Congress Ponders Opening up iTunes DRM

hammeredpeon writes "Congress is debating whether or not to require that music shops keep their DRM open for interoperability. Apple wasn't present at the hearings, but Napster's CEO was, arguing that the market should make the decision about interoperability. Considering that previous standards (FireWire/USB, Betamax/VHS) have been decided by the market, could it be that Apple isn't big enough to keep the government out of its industry?"

Comments

Who's Behind The Scenes On This One?

[Goo.cc]

What I want to know is, how did this come up in the subcommittee in the first place? If you ask me, somebody's hand is being greased.

A bad idea

[waynegoode]

Rick Berman, Dem, CA, is one of the guys behind this. Follow the money. He was the guy behind the proposed legislation to allow hacking people's computers if they were suspected of P2P file sharing. John Paczkowski of Good Morning Silicon Valley referred to him as a "Congressman and Hollywood sock puppet". Is this the guy you want deciding how you will get your music?

Re:A bad idea

[silentbozo]

I'd prefer to decide for myself, thank you, and this legislation appears to be doing just that.

I'm not so sure. Consider that the studios would like nothing more than to shove their brand of DRM down your throats. Apple, so far, has played a strange game, simultaneously protecting consumers (by keeping the record labels from arbitrarialy jacking up rates, as they've tried to do in the recent past) while preserving a semblance of DRM to placate the labels.

There's only one problem - the labels aren't making enough money. Thus, you have this legislation, which attempts to open up Apple's private playground, which they have neatly tended and grown, to every bozo with a contract to sell music. Why is this a problem?

Well, currently, if you really want to sell music to play on the iPod, and you aren't Apple, you can sell non DRMed tracks. Apple likes this because they don't have to worry about DRM compatibility issues. They can just focus on selling iPods and music from the iTunes music store. The instant you start adding other DRM sources, you add complexity, and you make it more likely that Apple will get blamed if something breaks. Moreover, the instant you have other people using and relying on this DRM, the more likely that it is that they will attempt to dictate what level of restrictions are available through Fairplay. Can you imagine Napster arguing that you should only be allowed to burn a track X number of times? (at the behest of the record labels, of course)

The government should keep it's hands off.

[karmatic]

I hate DRM. I hate it with a passion. However, if the answer is "more government interference", you are asking the wrong question. The market should be making these decisions.

Personally, I would like to see the DMCA go away; however, any restrictive form of DRM you can think of is fair game. Don't take away your right to make it, and don't take away my right to break it.

Re:Are they for real?

[minus_273]

"What this is really quite similar to is region encoding on DVDs. 100% bullshit artificial restriction"

well not really the regions on DVDs are so some poorer regions can get cheaper DVDs and not cut into the profits of places where a higher price is ok. It helps prevent a situtation like windows where it is charged similiar prices everywhere and that leads to more priacy

Look at it another way...

[Aphrika]

Can you imagine if HMV, Virgin or suddenly switched to only selling a proprietary compact disc format which only played on their player and had built-in restrictions?

Sounds a bit like the failed DiVX DVD wannabe we all hated doesn't it?

Oh, except the player was really good though, so everybody wanted one.

Well maybe we should look past the white plastic and aluminium exterior, because that's where Apple are now. It may be an end-to-end solution and it may work well, and we may all love them because they're not Microsoft, but they're a business, and they're in danger of becoming the M$ of digital music players. And seeing as how chummy they've got with the music companies (not the artists the companies) and the stunts they've pulled with sharing playlists etc, I'm not sure I like the idea of a Apple (read: recording company) dominated digital music scene.

DRM'd CDs? DVD Region Codes?

[White Roses]

Doesn't this, then, call in to question the issue of DRM'd CDs? If I buy a CD, I expect it to play in my CD player. Some DRM'd CDs won't. So, really, I could buy a CD which wouldn't play in my CD player. That should be of much greater concern to Congress, since that's just blatantly confusing to the consumer. Same with region en-crippling DVDs. Hey Lamar! I bought Red Dwarf season 6 on DVD in England and it won't play here. Wotcha doing for me now? That's right, nothing, because this is all just grandstanding and time wasting.

If Congress moves to open FairPlay, won't that force the hand of the RIAA, who, in the end, is who all this DRM is for anyway? And, if Congress does this, they'd better open up all the other DRM schemes as well.

It's nice that Real is defending the market place approach. I suppose they see that if the government steps in here, and takes action against number one, how far behind can action against number two be?

Apple licenses to whomever they want. Motorola comes to mind, with the iTunes phone. I'm willing to let the market decide this one. If Congress and the Supreme court can find that Apple is abusing some kind of monopoly power, then fine. Of course, look at all the good that did with Microsoft. But Congress is really overstepping bounds on this one.

There's a whole list of issues in the music industry I'd like Congress to address. Price fixing on the part of the record companies comes to mind.

May not be such a bad thing for Apple

[Anonymous Writer]

If a case is put forward in which an Apple file format has to be opened up for other companies, then it would be a precedent for Microsoft file formats like Microsoft Office files to be opened up for other companies. It could mean that commercially distributed software has to work on different platforms which could probably be done by the use of fat binaries or Java. Also, if Apple's DRM codec and encryption has to be opened up, then wouldn't that be an argument to open up the Windows source code to competitors?

Whatever legal manoeuvres are used to allow Apple's competitors to get into their digital music market share can also allow Apple to get into Microsoft's OS platform market share. Could that be why Apple didn't bother attending the hearing and are just sitting it out?

Re:Are they for real?

[wankledot]

I take issue with the idea of any limitation being "artificial" vs. "natural" when it comes to digital media. If a company designs a solution to be restrictive... then it's restrictive. It doesn't matter if it's because of a huge architecture difference, or some kind of subtle DRM.

If the only difference between the PS2 and XBox format was a single bit on the DVD, do you think Either company should be forced by congress to change their bit so it can plan on someone else's machine?

All limitations are artificial, unless there is some kind of naturally occurring audio format that grows on trees. (heh... tree... Apple... heh.)

Re:Are they for real?

[Doctor_Jest]

Exactly.... Why the hell is it such a big deal that Apple provide interoperability, when Microsoft snubs its nose at every company who wants to know about their FILE formats.

This sort of double-standard is quite repugnant.

We can't get Congress to do JACK SQUAT to punish the GUILTY AS SIN Microsoft Monopoly, but we can spend our time worrying that Apple's iTunes store won't allow other players in on the bonanza? So much for free-market government. It's only a "free" market if they're paying the politicians it seems.

Even the Napster CEO has it right, and his company would stand to benefit from this... LET THE MARKET decide...

Bah. Politicians just moved above child molesters on my list of people to kill first when I become supreme overlord of this planet. :)

Re:Are they for real?

[Alsee]

Wouldn't that be contrary to the First Amendment?

No. Compulsory licencing does not restrict anyone's speech in any way. It does not compel the copyright holder to do anything.

What compuslory licening means is that someone else can simply mail off an appropriate check to the copyright holder (or to some central clearing house for copyright holders) and then they are properly licence to make and sell copies. You don't need to haggle over rates with the copyright holder, you don't even have to ask his permission. You simply have to pay him the the statutory licening fees.

And as the other poster said, statutory licences are already a normal part of copyright law. He was suggesting that it could simply be extended to more situations.

And if Apple has to do this - then wouldn't software vendors and DVD vendors also have to

It would depend on how such a law was written. It could be written either way.

There have been DRM [] in software for many years.

Oh sure there have been silly gimmicks like defective disk tracks in software for years, but there was never any such thing as "Digital Rights Management" until fairly recently when some idiot came up with the rediculous idea of making it CRIMINAL for innocent NONINFRINGING people to "circumvent" these gimmicks.

licensing restrictions in software for many years

By law you do not require any licence at all to install and run software you bought. This is directly addressed in US code title 17 section 117, and I'm pretty sure there's an essentially identical statement in EU law.

All EULAs are contract offers. You are always free to decline a contract. Of course if you decline a contract then you receive nothing it offers. However an EULA generaly offers you nothing you'd ever want, much less anything you actualy *need*. Of course publishers try all sorts of gimmicks to corner you into accepting the offered contract, and all sorts of gimmicks to argue you agreed to that offered contract, but it is absolutely 100% NOT copyright infringment to decline an EULA and to go ahead and install and run software.

The only real issue is whether you make any extra effort required to install the software without accepting the EULA, and whether they can find some non-copyright legal gimmick to obsruct any way of physically managing to do so. And if such a legal gimmick does exist to make it impossible to declining the EULA, than that legal argument would ALSO be valid if someone were to sell tomatos with EULAs.

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