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Apple To Face $350 Million Trial Over iPod DRM
An anonymous reader writes: A U.S. district judge ruled last week that a decade-old antitrust lawsuit regarding Apple's FairPlay DRM can move forward to a jury trial (PDF). The plaintiffs claim that in 2004, when "Real Networks launched a new version of RealPlayer that competed with iTunes," Apple issued an update to iTunes that prevented users from using their iPods to play songs obtained from RealPlayer. Real Networks updated its compatibility software in 2006, and Apple introduced a new version of iTunes that also rendered Real Networks's new update ineffective. The plaintiffs reason that they were thus "locked in" to Apple's platform, and as a result "Apple was able to overcharge its customers to the tune of tens of millions of dollars". If the plaintiffs succeed, media content purchased online may go the way of CDs and be playable on competing devices.
If the plaintiffs succeed, media content purchased online may go the way of CDs and be playable on competing devices.
Oh, yeah! They're going to ban DRM! Suck it, Amazon!
What is the submitter smoking?
This lawsuit won't change anything today. All iTunes music is drm free.
But all media should be DRM free on the premise that those who are doing the right thing in purchasing media should be allowed to use it however they want. For being the "Land of the free" we sure have alot of people attacking individual freedom.
just check the couch cushions, I'm sure they've got a few hundred million in there amongst the Cheetos and lost tv remotes.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
RealPlayer - Talk about a wasted opportunity. In the '90s those guys OWNED streaming "Internet Radio" and the nascent business of streaming video. All squandered as their player degraded into a process-hogging bloatware-laden pig that people began uninstalling in disgust.
As much I dislike iTunes lock-in and DRM, RealPlayer are not by any means good guys. They were peddling a competing DRM system. Sod them both to Hades.
RealPlayer - Talk about a ...BUFFERING... wasted oppor ...BUFFERING... tunity ...BUFFERING...
#DeleteChrome
Back about the time of the first iMac, Apple also introduced the "G3 (blue & white) Tower". A few months later, when everyone knew that a G4 Mac tower was in the works but hadn't been introduced yet, some aftermarket outfits offered an upgrade kit which allowed you to install a G4 processor in your G3 tower.
Apple released an update (disguised as something I can't remember, a video card update, perhaps) which broke all of these aftermarket G4 upgrade kits.
The behavior described in this court case was just the way Jobs ran things.
Now if this also applied to roms bought on the sony, nintendo or xbox store, then I would be a happy camper.
Users were continually forced to either stop playing any songs they had bought from the Real store, or convert them to a non-DRM format, for example by burning the music to CD and then ripping the CD to their computer.
Or just share stuff.
Maybe the companies mentioned in the article should sue themselves rather than each other. The cumulative losses from the panic strategy moves by the companies who were not in anyway in control must be astronomical (per the official RIAA magical calculations). It seems that they are trying to come up with something to pay the consultant bills, picking each other in vain. I hope nobody wins, the consumers already did.
are belong to us.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
You can buy mp3s from Apple now. Did all these other MP3 players suddenly jump up and be popular? Nahhh...
There are two secrets with the iPod popularity, and neither is DRM. One is that it was, relatively to other players, easy to use. Click a button, you have a song. Drop a disc to your computer, you have an album. Yeah, I could have used CDex, and chosen between Gracenote, and opencddb.org and all that, but iTunes was a decent ripper and there you go.
The other thing, and the thing that would keep me from moving much, is all the metadata about songs. Most of my playlists are metadata based, mostly to do with star ratings, Id have to find a way to translate all that to a massive download to another device type. It's too much of a hassle, to change off a device that to be honest works pretty well for me anyway.
They're not dead yet. Now with Cloud! Sharing! Mobile!
i for one am glad Apple took this course of action. It made it abundantly clear that DRM is a failed business plan. Between the Mini Disk MO player/recorder with serial copy protection and then iTunes with copy protection, they left a void that quickly became filled with alternatives with much higher compatabiliy. DRM simply meant incompatability to many as the Mini Disk was incompatible with desktop music production. It gave way to simple recordable CD's. DAT tape, competing company, with mandated DRM was knifed in the cradle. In my life I have only seen one DAT tape recorder, but neve any tapes for it. It was pretty much a dead format due to DRM.
The huge public awareness of DRM and incompatibility was presented to the public with iTunes and it's incompatibility with everything else. DVD player could play MP3 CD's and DVD's. In dash car stereos began to support MP3 CD's and some play MP3's on a thumb drive. A few supported an iPod dock, but none could directy play Apple DRM content which made the public aware of the problem.
Apple finally had to support non DRM industry compatability to stay alive.
Thank you Apple for educating the large portion of the public. DRM on music is mostly a thing of the past.
The truth shall set you free!
It's their fault they agreed to install the updated software! How could Real Player sell anything if customers actually agreed to the update?
Now the only people that use them are educational facilities and some sports video distributors. These 2 are seemingly the only ones that can be swayed by Real's sales department. That or they are getting some pretty good kickbacks for using realplayer. Even my Mom knows real video is crap.
Interestingly iTunes has become process-hogging bloatware-laden pig. So its the new RealPlayer!
You just described how many of us feel about iTunes today. My iPods are essentially offline now because I don't want Apple software on my PC.
Sadly, the reason the RealMedia stuff is still around is due to legacy files. Since they were the leader in streaming for a bunch of years, there are still a lot of files still in this format. I currently have 569 RM files that I need to replace with the ones that I've converted to mp4 and mp3. The older stuff is lower priority so it probably won't be done for another year or two... ugh.
And China. Most pirated Chinese movies and TV shows are in RMVB format.
I felt that way about iTunes at least 8 years ago.
VLC for iOS is great and will let you listen to any format music including FLAC files on your iPod (newer models running iOS). Has a handy HTTP WIFI upload tool makes it easy to move your music to your iOS enabled mobile device.
You don't need Apple software to copy music to your iPods.
degraded into a process-hogging bloatware-laden pig that people began uninstalling in disgust.
Strange, it does seem like the realplayer devs are still active in the majority of todays software.
media content purchased online may go the way of CDs and be playable on competing devices.
This has been true all along. It's only "Apple's" fucktard approach that's been locked.
"media content stupidly purchased through Apple's ass-fuck-you-without-any-lube-tunes store may go the way of Betamax, and other cheaper content can be played on your iDumbShit product." tftfy
Actually, they do. Because the measure of "suck" has moved on.
A pile of playlists in a filesystem does not track play counts.
It does not automatically re-order when I change my rating of something on the device. Or the genre or artist.
A pile of playlists does not do any transcoding, like how I can check a box in iTunes and have all my lossless files transcoded down from my Mac Pro to fit on my phone, while still syncing tag edits, play counts, etc.
A pile of playlists is inadequate for a podcast subscription that I may listen to on multiple devices, and keep as an archive in one place but not another.
If I want to remove something from my phone temporarily, even if it's in 50 playlists, I uncheck its box in iTunes. Later if I want it back in all 50, I re-check the box.
IF I MOVE A MUSIC FILE ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE SAME DRIVE,
INCLUDING RENAMING IT,
INCLUDING CHANGING ALL TAG DATA,
it is still tracked and accounted for everywhere I've referenced it and still syncs automatically, thanks to the magic of inodes.
If you are managing your playlists directly via the filesystem, you are not some kind of "pro uz3r", you are a luddite with simple needs.
The best we can hope for is some form of antitrust/fair use legislation/precedent governing the use of DRM coming from this. It could apply to other devices/media forms.
So people seem to generally agree that the solution to this industry-versus-piracy problem, with music, is to abandon DRM and instead chase the piracy out of the market by offering something easier to find, easier to get, and easier to play.
I wonder, how does this crowd feel about piracy of software then?
The story of DRM on software is long and twisty, including things like proprietary ROM cartridges, weird disk sectors, and hidden codes printed in paper manuals. These days, no physical media is required at all, so those old methods don't work. It's all encryption-based. This makes it equivalent to what music is now: Infinitely copyable for virtually no cost.
On portable devices, the potential arena for app piracy is gigantic, and there is a thriving piracy sector, but users in general are turning to it less than their PC forebears, and DRM on smartphones has been a huge shot of cash into the arm of the software industry. Coders are more in-demand, and paid more, than ever.
Say you purchased Angry Birds on your iPhone, and now you own an Android device. You have to purchase Angry Birds again. You fully expect your DRM-less music to be interoperable. Why not your apps?
Why isn't it computer tampering.....tampering with a computer device or program?
Today I learned that fixing exploits in your software is computer tampering, but only if it's someone you don't like doing it I guess.
Say what you like about Apple, but their shit works. RealPlayer was always crap, and the i remember feeling sorry for any company that used RealNetworks software on their site. That company must have had some seriously high pressure salespeople because then, quicktime blew it away. Even windows media player sucked giant huevos. While quicktime player was JKL-ng glorious porn all over the baby internet, windows media files had a tough time with jumping backwards or playing in reverse.
Seeing that there are still people who've kept their cart latched to the Realnetworks donkey makes me sad.
chris watts íë¦ìS ì(TM)ì
1. Apple super rich
2. Statute of limitations probably running out (guess as its 10 years)
3. Reasonable possibility of winning (regardless of merit) or settling for millions
4. $$$
They probably were like, 'why not?'
iTunes? SIGH...
Otherwise known as Hatebois, since comparing RealPlayer to iTunes requires Hoekestranian levels of contortion.