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DVD Jon's DoubleTwist Unlocks the iPod
An anonymous reader writes, "On the 5-year anniversary of the iPod, Fortune Magazine has an article called Unlocking the iPod about Jon Lech Johansen's new venture. Slashdot briefly covered DoubleTwist earlier this month, and those of you who complained that he was not enabling iPod competitors to play FairPlay files will be happy to learn that according to the Fortune article he will also be going after the hardware market." From the article: "As [Johansen] and Farantzos explain DoubleTwist in a conference room they share with several other companies, he points to a sheet of printer paper tacked on the wall that has a typed quote Jobs gave the Wall Street Journal in 2002: 'If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own.' As Johansen sees it, Jobs didn't follow through on this promise, so it's up to him to fix the system... Johansen has written [two] programs...: one that would let other companies sell copy-protected songs that play on the iPod, and another that would let other devices play iTunes songs."
If you email Apple they'll let you download all your music again through iTunes.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
There are actually quite a few non-Apple players that support unprotected AAC. AAC is not an Apple-proprietary format. It's owned by Dolby and Apple is merely a licensee.
I have repeatedly read the speculation that EULA's are not enforceable so I decided to check case law on the subject. A quick search shows that they have been upheld (at least in FL). Specifically, Salco Distribs. LLC v. Icode, Inc., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9483 (D. Fla. 2006) enforced a forum selection clause in some business software made by a company in Virginia. In order to do this, the federal court in FL had to find that the EULA was a binding contract. This is not exactly what is being discussed in this thread b/c the contract was between two businesses and the software company had really covered everything.
On a more general level the court said "In Florida and the federal circuits, shrinkwrap and clickwrap agreements are valid and enforceable contracts." The court then cited several cases to make the point, with a major one being ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996). This one dealt with academic software being used in a commercial setting. The terms restricting use to academia was included in the EULA printed on the shrinkwrap, and is much closer to purchasing the ipod and using the itunes software. In that case, the court determined that the EULA was a binding contract.
I could do more research to figure this out, however, I have a bunch of homework to do as well. Given that IANAL (merely a law student) you can and should take anything I say with a large grain of salt, however, I would not just dismiss EULAs out of hand. If enforcement of the EULA would be very painful or prohibitive, you probably want to really think about what you are doing. I am not saying it is good law or that this is the way that things should be, but I would not count of a defense of unenforceability on EULA contracts.