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Apple Wins iTunes DRM Case

Posted by Soulskill on from the drm-protected-history-is-written-by-the-victors dept.

An anonymous reader sends word that Apple's iTunes DRM case has already been decided. The 8-person jury took only a few hours to decide that the features introduced in iTunes 7.0 were good for consumers and did not violate antitrust laws. Following the decision, the plaintiff's head attorney Patrick Coughlin said an appeal is already planned. He also expressed frustrations over getting two of the security features — one that checks the iTunes database, and another that checks each song on the iPod itself — lumped together with the other user-facing features in the iTunes 7.0 update, like support for movies and games. "At least we got a chance to get it in front of the jury," he told reporters. ... All along, Apple's made the case that its music store, jukebox software, and hardware was simply an integrated system similar to video game consoles from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. It built all those pieces to work together, and thus it would be unusual to expect any one piece from another company to work without issues, Apple's attorneys said. But more importantly, Apple offered, any the evolution of its DRM that ended up locking out competitors was absolutely necessary given deals it had with the major record companies to patch security holes.

10 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. I'm shocked. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't believe the 700 billion dollar corporation won this.

    1. Re:I'm shocked. by alen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      i'd be surprised if apple didn't win the case. they blocked and non-apple DRM like every other company out there and Real had to hack it. but in the end itunes allowed you to use any hardware you wanted as long as the maker coded to a few of apple's API's. i use my Note 3 with itunes on my macbook. itunes itself has supported non-apple devices for many years as long as the files don't have any DRM.

    2. Re:I'm shocked. by amaurea · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Doesn't the USA have a concept of jury nullification, where the jury does much more than just determine facts, and actually takes a position on what's right and wrong?

    3. Re: I'm shocked. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why was this modded down? It's the truth. Oh mods, cover the truth with your mod points. Yay.

      When I was your age, we knew that you started out at -1 as an AC. And we liked it.

      Kids these days.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    4. Re:I'm shocked. by JohnFen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Whatever harm iTunes did, seems to have resulted in a far more vibrant marketplace now than it was years ago.

      Be careful about confusing causation with correlation.

  2. Huh? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yet beyond monetary damages, the case has zero bearing on the modern technology industry, as both the MP3 music file format and the iPod itself have waned in popularity

    Wait, what? People no longer use MP3s? They don't buy iPods?

    This sounds like an odd claim ... I've got way more MP3s now that I did in 2005, and it's the primary way I listen to music. When I buy a CD (yes, I still do that) the first thing I do is rip it.

    Sure, there are streaming services. But I'm betting lots of people still play MP3s on portable players.

    It's not as glamorous, but saying MP3s have no bearing on the modern technology industry? I'm not buying that.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. Deals? by robmv · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Your Honor, I ended up killing him, It was absolutely necessary given deals I had with his wife to patch her problems"

    A secret deal is not an excuse to screw illegaly your customers, if that was the case.

    1. Re:Deals? by nwf · · Score: 1, Insightful

      That's silly. Making products work with only your products is legal and has been going on for at least 100 years. If you get razors from company X you can't get blades from company Y. Like video games (that Apple mentioned in their argument) that work only in their console, if you get a DVD it won't play in your VCR, your AT&T phone won't work on Verizon, if you get HBO you can't record it without DRM in HD, only certain garbage cans fit into my cabinets trash drawer, etc. It's stupid to expect a company has to make their products universally compatible just because they have the industry-leading product. We have hand sanitizer dispensers and, guess what, they only let you use their packaged liquid. Only an idiot would think companies should be compelled to do otherwise.

      And regarding the record companies, it was "use music with your DRM only or no music for you". So the alternative would be NO iPods or downloadable music. You'd be back having to buy a crappy album for a single good song.

      --
      I don't know, but it works for me.
    2. Re:Deals? by Ixokai · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your analogy is dumb.

      The customers would never have had access to the music catalogs of the major music labels were it not for deals to implement DRM and patch holes when that DRM is exploited.

      Real exploited a hole to create fakely-DRM'd content, and Apple had to close it or they'd be in breach of contract and suddenly the ITMS has no content.

      (At least, in theory. In reality Apple got big enough by this point that they were able to muscle the labels into letting them un-DRM the entire catalog, which seems quite the opposite of illegally screwing customers.)

  4. Re:Yes this is Terrible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You mean other than they never wanted it in the first place.