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Norway Outlaws iTunes
haddieman notes that while many people are getting more and more annoyed at DRM, Norway actually did something about it. The PC World article explains: "Good intentions, questionable execution. European legislators have been giving DRM considerable attention for a while, but Norway has actually gone so far as to declare that Apple's iTunes store is illegal under Norwegian law.
The crux of the issue is that the Fairplay DRM that is at the heart of the iTunes/iPod universe doesn't work with anything else, meaning that if you want access to the cast iTunes library, you have to buy an iPod."
Now, when are they going to outlaw all the other DRM-infested music stores? If "Fairplay" is unfair, then so is "PlaysForSure!"
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
When will they outlaw razor blades that only fit one razor?
While I despise DRM, this is purest bullshit.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
haddieman notes that while many people are getting more and more annoyed at DRM, Norway actually did something about it.
It sounds like they've decided it's either Norway or the Highway.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Bah! If I want to play Wii games, I have to buy a Wii. Outlaw the Wii.
If iTunes is illegal, only criminals with have iTunes.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
While I don't agree with DRM, and don't support it (financially), why does the government need to regulate a vendor that has lock-in features, when other companies do the same thing?
.. unless your MS and can't even get that right!
--
Plays For Sure
Kenya Kenya Kenyaaaaa....
What about all those applications that you can only use on one chipset/operating system? I could've sued game developes years ago for not making a mac version of their games, therefore forcing me to spend my money on PC, because I like to game. And what about those proprietary file formats? I should be able to open whatever file I want with whatever program and have it work! Although I agree that I should have the ability to play my iTunes music on whatever I want, I'm not sure making it illegal to limit proprietary files to a certain proprietary device sets a good precedence.
"Not letting them use DRM" would be a Hell of a lot better than what Norway's actually doing, which is giving Microsoft's "PlaysForSure" DRM (which is just as proprietary!) preferential treatment.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Gaaa!
Norway == socialists == doubleplus good
DRM == doubleplus ungood
iTunes == Apple == doubleplus good
Norway outlaws iTunes? What is a good gay socialist Mac user going to do? What is the right side to be on?
Ok, trolling is fun and all, but seriously.
I think it's a load. People have the right to be stupid. Without that as Right 0 no other "Right" can be read as anything other than "You have the Right to ____ unless we, the anointed elite, think decide your exercise of it is dumb." It's why the 1st Amendment is safe so long as -both- Noam Chomsky and StormFront were free to rant and rave but didn't survive John McCain & Russ Feingold.
I'd never buy from the iTunes store because I think the deal offered is one sided, shortsighted and stupid. But I'll defend Steve's Right to try to sell it and your Right to freely enter into a license agreement with him.
Democrat delenda est
Only in Kenya can you see lions.
It's not preferential. Other companies can make products that interoperate with PlaysForSure. If other compainies could do that with Fairplay, Norway wouldn't have a problem according to the article. Just because some companies are in compliance with proposed new regulations and some aren't doesn't mean that making new regulations is "unfair".
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
It's not so much that you need an iPod to enjoy your itunes purchases, but that you are locked into future hardware purchases from Apple
If you buy many albums from the iTunes sture you can enjoy them and all is rosy. Then two years later the battery on your iPod has died, so you look at what's available. You think there are some nice offerings from creative or sandisk but, trouble is, you can't listen to any of your existing purchases. Your locked to Apple.
It's well boyond time that other players were allowed to license Fairplay, and that other music providers be allowed to sell Fairplay encoded tracks.
How long before windows vista's SUPER DRM is banded?
There's a solid technical reason why Wii games only run on a Wii. Technical incompatibility of DRM-locked music, however, is a purely artificially imposed barrier to interoperability. It's gratuitous incompatibility.
Imagine that every car manufacturer operated a chain of gas stations. All cars could run on the same fuel, but every brand of car had a bizarrely shaped fuel intake that would only accept the corresponding bizarrely shaped nozzle. You could only fill up a Toyota at a Toyota gas station, a Ford and a Ford station, etc.
Further, if you dared to try to create adapter for universal fueling, you'd be thrown in jail and fined tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for violating the laws the big car companies paid politicians all around the world to pass, to protect there little lock-in schemes.
You could either go along with such BS, and happily sing the tune the car companies want you to sing ("If you don't like it, you can don't have to buy a car! No one's forcing you! Just by a bicycle and shut up already!"), or you could cheer along the efforts to end protected for deliberately imposed incompatibility and improve things for consumers instead.
What I found interesting about this article is that it seems to advocate one choice is better than no choice, and implies Norway is harming its citizens and consumers by depriving them of a monopoly.
This tends to be the self serving argument monopolists use when justifying their actions. "By enhancing the user experience by bundling a product the user experience is enhanced. Depriving them of our monopolistic business model harms them."
In my view, choice is never bad. Competition is good. Apple won their market share by out-innovating the rest of the pack. But history is full of examples of the stagnation occurs once a market is consolidated. So I think other players should be allowed to work with iTunes.
Really? Then show me where I can get a software player not made by Microsoft capable of playing PlaysForSure Media! In particular, show me where I can get one that works on operating systems other than Windows!
The only "fair" regulations would be ones that outlaw DRM entirely. To do what they've actually done -- especially when done in the name of "protecting consumers" -- is a farce!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And if I buy a song from Sony or Microsoft, it won't work on my Linux computer. That is textbook anti-competitive behavior too, so why aren't "PlaysForSure" and whatever Sony's DRM is called being outlawed as well?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There's a big difference between forcing a software company to expend the enormous effort that would be required to make a piece of software run on multiple OSes, and telling a music distributor that they shouldn't gratuitously add artificially imposed incompatibility.
Norway did not "Outlaw iTunes". They outlawed iTunes Music Store. There's a big fucking difference, and on /. of all places the editors should know the difference.
I just tried your "menu:advanced" recommendation. iTunes tells me that protected files cannot be converted to other formats.
I also think that if you burn and rip to get it in as mp3, you lose the ID3 tags, but I don't feel like verifying that right now.
QT Fair Use and another program I don't recall converted everything to mp3s quite nicely though, as I just switched from an ancient iPod to a Creative Vision
So the problem is that Apple won't let competitors to use the software they developed and paid for
No, that's not the problem. Nobody is telling Apple to allow competitors to encrypt their songs using fairplay. What Norway is telling Apple is that songs that are encrypted with fairplay should be playable on devices other than the ipod.
and the relationships they fostered with the Norwegian labels, both indie and the RIAA, nor share the revenue from that process and iPods sales with companies that don't have Apple's best interests in mind?
What does this have to do with anything?
Are you in favour of regulations that forces Sears to haul around merchandise from JC Penney without compensation as well?
Yet another poor attempt at an analogy. Nobody is asking Apple to sell anybody else's merchandise, what the hell are you talking about?
I hate analogies but here's one that's a little more apt: Remember when the discman was the defacto portable player? Now imagine that all CDs released by SONY were only playable on their discman as opposed to all audio players.
What have they done wrong, except become popular?
They are trying to lock iTunes consumers into their products, which screws both its music player competitors AND consumers.
Why do some people think that Apple's shit doesn't stink?
Obviously I must be a moron then, because when I tried that this message popped up:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Music, unlike playstation games or panasonic parts, is a commodity. It is exactly the same whether it is bought from emusic or from itunes. Here is a better analogy:
Imagine if you bought a car from a hypothetical shell car company(Which controls over 70% of the market, giving it huge monopsony power), and it only ran on shell gasoline. Worse, imagine your car used an elaborate and inefficient sensor to confirm that you bought your gas from shell. Worse, if you wanted to buy another car, it would not have a steering wheel or a gear stick, because Shell had patents on those.
Really? Then show me where I can get a software player not made by Microsoft capable of playing PlaysForSure Media! In particular, show me where I can get one that works on operating systems other than Windows!
My Sansa connects to Winamp because of Playsforsure.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'm sure that, although Sony might want all operating systems to be able to play the media, it would only be interested in supporting Sony brand hardware players.
See, here's the real problem: no matter what DRM system you might propose, you're never going to get around the fact that DRM is inherently designed to be excluding and restrictive! If it doesn't prevent anybody from playing the file it isn't really DRM, now is it?
Therefore, I'll repeat yet again what I've always said: the only "good" DRM is no DRM at all.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This headline (and the one at PC World) is quite misleading. Norway has not outlawed ITMS. It has simply been found that ITMS is not following the law in Norway. This means that ITMS has always been illegal. You can blame Apple for not checking the law in the market they were entering (or checking, but deciding that the law doesn't apply to them).
Consumer protection laws can sometimes be a big pill for corporations to swallow, but if Norway is anything like Denmark, which is quite likely, they usually end up having to follow the rules, rather than getting the rules changed to suit them.
Your analogy is wrong (and not even close) because there are many, many places online where I can download music legally and cheaply which plays just dandy with my iPod and are in common, non-DRM'ed codecs not under Apple's control. Apple does not lock you into a sole vendor for your music when you get an iPod.
And then there other quasi-legal methods of finding music or ripping my own CD's that I bought online. Maybe you were thinking of the Zune, which locks up even your legal tracks under DRM?
10 minutes, nay, 30 seconds on Apple's iPod page would have told you this.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
It'd be a longshot, but maybe they could extend that to their practices regarding OS X and their hardware? Repackaging it in a desired format with spare parts gets you in trouble these days if you sell it, much less the hardware binding. They'd not need to ban OS X, just remove the restrictions on interoperability and hardware use.
Of course, fanboi's will come far and wide to dispute this- but not all of us like their products in "Ivory Tower" white as a majority, in non-ATX forms, or even the architecture they bless. I'll take a clone or a custom built machine, and run whatever, however - economics be damned.
Hopefully at least the iTMS ban holds up and works.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Umm... Until the ill-fated Zune (my, isn't THAT cynical of me), Microsoft never made their own music player. So I have no idea where you got you're info, but it's quite incorrect.
/. minions were crying about just a few years ago in US v. MSFT?
It's not a farce. They're pushing to enforce consumer choice. Isn't that what the
What's good for the goose? Let's make it illegal to have closed Siemens and Nokia phones so that any phone will work with each carriers network. Seems reasonable.
Go re-read my post, and you'll see you missed the keyword: "software." I'm not complaining about the Zune, I'm complaining that I can't legally write myself an alternative to Windows Media Player that works on Linux and plays "PlaysForSure" media!
The only way to actually do that effectively is to outlaw DRM entirely, because DRM is inherently antithetical to choice.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What really happened is that the consumer ombudsman stated that FairPlay was, in his opinion, illegal. The ombudsman is not a court, nor a judge, nor a legislature. The easiest comparison to make is that he's like an attorney general, but rather than advise the govt, he advises consumers, and acts on their behalf, subjectively. The most he can do is recommend a prosecution to the director of prosecutions, but his opinion is not, repeat not law. TFA is stupid and badly researched.
- Nullsoft Winamp
- Amazon Unbox video player
- Musicmatch Jukebox
I don't think one exists, but I don't know if software companies are prohibited from obtaining PlaysForSure licenses for software players on other operating systems. Nullsoft, MusicMatch, and Amazon could obtain PlaysForeSure licenses for their Windows software. I have seen no evidence that Flip4Mac has been prohibited from obtaining a PlaysForSure license for their Windows Media Components for QuickTime.Can I play my purchased music from services such as the new Napster, MusicMatch, MusicNow, or BuyMusic.com through Winamp 5?
Yes. Yes you can.
In contrast, other software companies are prohibited from licensing FairPlay. Some companies want to license FairPlay so that their software can play iTunes Store media, but Apple refuses to license their DRM.
That said, I'm not sure if I agree with Norway's decision to ban FairPlay. This might be excessive regulation.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
Why should Apple be forced to provide service to competitors? Should HD-DVDs be forced to play in Blu-ray players? Should Sony be forced to allow its PS2 games to play on the Nintendo Wii? Should Ford be forced to make vehicle parts for Toyota?
What a load of crap. NOBODY IS FORCING ANYBODY TO BUY MUSIC FROM THE ITUNES STORE. Case closed.
"Sufferin' succotash."
So does that mean that Zune and Sony's Atrak and WMA are also banned? All of those only play on one brand of machine or operating system.
Well what about software that only runs on one operating system? After Ipods can run other operating system sso it's not the ipod that is doing the lock-in it's the operating system on the ipod.
By that reasoning all windows software is windows only and must be banned.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Is this where someone points out that Norway is not in the EU?
I'm just watching BBC World, where a guy called Torgeir Waterhouse from the Norwegian Consumer Council talks about this. When asked about competitors like Microsoft and the Zune, he said they are all illegal under Norwegian law. They only went after iTunes first because it's largest.
All of those applications use Microsoft software (or at least APIs, but probably software) to gain Playsforsure functionality. All of them only run on a Microsoft OS.
... and then they built the supercollider.
For starters, Gillette don't have much of a choice since there is no standard format for razer blades.
Look up Safety Razor in either the single or double edge variety. Then hunt for as many brands of compatible blades as you possibly can. You can choose stainless steel, high carbon steel, hardened and polished or not, extra sharp or extra strong, etc.
Enjoy. There is a standard format if you wish. It's just like they would like MP3 to just go away as an obsolete format that nobody uses anymore. As soon as they can crush MP3's, support for it on the players will slowly vanish... Hopefully the rejection of DRM will keep MP3 the most popular format for some time to come.
Gillette is doing the "ours is better than the open format" and they hope it will die. It is long from dead. Many devices from box cutters to art supplies to paint scrapers to medical prep tools to shavers use the blades much to Gillette's dismay. They pretend there is no standard format and hope to crowd it off the market as obsolete.
The truth shall set you free!
WMA can be licensed for all kinds of devices, and I suspect that Sony would be overjoyed to license the file format.
Zune--probably, but the 3 people who own one haven't made much of a fuss yet.
Norway isn't in the European Union. I'm pretty sure Apple would lobby pretty strongly to get its way in the EU, but Norway, and the Norwegian market being pretty small, I don't think Apple thinks its worth it, and would rather lose that market.
In essence, as a Mac and iPod user, I don't like this, but in principle it should apply to everybody, including Microsoft's Zune, which isn't even compatible with Microsoft's own Plays For Sure brand, and that name is terribly ironic.
Still, I don't really care. If I can't listen to music because of DRM, then I'll make my own or go and watch a Bach recital or something (until Microsoft/Sony/RIAA or whatever make playing music in public illegal unless you pay them for it)
Every windowsOS device that runs quicktime plays apple fairplay drm. for example an OQO is a pocket itunes playing device. What do they mean fairlplay only plays on ipods. Conversely you don't have to buy fairplay music to play it on your ipod. You can buy or load MP3s.
So I don't get it. You can play itunes/fairplay on tonnes of devices not made by apple. and you don't have to buy itunes software.
Moreover here's a hypothetical. Suppose the itunes software had two buttons on it. One button was marked "load my ipod with some music I bought at the itunes store" and the other button was marked "load my non-apple music player with some music I bought at the itunes music store".
Would that satisfy the norweigans? well itunes already has those features, just the buttons are marked differently. The second button is marked "convert my itunes music to something my non-apple player can play".
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You'll get a software media player for Linux that can play PlaysForSure media just as soon as someone licenses PlaysForSure, develops and sells such a product. Absolutely nothing at all is preventing someone from doing this, however there are licensing costs and stipulations which would certainly prevent this "open source" thing you espouse so zealously. It would be just like a legal software DVD player for Linux.
Of course, Apple doesn't license FairPlay to anyone, so while it is possible for a legal PlaysForSure player to be released for Linux, you're really SOL with FairPlay. Keep defending them, though. It doesn't really make you look like a complete and total prat.
According to the above posts, Norway is pissed that iTMS's DRM locks you into Apple hardware, and is therefore illegal (nevermind that iTMS songs do play on any Mac and Windows computer via the iTunes app).
But what about video game consoles? If one wants to play "Gears of War", one is locked into Microsoft's Xbox 360 hardware. Same for any console wrt games exclusive to that console. Is Norway going to outlaw video game consoles as well?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Oh yes, and how exactly do I rip movies downloaded off iTunes store again?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
http://www.forbrukerombudet.no/index.gan?id=110370 79&subid=0
:)
its a must read for everyone! it explains everything
You seem to have equated non-DRM with illegal, which is exactly what the RIAA wants in the minds of the public. But it's not true. I have an extensive, legal music collection which I have chosen to import into iTunes with AAC (I could have used MP3 or WMA or whatever else I wanted). I can use this music with any music player I want, hardware (iPod/whatever) or software (Foobar2000/whatever).
I don't care whether or not other DRM formats play on my iPod. Show me a DRM store better than iTunes, and then maybe I'd be interested. Buying music with one DRM scheme and then not being able to play it on hardware for another DRM scheme is a problem. But the only solution to that which keeps DRM around is a universal DRM scheme, ensuring that all devices and all stores work together. As a hypothetical hardware vendor, I don't want to have to add support for every ridiculous new DRM method that Microsoft cooks up, and I don't want to pay licensing fees to do it. And I would be outraged if the government singled me out for not licensing.
The difference between Microsoft and Apple's monopoly with iTunes or Adobe's monopoly with Photoshop is that the "just don't buy it" approach didn't work with Microsoft. They got in trouble for strongarming PC vendors into using Windows exclusively. If they hadn't done that, the bundling never would have been an issue.
This discussion is interesting, because it illustrates the difference between two different groups of /. users, who are usually allied.
First, there is the freedom crowd. They of course cheer on Norway, as this decision will increase competition between music stores and makers of portable music players, by cutting the tie between the dominating player in both groups.
Second, there is the cool technology crowd. They hate the decision, because Apple is "the good master", providing us with all kind of cool technology. And come up with all kind of objections, that really only make sense to a true believer.
The Good Master meme is well integrated in our culture, think about how many fairy tales are about the good king versus the bad king, rather than about the peasants maybe being able to do without a king in the first place. The Apple worship (and the Microsoft demonising) draw directly on that archetype.
Usually the crowds are aligned, because Microsoft is usually the dominating player, systematically abusing their desktop monopoly in order to expand into other areas. They have been convicted for that many times. And at the same time their technology, while not a sucky as it used to be, is still very boring.
up in arms over Apples 80% share in digital music. I mean c'mon Microsoft get a pass for operating systems 90% for most cases in most countries, but oh, yeah iTunes needs to be illegal because Apple has a large market share.
you missed the point. it's not their market share, it's that the songs purchased can only be played on one kind of device. If Microsoft packaged other people's programs and attached DRM to them so that they only ran on the "Microsoft pcPod" then you'd have something here. lucky for us, MS does't sell other people's programs (unless you count the licenses they have/had for things like defrag and hyperterm) and they also don't attach DRM to the programs they do sell. This allows "windows compatable" systems like WINE and ReactOS to run Microsofts own software legaly and without buying a Windows license. But because of Apples DRM, no 3rd party can legaly make a player for the content sold via iTunes, this is the problem, not the market share.
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
The justification for not licensing FairPlay is simple: Apple wants to make money. They don't make money on Itunes. They make it on the hardware. Ergo, if people can play the music on any old thing they may not buy the Ipod, and ergo Apple doesn't make money. You can call it greed if you want, but most people call it "business". And when it's between consenting adults and both parties uphold their contractual agreements, it's both legal and moral.
So the short of it is this is just another socialist EU(-ish) government who doesn't like that their businesses aren't getting a piece of the pie. No argument you make can possibly change this fact because your position is indefensible. Your point is like arguing that the $10 cell phone someone buys that's locked to a particular provider should be unlocked so you can use whatever provider you want. You got that cell phone because it's subsidized. Itunes is subsidized by the Ipod hardware. Apple should just make that explicit and tell anyone who bitches about it to toss off.
There is a huge difference between coding games for multiple platforms and encoding music in a file format that multiple media players can read. Microsoft released WMA and WMV for a wide array of audio and audio/video players. Why can't Apple? The difference is that unlike consoles, most songs are available on all stores. You are not forced to choose based on the content available. The only people without a choice are mac users but that is not the fault of Apple. MSFT chose to discontinue the development of WMP and they never intended on bring store and DRM support to Mac OS X.
Apple does not have to license if they do not want to. You are free to choose either an iPod, a Playsforsure device or a Zune if you are a windows user as Microsoft chose to lock out Mac users from the market. This lockout is part of the impetuous to the creation of the iPod in the first place. Apple wanted to provide its mac users with mac os alternative to the window only window media ecosystem. I think MSFT was foolish for not trying to maximize their potential market in the first place.
I don't think you get that Apple makes most of it's music profit on iPod sales rather than music. They knew from the start that it would take a long time for sale of music to brake even let alone show a profit. For this reason, they do not have an incentive to license to others. MSFT is about long term profits and domination while Apple is interested in creating useful products and making a nice profit on them.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.