Beware the Apple iPhone iHandcuffs

Nrbelex writes "Randall Stross makes a fresh and surprisingly accurate review of one of the biggest "features" in the upcoming iPhone and the iPod in general, 'fairplay'. Stross writes, 'If "crippleware" seems an unduly harsh description, it balances the euphemistic names that the industry uses for copy protection. Apple officially calls its own standard "FairPlay," but fair it is not.... You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever.' Can mainstream media coverage help the battle over DRM or will this warning, like those of the pas, continue to go unnoticed?"

Comments

Re:Just rip your CD's fool

[davebarnes]

Exactly.
1. Rip your own CDs. Legal.
2. Borrow your friends' CDs and rip. Not legal in USA.
3. Buy MP3s from AllofMP3.com. Legal in Russia.
4. Buy MP3s from eMusic.com. Legal.

Plenty of sources for music that don't involve iTunes Music Store.

Anti-Apple week

[Oniros]

Geez, the iPhone must have scared the crap out of everyone in the industry, seems it's Anti-Apple FUD since the iPhone was announced.

I own an iPod (3rd gen or something), works great with the hundreds of CDs I own and ripped. I bought 1 song on the iTunes store. The article lie in implying the iPod is limited to FairPlay music. This is not the Zune, iTunes doesn't add a DRM layer to your music. It plays non-DRMed songs just fine.

I own a Mac, plays all the fansubbed unlicensed anime series I get on bittorrent. Works even in FrontRow. And on the video iPod and Apple TV if I batch convert them to H264. Again, non-DRMed video plays fine.

So, allow me not to be scared.

If you want to worry, check the big brotherish content protection in Vista:
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

Re:Just rip your CD's fool

[ahillen]

At least the article didn't blame Apple, but the music industry.

Well, he also blames Apple. He gives the example of eMusic, which sells a lot of music from independent labels without DRM (and that of course with the labels agreement). The same music is sold by Apple in the iTunes Store with their fairplay DRM. It seems that in theses cases Apple's assertion that "we have to use DRM, otherwise the labels would not allow us to sell the music" is not true.

So I guess he has a point, although I don't agree with everything he says. Starting with the headline: the problem is not the iPhone (or the iPod), the problem is the iTunes Store. If you decide to buy your music somewhere else (like - gasp - CDs) you are not locked in at all. But, OK, the iPhone is what all the buzz is about right now, so that's probably the reason for the choice of headline. He also says that by buying the iPhone, you have to use the iTunes Store if you want to buy music online. Then he goes on to give the example of eMusic, which sells millions of songs online in MP3 format without DRM. Obviously, these files will also work on any Apple device.

So, his arguments are at some points a bit flawed, but I think the general intention of raising the awareness for the possible pitfalls of buying DRM music has to be applauded.

Re:Don't buy it if you don't like it...

[Eric Savage]

Let's recap for the parent and anyone else not paying attention.

• Apple owns FairPlay, a proprietary format.
• Apple will not license other players to play FairPlay.
• Apple will not license other vendors to sell FairPlay music.
• Apple will not license DRM from anyone else for their players.
• Apple has a vast majority of digital music player sales.
• Apple has a vast majority of digital music sales. (20x as many as the #2 store according to TFA)
• This article would have twice as many comments and similar ones would be posted weekly if it was s/Apple/Microsoft/g

Re:Don't buy it if you don't like it...

[canuck57]

I think I'll go buy a Zune then sue Microsoft because my iTunes songs don't work on the Zune. I hope this case gets thrown out and the woman has to pay the court costs.

Although I am vehemently anti-DRM I couldn't agree with you more. If a consumer purchases a device with DRM, they ultimately must live with that. Hopefully the judgment will we "tough, too bad so sad...". It will actually be a victory for anti-DRM as it will force consumers to spend their money on non-DRM products. Then we will see some real progress.

When I rip my audio CDs, everything goes into DRM free MP3. I even keep them on a Linux share as so Microsoft can't get the originals. It may be paranoid, but that license file in XP bugs me even though I haven't been hit by it yet. I will even hold off on Vista until it is certain Vista will not alter the collection.

Re:No just DRM like the iPod, but signed apps too

[dfghjk]

Here's the reason RoughlyDrafted offers for why Apple doesn't offer 3G data:

"With the iPhone, Apple is forcing Cingular to support and subsidize a phone that will save users money."

Apparently, RoughlyDrafted feels WiFi is ubiquitous and free while 3G data forces users into high fees. Couldn't be more stupid than that.

Likewise, its "substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X" is nothing but substantiated. For example:

"Microsoft has intentionally referred to its various operating environments under the brand Windows, despite the fact that its Windows 95, Windows NT, and Windows CE products lines are all significantly different systems."

In other words, iPhone OS X is "OS X" like all flavors of Windows are Windows just as /. people have said. Never mind that most versions of Windows have run all Windows apps and have family resemblences in their UI. No one claims that Windows CE or WM5 is actually "Windows", we all know different, and likewise iPhone "OS X" is not "Mac OS X". The iPhone OS shares no development platform with OS X, it runs no Mac OS X software, and has no UI elements in common. It is in no way "OS X" from a user's perspective, it's simply named so by Apple. Of course, they also offered the following:

"Despite losing the Finder, key ideas are retained on the iPhone that will be familiar to Mac users. Along the bottom of the home screen is an iconic list of its four principle functions: phone, mail, web, and iPod."

They are suggesting that the icons across the bottom of the screen are like the dock, never mind that my dock doesn't run across the bottom of my screen. Apparently, the dock constitutes the "key ideas" that make OS X what it is according to RoughlyDrafted. "Substantiated look" indeed.

The third party software article is even more absurd and offers nothing constructive at all. In fact it's not even worth a read. The author attempts to redirect the argument to the iPod, Zune, and Xbox ignoring the fact that those are fixed function devices while the the iPhone is specifically advertised as a pocketable computer. He also parrots the Apple line that 3rd party software is of unacceptably low quality while ignoring that fact that it's never hindered other computer platforms including the Mac itself and other smartphones before the iPhone. The rest of the article is full of mental masturbation, attempted demonstrations of expertise, and claims of Apple genious and capability. The most blatantly transparent apology of the three.

RoughlyDrafted is just another Apple apologist blog and brings nothing new or interesting to the discussion.