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Real And Microsoft Close to Settlement
pdirty writes "Real networks may be close to winning a $750 million settlement agreement with Microsoft following Real's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. The deal would include Microsoft paying cash as well as advertising for Real services, and products through channels such as MSN. Real is holding a conference call after the closing bell today to announce the details." From the article: "The deal follows on the heels of the European Commission appointing a watchdog last week to monitor Microsoft's compliance with its antitrust ruling. The pact is the latest in a string of payments by Microsoft to settle charges, including $750 million in 2003 to Time Warner to end charges about Microsoft acting to suppress Netscape, and $1.95 billion to Sun Microsystems to settle a suit by Sun over Microsoft's use of incompatible Java technology."
You will now have to enter a valid email address before logging into your desktop. Also several new unexplained executables will be added to every user's startup folder to enhance the browsing experience.
"The deal would include Microsoft paying cash as well as advertising for Real services, and products through channels such as MSN. "
This means that ads in MSN messenger are going to say
"Buffering... 33%"
And Microsoft should really consider advertising for Mozilla too.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The press release with details of the deal is here.
OS X comes with iTunes yet there is no foul play there...
But until the close of trading, the RNWK conference call says onlBuffering... buffering... buffering...
Why is it that most civil settlements seem to include clauses saying that either party isn't allowed to talk about the settlement?
Shame 748 million of it went to the marketing department, instead of the people actually working on the code.
I'm going to have to side with MS on this one. Real released a crappy product with a shady web site. I think it's a shame to capitalism that the better product will be funding the lessor product in this case.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
1) Use monopoly power to crush and stifle any competition
2) PROFIT!!
3) Pay off government to drop anti-trust charges
4) Pay off former competitors to drop anti-trust charges
5) EVEN MORE PROFIT!!
Nothing quite like the "free market"..
Their little eyes grow wide, their little palms grow sweaty, and their mouth dries up. "Yes, Mr. Ballmer. That will be fine."
They reach for the suitcase, but Ballmer snatches it away. "First you'll have to sign this," he says, pushing a settlement agreement their way. A pen lies on top, and as they pick up the pen, it extends a small needle and pricks their finger, sucking their blood into the inkwell.
They sign.
As they take the suitcase and walk out of Ballmer's office, they hear an evil laugh behind them... muahaha. They turn to see that Ballmer has grown to twice his size, sprouting ram horns from his forehead. "You signed it in blood," he bellows. "Your soul is mine!!!!"
But hey, $750 million can buy a heck of a good time while you're still alive.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Microsoft finally learns the same hard truth we've all learned: once you've touched RealPlayer, THEY NEVER GO AWAY.
I know nothing
"Under the music and games agreements, Microsoft is scheduled to pay Real $301 million in cash and provide services over 18 months in support of Real's product development, distribution, and promotional activities."
Oh great, now when we start up an XBOX, a notification of a RealPlayer update will appear in the corner, all the media and game files will be hijacked to only work in their player, and the configuration settings are buried in 3 subsets of obscurely-titled menus.
I wonder what it must feel like to be in charge of quality control and implementation of this new Win-Real venture?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
"Real is worse than herpes."
I'm afraid I can't agree with you. I've managed to disable the Start Center and Jukebox from auotloading, but I don't think anyone's found the elusive cure for herpes yet. Real is also slightly less contagious, but the automated re-billing is about as deadly I have to agree.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Have you seen Real's free media player? It's add supported... i dont think it has a true full screen mode (play bar and some other stuff is always surrounding it) and when you close it you get an advertisement. This is why i dont use real. Plus its hard enough just trying to find the free trial download when they reroute you to the "professional" edition (or whatever its called) at every possible opporitunity. Well, and they support their own proprietary format, and i dont think we need another one of those.
Live according to the Categorical Imperative. If the Categorical Imperative tells you not to live by it... ignore it
I stopped using RealPlayer after the "G2" version came out (1998, I think?). Even then, it was becoming bloated crapware. Just what I want is for Microsoft, how ever evil they may be, to be FORCED to include that crapware with Windows. OS X includes iTunes, and nobody complains about that. Most Linux distros include XMMS, and nobody cries.
RealNetworks has done more damage to themselves than anyone else could, through the overpromotion of unstable software, with annoying ads, and 192352398235 different taskbar crapplets that nobody wants. After most streaming sources went to either streaming MP3 or WMA, Real pretty much died. They lost a market they created due to poor management and bad software. Nobody cares about them anymore, and frankly, I wish they'd just get bought or disappear alltogether.
Note to mods: please only select the "-1 Flamebait" box if you REALLY think I'm flaming. Personally, I don't think I am, but it's up to you.
I don't know who to hate most Real or MS. Why can't we lobby for a new law that allows for both parties to lose.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
If I speed down the road, but not too bad I get a fine.
If I speed down the road going too fast, I have to go to court, potential of jail time, fines, etc.
If I continue to do these things over and over again, I'm labeled as a habitual offender and have other court fun to go through.
Microsoft on the other hand just has to keep doing what they are doing and paying fines and now doing "community service" by putting advertisements for a competitor on their websites (which I think is wrong).
Personally, I would prefer just to be in the fine department for my behavior. Where do I get these privileges?
A bit of Slashdot man-behind-the-curtain trivia. Before this article went live, subscribers saw it on the front page. They also saw this article: Real Wins Against Microsoft, posted by CmdrTaco himself. The Zonk version won out, and the CmdrTaco story became one of my "Ghosts of Slashdot".
:)
Can you imagine the flames if both articles had gone live? Back-to-back dupes aren't unknown, but there's usually at least a few minutes between them
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/2004/02/29/real_o bnoxious
"Unfortunately, playing video streams is only a very small aspect of what Real Player does; Real Player, most prominently, is a small bastard with inferiority complex and delusions of grandeur, not too different from Napoleon. Although Real Player's task is simple and limited to a certain timeframe, Real Player defaults to running at all times, whether its limited functionality is needed or not, and claims a seat for itself in the throne commonly called the systray.
When you install Real Player, you can either choose an express install, or custom install. If you pick express install, Real Player simply installs itself with every option and feature turned on. If you choose the custom install, the process is a blend between an installer and a Pokemon-like game of gotta-uncheck-all-checkboxes."
couldn't have said it better
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
for a product which I'm glad MS slammed into the ground. I've absolutly never liked the Real Player format. This is not to say I think other formats are pure gold but my lord the Real Player format was horrible with its always buffering. Which to this day I have no clue why it was always a magical 33%. One of the only other streaming formats which comes close to Real's is the beginings of the vivo format when people finaly got broadband and would use it to share cam videos.
I've always viewed Real Networks blaming Microsoft like the music industry's whining about "Movie sales are down!". They always blame retarded reasons all the while never realizing their ideas just flat out stink and dont work.
Real media played about as unfairly as Microsoft. If I remember right once something is put as a RM, it's as safe as a PDF, you can share it but you can't copy it easily (yes I know there's ways to copy anything but there's no converter from RM to change it back to a AVI from real, and most out there are hack jobs, that the DMCA would be able to stop)
Even Apple has offered a Movie convert from Mov to AVI but I still don't know if Real offers the same. And that just makes the format almost worthless.
In addition Real's software has been pretty shoddy for a long time, I remember about ten years ago, about the only reason people still used it then was that there was no other option when stuff was in the format. Now we have many options on what to put it into, I don't see many RMs around except for feeds, (which is what they excel at). Perhaps their problems arn't from Microsoft but from their lack of quality for so long.
I gave Real alot of props after they released Rhapsody music service. Their other offerings might not be all that interesting, but no reason to hate.
...It's a credit card you'll need to enter.
R(k)
Oh god... PLEASE DONT bundle Real Player with XP, that would be the worst possible outcome.
Relax, it's only a joke.
Thanks to the BBC using Real Player for it's streaming media I have Real Player installed, but also thanks to the license fee for the BBC I get Real Player sans everything else for free, so no ads, no other crappy software, just real player. Still not great, and I'd prefer something else, but it's better than download Real Player from real.com as the basic edition
Isn't this a one-time biggest JAVA-related revenue generating opportunity for Sun? Sun's investment in Java must've slow and painful for them...
Oh, GREAT. If there was one piece of software that I wanted to see starved off by Microsoft's monopoly, it was RealPlayer. I don't like how Windows Media Player 8/9/10 promotes DRM, installs a DRM service in every Windows XP computer (mspmspsv.exe), and may potentially install more DRMware at the driver or kernel level, but Real is no better. Their software is harder to install, and more bloated and cumbersome than Windows Media Player 9. Their software uses an even worse "web portal" interface than WMP, and performs worse in erratic stream playback than WMP. And their RealOne player is one of the most invasive pieces of software when installed. It's basically spyware and malware.
From what I've seen, support for streaming media is heading away from Real and toward Windows Media merely because all the computers with Windows XP preinstalled can play WM files already, as opposed to having to download and run the Real installer. The fact that many media sites already have to deal with enterprise MS software licensing may have something else to do with it. Despite being an ISO standard and natively streamable, MPEG 4 has been plagued by the codec mess (mostly Microsoft's fault) four years ago. There is no single "MPEG 4" codec; instead, there's Microsoft's MPEG 4, DivX, XviD, QuickTime, blah, blah, blah. Users are turned away due to the sheer number of codecs they have to download just to view one video. The newest "universal" MPEG format is still MPEG 2, and it doesn't get the compression that many people need to make video sizes or bandwidths palatable to the customers.
And so now, in the next version of Windows, we'll all have RealONE bundled in, but hopefully with less access violations and bluescreens than the program delivers now. And, hopefully, with a more consumer-friendly and less surreptitious frontend. I'd rather watch Microsoft choke Real to death with WMP; despite the DRM and Microsoft-coded bizarreness, Real's software is worse.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
In other news, descendants of Attila the Hun are on the verge of a $5billion settlement with Microsoft in which they accuse the company of lifting its business practices from their ancestor's playbook.
How many lawsuits will Microsoft have to settle before it well.... stops having any money left?
:)
It's probably way, way, wayyyyyy off but the thought popped into my mind. And I'm not ashamed to say, I smiled a bit
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
A story about Real and we already have 3 Apple worship posts.
Something Apple phans may not know: Real supported Linux when nobody else did. Only windows/apple people seem to bitch about Real.
MP3 and Real was all we had on Linux. Somebody supported Linux when somebody else was taking subsidies from Microsoft.
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Real_Alternati ve [videohelp.com]
it works with media player classic for playing real streams. I haven't fired it up on my new hard drive yet, but it worked (hid the buffering message, but i suspect it may have been at 33%)
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Microsoft And Real Close to Settlement
It really should read that consumers are paying Real 750 million dollars. Microsoft isn't going anywhere, hence everyone who buys a preloaded PC or uses services of someone who did will indirectly pay this fine.
Most fines against businesses simply move money from one businesses pocket to another or to the government. The consumer never sees any of it back. Unless a company is driven under by penalty for their actions there is no real loss. One set of shareholders sees a smaller return compared to another. Those shareholders are probably the only "real" people affected directly by the exchange.
It does look like a feeding frenzy at Microsoft's expense. Most of their competitors failed because of inferior programs. Netscaped sucked for most the 4.xx series and Real has been horrid bloatware/adware for God knows how long.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
At least there's always RealAlternative to play Real video, using Mediaplayer Classic... No questionable taskbar junk, no shady installer, no RealPlayer. You'll never look back.
However, I really think the EU made itself ridiculous by ordering Microsoft to ship an alternative version of Windows without the Media Player. Microsoft created that "Windows Reduced Media Edition" (a name that doesn't quite suggest you should buy it) and sold it at the same price (!) as Windows with the Media Player. Obviously they didn't do anything to generate demand for that particular version. So what's the point in all of that? It just became a matter of principle for some bEUrocrats.
Moreover, the EU Commission lacks a consistent strategy for the software market. On the one hand, they start those anti-trust proceedings and believe they make the market more competitive (which the "Windows Reduced Media Edition" obviously didn't). On the other hand, the EU Commission was a driving force behind that EU software patent directive. And now the EU Commission even wants to retry and legalize software patents in Europe as a side effect of a so-called "community patent regulation":
ZDNet UK: EC slipping software patents "through backdoor"
TheInquirer.net: EU attempts to intro software patents by the back door
That makes no sense to me. A bundling of Windows with the Media Player isn't even 1% as bad as patents on multimedia data formats. The bundling may affect market share over time and it may make consumers less likely to choose another software for playing digital media, but patents constitute monopolies from day one and potentially eliminate all choice.
They both suck. Realplay though possible modem usable was so attoracias (2003) that my online prof just recorded lectures to Mp3 kep them small (about a meg per segment). That serously KFA'd! Wasn't their something out their like yamohaa or some thing that was realplayeresk but didn't suck ass?
" I stopped using RealPlayer after the "G2" version came out (1998, I think?). "
Real may be favorite whipping boy around here, but honestly it does its job fairly well, at least on my PC, it installs fairly easily, and near as I can tell has removed all of the bad stuff from several years ago.
Personally I find Windows Media Player more annoying and tire of Quicktime insisting that I need to upgrade to Quicktime Pro.
Really folks, if you're going to slag the product, at least comment on a reasonably current version.
Three Squirrels
Ordinarily i really hate jack the ripper / microsoft, but just this one time i believe that the prostitute he slashed / the company they buried really sucked and deserved to be murdered / run out of business. i think it's good that we have laws against murder / monopoly but it really hurts me to hear of these laws benefitting bad people / bad corporations. Why can't we as average people do something to protect rampaging maniacs / rampaging maniacs from being inconvenienced by this kind of law?
Seriously Real player is worse than any Wintel virus I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I hate how people who offer annoying, invasive, sub-par software blame Microsoft for their failures.
It does look like a feeding frenzy at Microsoft's expense. Most of their competitors failed because of inferior programs.
Well, if MS wants to compete fairly, they can easily avoid these problems in future simply by offering these programs as separate purchases without discounts for bundling them together. Better yet, they could spin off their applications divisions and bid alongside Real, Mozilla, Apple, and Sun for programs to be included on OEM PCs. If MS is not willing to play fair, then customers suffer and MS will keep losing these big settlements.
Real Networks CEO was quoted saying:
"This is Unreal"
while holding a copy of Unreal Tournament in his hands.
-William Brendel
Ok - I'm done with windows. There's no WAY I'm letting any realmedia software on my box.
So like, what linux install likes a BFG 5700 le and Soundblaster 7.1?
(and no, I'm not kidding)
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
However unethical M$FT might have been, for once I wish they'd one. Real screwed themselves over, as far as I'm concerned. Their products have always come accross as second rate, full of ads, annoying popups, bundeled with crap I didn't want/need. $750 million to Real means it's just going to take longer for them to crumble. Maybe if they can start developing decent software, I might consider using them again - maybe. I've HATED real player since at least version 7 or so. The only thing I can say positive about the company is that they package their player on a wide range of platforms, including Linux (albeit out of date). I, for one, will be happy to see the day when Real goes out of business, once and for all.
Consumers will not be paying any more. Why? Because MS is already charging them as much as it can. The money will come out of MS's profits
Unless a company is driven under by penalty for their actions there is no real loss.
Just like unless a person is driven bankrupt by their fines for criminal actions there is no real loss.
One set of shareholders sees a smaller return compared to another. Those shareholders are probably the only "real" people affected directly by the exchange.
And that's as it should be. They are the people who ultimately control the corporation. Some of them will invest elsewhere instead. MS stocks go down. To a company, its stock is its life.
Real has been horrid bloatware/adware for God knows how long.
Real was horrid bloatware and now isn't, really. Try it.
I am trolling
Tell us how you really feel.
You must now utilize Real Spyware...err Real Networks to listen to your music, and our advertisements.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Although it is definitely arguable that bundling an audio player in the OS is 'monopolistic behavior', one thing does come to mind.
Adding all of those settlement sums up (Sun + Real + Netscape + etc...) the total $$ amount is still very trivial compared to the amount of money they were able to make from offering their version of reality and bundling all of those products in the OS install.
So the moral of the story, - if there is one - is that in business, it sometimes pay handsomely to take calculated risks and get away with what may amount to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. However one wants to hate Micro$oft, it is undeniable that someone there was charting a course that ensured the company's survival and growth through the decade's first half. When studying the ecology of multinational corporate entities in the late 20th Century, this can be seen as quite Darwinian in a sense.....
Z.
So now that that's dealt with, can the rest of us sue RealPlayer and demand a settlement that they stop sucking?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
No problem. My last name contains a so-called "Umlaut", and while the official transcription to English is that the "u" with the two little dots is written as "ue", it happens all the time that people just omit the dots. Let's not be nit-picking :-)
... http://random.hackish.org/albums/Funny/buffering.j pg :)
If crappy Real Player can squeeze out $750 million alone from Microsoft's monopolist/predatory behavior, then obviously Time Warner settled for far less by accepting earlier an equal dollar figure to settle the Netscape case. The damage done to Netscape - and AOL indirectly by the over reliance on IE for Joe Blow's sake - is far more than what Real suffered from.
Real's main problem is with Real itself. Its product, and how it treated its virtual customers, the casual users.
Hmmm...maybe with such sufficient cash reserves, Apple might be tempted to finally sue Real over that nice little DMCA violation it committed last year by cracking Fairplay's DRM. I'd rather see Apple with another $750 million than Real anyday.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
You all do not get it. Some people want DRM and legal media services on other platforms. With this Real can get DRM 9/10 on Linux and OS X. Rhapsody just might be coming to the Mac fairly soon. 3 people in Real customer care said Real was working on Rhapsody Mac and I wouldn't be suprised if Rhapsody Linux didn't appear someday.
My first reaction to this was, why would The Soft want to have anything to do with Real? After all, Real has been making most of it's money on advertising for quite a while, and only recently has seen Rhapsody start to increase their revenue (just as an aside, Rhapsody, without a doubt Real's best product, was not developed in house, but was aquired) to the level of profitability.
I think this is a move to try and finally wipe out Yahoo. This gives Microsoft a better email/chat/games/doeverythingfornonpowerusers application than Yahoo offers right now. Yahoo has yet to integrate it's music service with Yahoo! Messenger as far as I can see, and Real has more games than Yahoo.
If it works well, and they can get a good, cheap portable music player to match, they could even threaten Apple too...
Microsoft wants a win in the Joe Average User Market badly, which it can't seem to get against Google, so it's going to go after two older adversaries.
Oh, and I bet they buy Real within two years if this works...
Correction on the correction: It really should read that consumers are paying Real 750 million dollars. Microsoft isn't going anywhere, hence everyone who buys a preloaded PC or uses services of someone who did will indirectly pay this fine. MSFT already has the settlement set aside in the war chest of litigation they are likely to lose, which I believe this was one. All listed in SEC filings (10K).
My favorite part of the parent post is that it completely fails to account for the fact that corporations are artifical entities created by government regulations. I imagine things would be pretty different if Microsoft was an old-school partnership.
Hell, I'd even get behind this stunningly brilliant theory if they made it retroactive to cover the Enron years... Speaking of which, this post confirmed humane by the word "travesty".
Anyone can get the "clean" version of RealPlayer demanded by the BBC for their customers by downloading via the BBC link:
l
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/audiohelp_install.shtm
Bless the beeb.
(I hesitate to publish the deep link into RN's site, because they'd probably switch it around.)
They bought Rhapsody.
I personally bring up Rhapsody, too, anytime people spit on RealNetworks because Rhapsody IS a really good tool. But it wasn't developed in-house.
According to this BBC story Microsoft have now settled with Real for $761m.
Personally, I'd have held out for a bit more, just to beat the $775 that IBM got. How long before Microsoft's shareholders insist they stop breaking the law?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
In the press conference, Rob literally said "We will be releasing Rhapsody to Mac and Linux in the web browser." My mouth about hit the table.
If Real does release that (and it works..which are two big IFs) then they will be the first subscription music service on the Mac. They might actually gain some street cred with the linux/mac crowd and some more mind share of subscription service.
Knowing Real, they'll screw it up.
Kraco, the maker of cheezy one-size-fits all floor mats, will collect a $2.25 billion settlement from the Big 3 automakers for including floor mats with their automobiles.
"Chrysler, Ford, and GM have no right to 'bundle' floor mats with their products," said Ron Popiel IV, president pro tem of Kraco Enterprises Inc. "This is clearly an abuse of their market position to consolidate their monopoly on floor mats."
In a related story, Pioneer, Blaupunkt and Kenwood have announced plans to jointly sue the automakers for providing radios with their vehicles.
The difference is that in the installer I can opt not to install iTunes, or indeed ever use it. Even if installed I can remove it with one drag to the trash.
Compare and contrast that (or even Quicktime) with Windows Media Player.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
to create an OS X version of their Rhapsody player. ARE YOU LISTENING REAL? I hate iTunes, but I just switched to a Powerbook, and I want a subscription based model, not a pay per song one!
THANKS!
Why should Real Networks get any cash? They are worse than MS. Seriously, Real Networks are a bunch of hypocrites. Real player holds a monopoly on RM files. I can't play RM files on any other piece of software except RM. This wouldn't be such a big deal if Realplayer was more media-ware and less adware.
" Hmm... do you think it could possibly be because, unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn't have (and abuse) a monopoly on desktop operating systems?"
They've certainly abused their monopoly on mp3 players and online mp3 sales to lock real out of the market. Real can't sell a DRMed song that will play on an iPod.
Vote for Pedro
hmm... i wonder...
for some reason [which I still have difficulty agreeing with, but...], people have a tendancy to come up with "but if this were a CAR..." analogies in trying to explain IP issues... in that vein, I propose the following gedenkenexperiment:
if - say - GM were the only automaker (or close enough to be considered a monopoly), would you argue that it should be illegal for them to bundle e.g. a sterio with their products, since there are companies which produce aftermarket sterios?
With M$'s hooks into Real now, will this mean a downward spiral for Real's support of Helix or has M$'s attitude "Really" taken a better turn?
How do you figure? Is Microsoft going to raise their wholesale price? If they did, would merchants/OEMs raise their retail price to match? If so, then they would lose a certain amount of customers (everybody has their limit where "and not a dime more!" kicks in), which lowers the demand, which reduces the profits, which would require a price hike, lather, rinse, and repeat.
Companies don't get to magically vote themselves more money my randomly raising their prices. Or, at least, they can't do it for long.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Odd. now it used to be popular to laugh at netscape, but look at them now! MUHAHAHHA!
They have some of the best experience with selling products that totally suck.
I think Firefox should sue Microsoft for bundling it with Internet Explorer, and why doesn't Linus sue them for bundling it with the Windows kernal? And Gnome can follow too? My point is that Microsoft can do whatever the hell they want with what they sell, not if only it was that easy to get rid of it.
Why shouldn't an operating system come with a media player?
The only people to lose from your idea would be the customers. Instead of just turning the computer and getting on with it, users would have to search around the Internet and download a media player. How does that make things any easier?
I hate real player, I don't want it installed by default on my computer. When I buy a car it comes with a steering wheel, I don't have to go and buy one. A rival to the car manufacturer doesn't get to sue to have their faulty, irritating, asbestos steering wheel included in the car.
Can someone PLEASE explain how it hurts anyone other than the scumbags at Real when Microsoft include basic functionality with their OS?
What else will they have to take out? Will they have to stop allowing files to be unzipped because it competes with Winzip? Should packet filtering be banned because it competes with third-party firewalls? Should notepad be banned because it competes with third-party text editors? This is mad. The end user doesn't care whether some third-party company gets shafted, they just want to use their damn computer!
Now what in the hell are you talking about? DVD Jon is the only one with any sort of 'crack' for Fairplay DRM. The only thing Real did with Fairplay was to reverse-engineer it enough to give their own files compatible DRM. That's just about the exact opposite of circumventing copy protection, and it's not outlawed by the DMCA.
Allow me to say once again how lowsy
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
what did you think Microsoft Tax meant?
The free version of the Real player is now prominently displayed on the Real home page. The free link used to be hard to find, kind of hidden on an inner page as you were downloading the player. Yep, Real is definitely really hurting.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Real, because their software is rubbish. Even on a level playing field they would have been wiped out, in fact I suspect the only reason that they are still around is that they are the biggest player that isn't Microsoft, so people support it out of principle. Okay, I forgot about QuickTime in that comparison, but I think it still holds because QuickTime is also rubbish. Both of them just keep on crashing and stopping other software from working.
Stepping back a bit, one almost gets the impression that MS primary business plan has, since its deal with IBM over QDOS^H^H^H^H MS-DOS in the early 80's, been to illegally leverage its monopoly. Any deal MS is trying to make with Real is at best a delaying tactic and at worst just another attempt to buy complicity.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
old news. they settled yesterday, the final deal was valued at $761 million
Real needs to die ... ASAP ...
:(
Why couldn't MS have killed them first, instead of Netscape???
#6495ED - cornflower blue