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Financial Times on Apple/Real/DMCA Morass

Posted by pudge on from the all-your-music-are-belong-to-us dept.

drpickett writes "The Financial Times are carrying an editorial by James Boyle concerning the nascent battle between Apple and Real. Good comments on the DMCA issues. Article sort of portrays Apple as a bunch of close-system types who got the 5% market share that they deserve for shunning interoperability. No mention is made of Real as the poster child for closed formats and cheap spyware tactics." And no mention noting what Real and Apple are really fighting over: who gets to profit from the destruction of the users' freedom.

4 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Actually by Some+guy+named+Chris · · Score: 4, Informative

    Rather than portray anyone as a villian, I thought the article did a good job of explaining why the DMCA is so bad, and why we shouldn't endorse government sanctioned monopolies of ideas.

    Particularly I thought comparing software interoperability to knock off razor blades effective.

  2. Re:Big suprise by presearch · · Score: 4, Informative

    -3 Uninformed

    AAC is not the same thing as the the FairPlay DRM layer.
    Also, it's not toooo difficult to change the default encoder to one of several that Apple supplies (for free with iTunes).

    You're probably voting for Dubya too I bet.

  3. -1 Flamebait by Anonymous+Codger · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wish I could moderate Pudge's comment. It deserves a nice big Flamebait.

    Yes, DRM sucks. But we wouldn't have the iTunes Music Store without it. Do you really think that the labels would have allowed Apple to provide downloads of their music without some form of DRM?

    --
    No sig? Sigh...
  4. The DMCA Allows Reverse-Engineering by Landaras · · Score: 3, Informative

    When the original Harmony story broke, I created a write-up explaining what Real had done and how it was legal under the DMCA.

    The full write-up is available here.

    The executive summary: Real most assuredly circumvented "technological access control measures" in the creation of Harmony. However, under Sec. 1201 (f)(1) of the DMCA this is explictly allowed if the sole purpose is previously unavailable interoperation with an independent software program.

    Their circumvention allows the interoperation of the iPod with the Real music store. This interoperation is achieved by creating a copy of FairPlay on mp3s sold by Real. The consumer themself is not circumventing a thing.

    Yes, Real sickens me as a company. But this situation should be about the law, not about company reputations.

    - Neil Wehneman

    --
    My legal education, in nifty podcast format