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Apple Wins iTunes DRM Case
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.
How can DRM and locking out competitors ever be defined as good for consumers?
i'd be surprised if apple didn't win the case.
At the jury level this is expected. The appeal was expected either way. And in the longer term this may turn out differently.
Anti-trust concerns usually do benefit the consumer in the short term. And as the article points out, the jury specifically wrote that the features have an immediate benefit to the consumer.
Usually anti-trust problems are not immediately bad for the consumer. In the short term the consumer sees a lower price, easier access, and other conveniences.
In the long term the market ends up with monopolies and oligopolies, a loss of vibrancy, a slowdown in innovation, less desire to follow expensive advances, and worse customer experiences. Think of your local telco and cable companies as prime examples.
I expect that like so many other technical cases the jury's verdict will be overturned on appeal because juries in the US rarely understand the actual law. While criminal law is usually pretty straightforward for a lay jury, things like IP law and business law are often miscommunicated or misunderstood when handed to a jury of random citizens.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
2/6/2007
http://macdailynews.com/2007/0...
"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music."
"Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."
5/30/2007
Apple starts selling DRM free music
https://www.apple.com/pr/libra...
9/25/2007
Amazon starts selling DRM free music,
http://readwrite.com/2007/09/2...
As you were saying?
It's still relevant, but an expected ruling. This is not about DRM on the songs, it is about DRM on the connection between iTunes and the devices. That is, you can't use a non-apple device with iTunes. And Apple can go out of their way to make that happen.
I think you are making the mistake of thinking that Apple was sued for something that remotely makes sense. They weren't.
Apple sold music with DRM in 2006. That music was hard or impossible to copy, as music with DRM should be. But that's not what Apple was sued for. And making it impossible for music with DRM to be copied is actually what DRM is there for.
Realnetworks had developed their own DRM "solution". Which had the unfortunate disadvantage that it didn't play on iPods, and it didn't play on Microsoft "Playforsure" compatible players either. So it was quite dead in the water. So Realnetworks decided to create a hack where they removed their own DRM, then put fake "FairPlay" (that's Apple's DRM) around it, and copied that to the iPod.
It turned out that they damaged directory structures on the iPod, and the iPod's "FairPlay" implementation noticed that there was something fishy about these files. Altogether so bad that Apple's software suggested that you reformat the iPod. And that is what these lawyers complain about: That Apple didn't allow their hacked DRM to play on an iPod.
The obvious and 100% iPod compatible solution would have been to remove the DRM and _not_ to try to add Fairplay DRM to the music. Music without DRM, like mp3, AAC, WAV, ALAC has always played on all iPods.