This is very different than DeCSS, where there was obvious infringing uses.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
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.
Let's see, we've got a music service that no one uses and a spyware-ridden player that users detest. Let's make a desperate grab at the most popular player on the market so as to save our sorry, mismanaged asses from bankruptcy.
./ will be on our side, because we'll talk about open and compatible formats, even though neither we nor Apple have one.
Oh and BTW, everyone on
Great business plan guys! Give Robby G a raise.
Is this rock and roll, or a form of state control?
It seems there is quite a lot of confusion about what Read exactly did. Some people are under the impression that Real is installing custom firmware on the iPod. According to a poster who claims to be an engineer from Real, they did not change anything on the iPod or in iTunes. All they did was maskerading the files from their own music store (which are 192kbps AAC with their own DRM) as Fairplay AAC files.
Does this mean that if Real wins their case, we have a HUGE loophole in the DMCA, whereby we'd be allowed to reverse engineer DRM, if the content is re-encoded with your own DRM ? - I wonder how the RIAA and MPAA will feel about this. Sucks to be them I guess!
And this blurb would be wrong. The iPod and iTunes both still support un DRM'd Music. Ihave over 5 gigs of un DRM'd MP3's on my PowerBook with no issues.
Gorkman
take that Apple. you just got SERVED.
seriously though. Real makes a good point: they aren't disabling apple's copyright protection of the music. If anything, they are adding newly protectable content.
booya!
I've been watching this whole thing unfold for some time now and paid attention to the overtures Real was making to Apple some time ago. 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.
How this got modded up is beyond me... I guess it's just apple fanboyism, which really scares me in this case. First of all, you didn't stay on topic. The topic is not "Is Apple supportive of musicians?" or "Let's list all the things we love about Apple". Second, rather than focusing on the fact that Apple is going after Real for doing the same things that many slashdotters do on a daily basis, you try to make Apple look better by pointing out how bad you think Real is.
Anyway, let us focus on the real issue here, which is Apple accusing Real of using hacker tactics and going ape over the whole thing. Now, many of the Apple fanboys are going to say "Ohhh noooo, but Apple is not in the wrong because they should be able to determine what files can play on their products and what files can't!!!11!" I absolutely agree. When the iPod leaves the factory, Apple should (and does) have complete control over what music files it can play. When the iPod gets from the store into my house, however, it is my turn to have control. If Real offers me a way to put music on my iPod that I couldn't put otherwise, then it is my *right* as the full owner of the product to do with it as I please. I could throw it in the garbage if I want to, piss on it, or simply load some music from Real's network. It's mine.
And lastly, Apple does not really care about the music. I'm sorry to crush your dreams that Apple is a loving, caring corporation. It is in the business to make money. It does the things it does in order to get people like you to cheer it on and praise it and buy its products. So no, apple never really cared about the music, it just looked like it cared so that you (and others) would support it financially by buying Apple products.
I thought this had been reported often enough by now.
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5 years ago when they went after StreamBox.
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...
- To err is human; but to really screw up, you need a computer
I'll be honest with you - I have no idea why you wrote that.
As far as I'm concerned, online Music stores are simply not worth it, exactly because of all this. When I pay for music, then I want the music. I want to play it on my computer, and on any player I buy, and be able to copy it to my new computer or laptop, and burn CDs of it forever, especially since CD-Rs don't last more than a couple of years.
The idea of paying for something and then KNOWING you have to pay for it again if you want to continue using it annoys me, and that's not how I'll spend my money. This is exactly like the MPAA tactic of changing formats every decade or so, making it very tempting to re-purchase your video collection. One of the beauties of digital music is that it DOES last, and I only have to buy it ONCE. For now, I'll stick to allofmp3.com and my CDs.
Why does my opinion matter? Well, because its people like me that Real is trying to cater to, and they're only helping the iPod market (though they may be hurting iTunes...but hey, competition is good.)
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
Truth is they want to sell more IPods, and having a consistent licensing scheme makes using an IPod just that much nicer. Now Real is threatening their revenue stream, and their "It's about the music" seems to take a back seat to "It's about the profit."
Perhaps you can explain to me how Real's plan is going to be detrimental to Apple selling more iPods. For the users who want the consistent licensing scheme (and Lord knows consumers have been clamoring for this - it's the single-most-requested-feature-ever - eyeroll) they can do this by simply ignoring Real and going with the out of the box solution. Big deal. If Real's plan goes off like they hope, it will INCREASE iPod sales, not decrease them. Apple already sacrificed profit from iTunes in favour for profit from the iPod by capitulating to the record companies.
No, the real issue here isn't about sales money - it's about percieved quality and development money. Apple doesn't want the burden of having to test both their solution AND Real's before each update to the iPod, iTunes or OSX.
Well, that and a healthy dose of 'screw you, Real!' thrown in by Jobs.
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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Amazing since the DMCA explicitly permits reverse engineering to ensure interoperability. Try again.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Interestingly, two of these three words were used to make the name Compaq. A company that 22 years ago reverse engineered IBMs BIOS to give us the clones we all enjoy today. I shudder to think where we would be if the DMCA existed in 1982. Seems to me 'hacker tactics' got us where we are now. So in a way, I support Real's position.
Cue [Buffering...] jokes.
Real took publically accessible information or did a clean room reverse engineering of the iTunes authentication and DRM. That is 100% legal under all laws because they did it 1) to allow for interoperability and 2) they are not circumventing the Fairplay copyprotection, they are actually adding it to the Real files.
Apple can complain all they want, but unless Real violated a patent on the Fairplay DRM software or actually stole copyrighted code to implement their version of the Fairplay DRM, Apple can go fuck itself.
Just to be clear, I have 2 iPods (a 3G and a 4G) and am a periodic customer of iTunes. Anything I buy, I immediately remove the DRM using Playfair. I will never comply with any law which seeks to restrict my fair use rights, especially the DMCA. Yep. I'm a violater. In more ways than one. But I buy all my copyrighted stuff. Once.
However, do you really think any iTunes customers give a crap if people can also use other, non iTunes, music stores? If you wanna use Real's service on your iPod, enjoy!
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...
No, they didn't. You have to use their actual Real player to play any Real format. Helix by itself is just a stock media player that doesn't know about Real's proprietary stuff.
It's like Microsoft open sourced Windows but the OSS version will only run OSS applications, not anything Win32. It's Real using the community to develop a media player for OSS platforms.
You might like or dislike that, but as for them opening up their formats, that's BS.
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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?
They are just using the trick playfair (now hymn) used... figure out how to ask the iPod for your user keys, try all of them until one decrypts the priv atom in a m4p file, and decrypt the data stream with the key therein. It's just standard AES (128-bit Rijandel). The trick was figuring out how keys are managed. And lucky for Real, all that groundwork was already done for them. Then they could just pull your user keys from your iPod and encrypt your downloads with those on THEIR music site. Easy peasy.
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It's the same ridiculous bullshit you dumb Apple fanboys are always spouting. Everything Apple does is good, everything anyone else does is suspect.
Apple products are generally pretty good; I like them. Apple as a company is ethically neutral, ie. amoral, or possibly even immoral as it seems many companies are. In fact, that is probably an apt description, as they are doing something wrong and probably just don't care. It's just all about money in the end.
Why do you folks look at legal wranglings from Apple differently than those from everyone else? Answer: because you are pathetic "Ooh, shiny!" type people, and can't disassociate your love of Apple products from Apple the company.
Christ on a crutch... Apple is just another company trying to make money. They don't give two shits about you. Buying products from them is purely a business transaction. Sheesh!
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I'm wondering how much overtime the Quicktime team will be putting in to make a codec for all of the RM protected media files. Then QT could save them to disk, allow encoding, transcoding, etc. Apple then sells the encoder for a lower cost than Real, or just gives it away.
The QT team has created or written a tremendous number of codecs now, think: animation, video, cimepak, DV, Pixlet, etc. They have, or with $4.5B in the bank, can hire the best of the best in the fields to reverse engineer and recode. I'd say two weeks to a working internal prototype, one month until they have a rev 1.0 product.
If Real tried to sue, they and Apple could just come to a mutual agreement to stop cloning each other's technology. If not, Apple could certainly argue in court that Real themselves publicly stated that such actions were vital to the marketplace: case closed.
Real's primary (only) source of income is the Real encoder and the Real player. If Real really wants to play this "compatibility" and "open" game, they had best look under their feet to check what ground they are standing on before they walk too much farther down this path. Turnabout is fair play, and it would only be fair for Apple to put Real in their own position.
Yea... I think in this case Apple shouldn't use the courts, they should definitely fight fire with fire.
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Too bad Harmony is only compatible with Windows.
First, that would only make sense the other way around - it would undermine the process if Real found a way to get Apple's media easily working on a non-locked-down player (not to mention which this is possible anyway). Getting more music to work on the ipod doesn't undermine anything from a DRM standpoint.
And competition is a good thing. If this undercuts apple from a market share standpoint 1) that's good, because it means Real brought something to the table to compete with apple, and 2) it means that customers are still getting record-company-approved music from Real. Note this isn't about piracy, as one can encode pirated music and play that on your ipod anyway. This is about getting another DRM'd format working on the ipod, which record companies can't but love. In other words, this is in no way bad for the industry OR consumers. It's only bad for apple's monopoly.
I know the pro-apple crowd here thinks that only Apple can bring music to the masses, but their (admittedly very good) first foray into music only buys them time. Expecting all other companies to hand them a permanant monopoly is absolutely mindless. Expecting all content to be explicitly tied to a specific hardware platform is pretty dumb; expecting the opposite (as you and Apple do) is indefensible.
Disclaimer: I'm an apple owner. But it doesn't mean I have to rubber-stamp everything the company does.
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No matter what side of the debate you are on it is clear that real reverse engineered Apples fairplay. Real tried to get Apple to open up fairplay and let them compete with Apple in the music store business....when Apple said no, the released their hacked version. It is plain and simple. It is funny that real is complaining so much, the have pretty much ignored the Mac platform and updates to real player for the Mac have come slow and in some cases not at all.
Some say that it is all about money...you are correct, Real is stealing from Apple and undermining Apples deal with the record companies....this can only help real in the long run. It is too bad if Real were a little more patient and waited till Microsoft came out with their music store they would have had a good shot at a legal fairplay license with Apple. Apple is beginning to license it to other companies and those that "play fair" with Apple will get a slice of the pie. Real did not and will lose because of that....If they record companies pull their support from Apple the only one to win from that happing is Microsoft and that won't be good for anyone!
If you can create a DRM system that is compatible with someone else's, then you can muddy the issue of whether or not a tool that bypasses that DRM, is primarily intended for "circumvention."
Here's how it works. "Circumvention" is defined as bypassing a tech measure that limits access, without authorization from the copyright holder. For example, if you bypass CSS on a DVD whose copyright is held by Disney, and you don't have Disney's permission, then you have "circumvented" CSS. Likewise, if you bypass the DRM on a Metallica song that you bought from iTMS, without getting permission from Metallica's record label, then you have "circumvented" Apple's DRM system.
The catch is this: look at who you're having to get permission from. It's not the party who invented or implemented the DRM system; it's the party who holds the copyright on the content. If you hold the copyright, then you can give yourself permission.
For example, if you hold the copyright on a movie, and somehow get that movie onto a CSS-scrambled DVD, then when you DeCSS it, you are not circumventing CSS. You are bypassing it, but since you're doing it with authorization, it is not circumvention.
If such bypassing is something that you often do, then it makes perfect sense for you to somehow obtain a tool to help you do it. In fact, if you're a hacker, then you're going to write a computer program to do it, the very first time. The use of this tool by you, is not prohibited by DMCA. Is trafficking in this tool prohibited by DMCA? Hmm... not so simple to say.
It is assumed that all music sold by iTMS has its copyright held by parties who do not grant authorization to anyone, to bypass the DRM. But if anyone can implement that DRM, not just parties who have contractual agreements to have their music sold through iTMS (I'm talking about the "bad guys" in Slashdot groupthink here -- you know, the RIAA), then the assumption breaks down. To put it in layman terms: Cracking tools would not clearly be intended for copyright violation. They would have substantial non-infringing use.
Well, how substantial it is, depends on the market sizes, I guess. If just a few hackers are DRMing their own music, judges are going to laugh at how substantial that is. But if it gets into the mainstream... holy crap. Is Real a mainstream player? DUH!!!
Having the capacity to create DRMed content that is compatible with someone else's DRM system, has the potention to neuter DMCA's ability to apply to that DRM system. Real's action here, is a direct (though possibly unintended) threat to FairPlay. Apple now has to pay close attention to just what this Real software does. Does it just preserve DRM on files whose copyright is held by RIAA-members? Or might it do something else? Whatever the case may be, it's out of Apple's control, thus pretty scary. FairPlay is at risk of losing the DMCA protections that prohibit cracks.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.