Funny how Apple supporters dismiss this reason when it's applied to Windows security, but
Ah, "Apple Supporters", that well-defined group with absolute uniformity in opinion. Oh wait...
when it supports Job's reasons for keeping FairPlay closed it's accepted.
I don't think anybody has said that this supports Jobs' argument. What it does is invalidate TFA's thesis that the number of breaches by itself is a valid measure of relative security.
MP3 playing mobile phones are becoming more and more viable, with flash memory plummeting in price and the carriers themselves seeing OTA music sales as a great way to make use of their under-utilized Internet services. People don't like having to carry multiple devices around, and the convenience factor of a device that is a music store and mobile music player in one is going to, ultimately, trump the iPod.
Laughable. Cell carriers see OTA music sales as a great way to nickel-and-dime people the same way they cash in on $3 ringtones. How is having a music store on your phone the killer app? Do people with phones and music players not also generally have computers? What happens when you lose your phone? What about the 30GB of music I already have on my computer? How do I get this CD I just bought onto my phone? Nothing is going to trump the iPod by ignoring everything that's made it successful.
Right now, Apple's saving grace is the relative incompetence of most of the mobile phone makers, they can't rely upon that forever.
If there is one thing you can rely on, it is the incompetence of everyone in the mobile phone industry.
those chosing to publish content under a DRM scheme will see Vista's, as the one available to the most number of people, as being the one to go for.
Anyone publishing content with that requires Vista-specific DRM features is not aiming for the broadest market, as they would be excluding the massive installed base of Windows XP and earlier. Meanwhile iTunes, the established market leader, operates on both. Oh, there will be Vista-specific stores, but compared to the fifth-largest music retailer, they will be niche players.
A successful DRM scheme from a competitor could well destroy Apple's position as an independent computer maker, making them beholden to that competitor and its interests.
You seriously overestimate the importance of DRM to Apple's success. Selling music is not now, nor will it ever be, their core business.
If you want to see how Jobs *REALLY* feels about DRM, just look at how Apple treats indie artists and studios that specifically DON'T want their music DRM'ed. While companies like eMusic sell these same songs without DRM, Apple FORCES them to take DRM.
Apple doesn't force them to take DRM: it's part of the deal, and the labels can take it or leave it. eMusic does the exact same thing in reverse: if a label wants DRM, too bad, no deal.
Some of the music offered on iTunes from smaller, independed labels is available elsewhere without DRM.
Which only serves to confirm my point that the major labels don't play ball without DRM -- if they did, it wouldn't just be indie labels selling DRM-free. The GP's contention that Jobs is lying when he states that the labels demand it is
Some of these labels have even asked Apple to remove the DRM from these files, but Apple refuses.
I think this has more to do with Apple's policy of giving all labels (and customers for that matter) the exact same take-it-or-leave-it deal than any nefarious scheme to lock people in. Apple just doesn't negotiate these things -- they do it one way. They only sell one quality (128kbps) of one format (AAC); all tracks are $0.99; all tracks have the exact same DRM limits (i.e., there is no "you can burn this, but not that" as in other stores) -- the labels are given comparatively little flexibility already, so it's not terribly surprising that choice of FairPlay or not is not part of the deal. That may change in light of Jobs' statements (i.e., they may begin to offer the option of no DRM), but I wouldn't expect it.
I'm not saying that this is totally awesome for those labels that would like to sell DRM-free through iTunes -- I'm just saying that Apple has it's reasons, which probably don't include a strong desire to lock people in.
If Apple was really having their arm twisted by the record companies into using DRM, even though Steve doesn't like it, Apple would either use a DRM that operates with other music players, or would license their DRM to others.
Do not forget that OS X is tied to Mac hardware by a "Trusted Computing Module".
It isn't now, nor has it ever been. Most if not all current Macs don't even have a TPM. Earlier models that did didn't use the TPM in any way. Where the hell do you get your information?
I mentioned the Apple lawyer's comments not as proof of what Jobs must do but as evidence that Apple's DRM scheme is *not* because of the labels but because Apple benefits from customer lock in.
I don't know how you find this plausible. Yes, Apple benefits to some degree by the lock-in effect, but they benefit far more by being able to sell the music in the first place. It isn't as though Apple is having trouble keeping people on the platform -- that people would be migrating in droves to (say) Zune if only they could take their iTunes purchases with them. It's a convenient side-effect, not the root cause. If the cause isn't that record labels, television networks, and movie studios demand it, then why aren't there other stores with similar content that don't have content protection?
There has been a fairly stable api in vista for the last 6 months and even before that there were little changes for the last year.
That doesn't mean that the GM release hasn't broken something new.
Apple just decided not to fix thier [sic] software for whatever reason and now they are trying to make Vista look bad instead of taking the blame for being slow to support windows users.
It isn't terribly uncommon for compatibility updates to software to not be available at launch of a new OS. If you think iTunes is the only Vista-incompatible app out there, you're nuts. Also, if you think this is a stunt to make Vista look bad, you should probably not the fact that Apple is the one writing the support page. The same support page that begins with "iTunes 7.0.2 may work with Windows Vista on many typical PCs.", and then proceeds to list a number of fairly minor issues, and usable workarounds. There is no "Vista Sux0rs" anywhere on the page.
Basically, this is a ruling that says you can brag about your crimes to a blogger, and they can publish your account, and they are free to cover up your crime.
Um, no. That's not what was decided. In fact, that aspect of the case was pretty much thrown out a long while ago. What was decided was actually in the article summary: 'Subpoenaing journalist sources is not an acceptable means of discovery.'
I'm not sure what you need to do to make this work as a Folder Action, but this should get you started. You might look into using this in Automator's script-running action, as it can save workflows as Folder Actions Also, I have no idea if this works without QuickTime Pro, as all of my machines have it for work; but I think it will. It might make your computer explode, too.
This assumes you have a movie open, and it saves it to the root of the drive ("Macintosh HD" or whatever) as a QuickTime Movie. No conversion, but it may take a few minutes to copy. It saves to the root because I every time I play with paths in AppleScript, it makes me cry.
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
set savename to name of movie 1 & ".mov"
delay 1
save movie 1 in savename end tell
Alternately you can use "open" instead of "add" to make it play automatically so you can make sure it works right away. And replace "Macintosh HD" with whatever your drive is named.
They opened up the specification for the file format for PDF files.
The specification has been open. The story is that they're submitting it to ISO, making it a standard. Previously only subsets of PDF have been standardized such as PDF/X (ISO 15930) and PDF/A (ISO 19005).
This is still a great move because other companies can now support PDF in both directions (read and write)
I have no idea of it's content, or it's success predicting the future.
I read it back when I Was A Teenage Microsoft Fanboy*. On the whole, it's worst crime is in being boring. Gates didn't really make any bold and unique proclamations, so to the extent that his predictions are correct, it is largely because they were safe bets. On the other side, it's somewhat well-known that the book documents his and Microsoft's complete blind-spot toward the web, and most of the failed predictions are rooted in this single (albeit massive) oversight.
IIRC, he thought the internet wasn't really going take off until after everyone had broadband, which would only be after everyone had video on demand. The phrase "set-top box" is among the most frequently used words in the book. It's worth noting that Microsoft bought WebTV about a year after the book was published.
(* Does anybody else remember Liquid Motion? Or the gray-on-black version of MSN? Or the Timex Datalink?)
"I have a Mac, so PlaysForSure doesn't work for me" is false, because Mac users aren't locked out. They just have to use an emulator.
And what does that emulator run? A whole other operating system called Windows. Likewise for Parallels and Boot Camp. You'd might as well say: "Mac users can use PlaysForSure, as long as they don't use a Mac."
[PlaysForSure is] more restrictive in terms of how you can use the purchased files, but it's less restrictive in terms of freely moving between brands
Hence "more draconian", as the grandparent post suggested. If you ban the less restrictive DRM model, you've only succeeded in eroding the consumer's rights in favor of artificially inflating the demand for more restrictive DRM. This is a curious way of representing the people's interests.
So what? You can run almost any Windows app under Virtual PC. That doesn't mean it "works on a Mac"; it means it works on Windows in an emulator. You have not made anything resembling a point in saying this.
Apple goes out of their way to lock out competitors
Competitors are free to sell files compatible with the iPod. In fact, many do. That Apple has chosen not to license a competitors DRM system isn't "going out of their way".
(e.g. changing their DRM system when a competing store figures it out)
"Figures it out" is not a good description of Real's Harmony or DoubleTwist's product. All they do is make fake FairPlay files.
Which DRM are you thinking of? Certainly not PFS, which works with several stores and several brands of player.
PlaysForSure DRM can be set to only allow certain numbers of plays, to allow or disallow burning to disc or transfer to a portable device, to disallow playback on more than one machine, to expire after a certain number of days, to not allow playback without an active internet connection and so on on a per-file basis. Not all stores use all of these restrictions (which itself creates confusion), but it has far more restrictions built-in than FairPlay.
And a government tells a manufacturer what it's citizens find acceptable. In many industries, this is a more direct route from customer feedback to manufacturer than the financial link.
The financial link is the market. If the citizens didn't find it acceptable, they wouldn't buy it. Having the government come in and outlaw the market leader represents the opposite of what the market indicates. Yes, Norway has every right to do this, but saying that this is an expression of free market principles is ridiculous.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not toss the problem out the airlock, so to speak, and send a ship full of swingers and perverts?
You could probably fund the entire mission with a webcam feed.
Funny how Apple supporters dismiss this reason when it's applied to Windows security, but
Ah, "Apple Supporters", that well-defined group with absolute uniformity in opinion. Oh wait...
when it supports Job's reasons for keeping FairPlay closed it's accepted.
I don't think anybody has said that this supports Jobs' argument. What it does is invalidate TFA's thesis that the number of breaches by itself is a valid measure of relative security.
Apples decision to limit their OS to their hardware is what is killing their adoption rate.
Doesn't seem to be hurting their profits, though.
Apple has the solution but refuses to bend over and pick it up.
Bend over is exactly what they'd be doing.
I think that is a load of crap, and that it severely cuts into my fair-use rights, which nobody seems to care about.
You mean, the rights that allow you to burn your music to CD and play it anywhere you like in accordance with the doctrine of fair use?
MP3 playing mobile phones are becoming more and more viable, with flash memory plummeting in price and the carriers themselves seeing OTA music sales as a great way to make use of their under-utilized Internet services. People don't like having to carry multiple devices around, and the convenience factor of a device that is a music store and mobile music player in one is going to, ultimately, trump the iPod.
Laughable. Cell carriers see OTA music sales as a great way to nickel-and-dime people the same way they cash in on $3 ringtones. How is having a music store on your phone the killer app? Do people with phones and music players not also generally have computers? What happens when you lose your phone? What about the 30GB of music I already have on my computer? How do I get this CD I just bought onto my phone? Nothing is going to trump the iPod by ignoring everything that's made it successful.
Right now, Apple's saving grace is the relative incompetence of most of the mobile phone makers, they can't rely upon that forever.
If there is one thing you can rely on, it is the incompetence of everyone in the mobile phone industry.
those chosing to publish content under a DRM scheme will see Vista's, as the one available to the most number of people, as being the one to go for.
Anyone publishing content with that requires Vista-specific DRM features is not aiming for the broadest market, as they would be excluding the massive installed base of Windows XP and earlier. Meanwhile iTunes, the established market leader, operates on both. Oh, there will be Vista-specific stores, but compared to the fifth-largest music retailer, they will be niche players.
A successful DRM scheme from a competitor could well destroy Apple's position as an independent computer maker, making them beholden to that competitor and its interests.
You seriously overestimate the importance of DRM to Apple's success. Selling music is not now, nor will it ever be, their core business.
If you want to see how Jobs *REALLY* feels about DRM, just look at how Apple treats indie artists and studios that specifically DON'T want their music DRM'ed. While companies like eMusic sell these same songs without DRM, Apple FORCES them to take DRM.
Apple doesn't force them to take DRM: it's part of the deal, and the labels can take it or leave it. eMusic does the exact same thing in reverse: if a label wants DRM, too bad, no deal.
Some of the music offered on iTunes from smaller, independed labels is available elsewhere without DRM.
Which only serves to confirm my point that the major labels don't play ball without DRM -- if they did, it wouldn't just be indie labels selling DRM-free. The GP's contention that Jobs is lying when he states that the labels demand it is
Some of these labels have even asked Apple to remove the DRM from these files, but Apple refuses.
I think this has more to do with Apple's policy of giving all labels (and customers for that matter) the exact same take-it-or-leave-it deal than any nefarious scheme to lock people in. Apple just doesn't negotiate these things -- they do it one way. They only sell one quality (128kbps) of one format (AAC); all tracks are $0.99; all tracks have the exact same DRM limits (i.e., there is no "you can burn this, but not that" as in other stores) -- the labels are given comparatively little flexibility already, so it's not terribly surprising that choice of FairPlay or not is not part of the deal. That may change in light of Jobs' statements (i.e., they may begin to offer the option of no DRM), but I wouldn't expect it.
I'm not saying that this is totally awesome for those labels that would like to sell DRM-free through iTunes -- I'm just saying that Apple has it's reasons, which probably don't include a strong desire to lock people in.
If Apple was really having their arm twisted by the record companies into using DRM, even though Steve doesn't like it, Apple would either use a DRM that operates with other music players, or would license their DRM to others.
Why?
Do not forget that OS X is tied to Mac hardware by a "Trusted Computing Module".
It isn't now, nor has it ever been. Most if not all current Macs don't even have a TPM. Earlier models that did didn't use the TPM in any way. Where the hell do you get your information?
I mentioned the Apple lawyer's comments not as proof of what Jobs must do but as evidence that Apple's DRM scheme is *not* because of the labels but because Apple benefits from customer lock in.
I don't know how you find this plausible. Yes, Apple benefits to some degree by the lock-in effect, but they benefit far more by being able to sell the music in the first place. It isn't as though Apple is having trouble keeping people on the platform -- that people would be migrating in droves to (say) Zune if only they could take their iTunes purchases with them. It's a convenient side-effect, not the root cause. If the cause isn't that record labels, television networks, and movie studios demand it, then why aren't there other stores with similar content that don't have content protection?
For Christmas I bought a system from CSS.
Did you get an employee discount?
For the exact same reason that you...
I am not acting in a position of public accountability.
But the article simply states that Google, in negotiating with NC and six other states, asked for confidentiality.
Why does a publicly-traded corporation, in negotiating with elected public officials, need to keep secrets from the public?
There has been a fairly stable api in vista for the last 6 months and even before that there were little changes for the last year.
That doesn't mean that the GM release hasn't broken something new.
Apple just decided not to fix thier [sic] software for whatever reason and now they are trying to make Vista look bad instead of taking the blame for being slow to support windows users.
It isn't terribly uncommon for compatibility updates to software to not be available at launch of a new OS. If you think iTunes is the only Vista-incompatible app out there, you're nuts. Also, if you think this is a stunt to make Vista look bad, you should probably not the fact that Apple is the one writing the support page. The same support page that begins with "iTunes 7.0.2 may work with Windows Vista on many typical PCs.", and then proceeds to list a number of fairly minor issues, and usable workarounds. There is no "Vista Sux0rs" anywhere on the page.
Basically, this is a ruling that says you can brag about your crimes to a blogger, and they can publish your account, and they are free to cover up your crime.
Um, no. That's not what was decided. In fact, that aspect of the case was pretty much thrown out a long while ago. What was decided was actually in the article summary: 'Subpoenaing journalist sources is not an acceptable means of discovery.'
Shareholders don't like lawsuits.
Almost any large company will be engaged in multiple lawsuits at any given time. It comes with the territory.
If you repeat 700k enough times it starts to sting.
Apple just settled with Creative for $100 million and it wasn't big news.
I'm not sure what you need to do to make this work as a Folder Action, but this should get you started. You might look into using this in Automator's script-running action, as it can save workflows as Folder Actions Also, I have no idea if this works without QuickTime Pro, as all of my machines have it for work; but I think it will. It might make your computer explode, too.
This assumes you have a movie open, and it saves it to the root of the drive ("Macintosh HD" or whatever) as a QuickTime Movie. No conversion, but it may take a few minutes to copy. It saves to the root because I every time I play with paths in AppleScript, it makes me cry.
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
set savename to name of movie 1 & ".mov"
delay 1
save movie 1 in savename
end tell
tell application "iTunes"
activate
add "Macintosh HD:" & savename
end tell
Alternately you can use "open" instead of "add" to make it play automatically so you can make sure it works right away. And replace "Macintosh HD" with whatever your drive is named.
i don't usually get real emotional feelings for my tools or material objects. but after using this computer every day for the last five years i am sad to see it go.
They opened up the specification for the file format for PDF files.
The specification has been open. The story is that they're submitting it to ISO, making it a standard. Previously only subsets of PDF have been standardized such as PDF/X (ISO 15930) and PDF/A (ISO 19005).
This is still a great move because other companies can now support PDF in both directions (read and write)
This has always been the case.
I have no idea of it's content, or it's success predicting the future.
I read it back when I Was A Teenage Microsoft Fanboy*. On the whole, it's worst crime is in being boring. Gates didn't really make any bold and unique proclamations, so to the extent that his predictions are correct, it is largely because they were safe bets. On the other side, it's somewhat well-known that the book documents his and Microsoft's complete blind-spot toward the web, and most of the failed predictions are rooted in this single (albeit massive) oversight.
IIRC, he thought the internet wasn't really going take off until after everyone had broadband, which would only be after everyone had video on demand. The phrase "set-top box" is among the most frequently used words in the book. It's worth noting that Microsoft bought WebTV about a year after the book was published.
(* Does anybody else remember Liquid Motion? Or the gray-on-black version of MSN? Or the Timex Datalink?)
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
"I have a Mac, so PlaysForSure doesn't work for me" is false, because Mac users aren't locked out. They just have to use an emulator.
And what does that emulator run? A whole other operating system called Windows. Likewise for Parallels and Boot Camp. You'd might as well say: "Mac users can use PlaysForSure, as long as they don't use a Mac."
[PlaysForSure is] more restrictive in terms of how you can use the purchased files, but it's less restrictive in terms of freely moving between brands
Hence "more draconian", as the grandparent post suggested. If you ban the less restrictive DRM model, you've only succeeded in eroding the consumer's rights in favor of artificially inflating the demand for more restrictive DRM. This is a curious way of representing the people's interests.
Napster: You can run it under Virtual PC.
So what? You can run almost any Windows app under Virtual PC. That doesn't mean it "works on a Mac"; it means it works on Windows in an emulator. You have not made anything resembling a point in saying this.
Apple goes out of their way to lock out competitors
Competitors are free to sell files compatible with the iPod. In fact, many do. That Apple has chosen not to license a competitors DRM system isn't "going out of their way".
(e.g. changing their DRM system when a competing store figures it out)
"Figures it out" is not a good description of Real's Harmony or DoubleTwist's product. All they do is make fake FairPlay files.
Which DRM are you thinking of? Certainly not PFS, which works with several stores and several brands of player.
PlaysForSure DRM can be set to only allow certain numbers of plays, to allow or disallow burning to disc or transfer to a portable device, to disallow playback on more than one machine, to expire after a certain number of days, to not allow playback without an active internet connection and so on on a per-file basis. Not all stores use all of these restrictions (which itself creates confusion), but it has far more restrictions built-in than FairPlay.
And a government tells a manufacturer what it's citizens find acceptable. In many industries, this is a more direct route from customer feedback to manufacturer than the financial link.
The financial link is the market. If the citizens didn't find it acceptable, they wouldn't buy it. Having the government come in and outlaw the market leader represents the opposite of what the market indicates. Yes, Norway has every right to do this, but saying that this is an expression of free market principles is ridiculous.
Free market principles work in both directions.
A government bans one particular company from doing business while letting it's competitors continue and you're talking about free market principles?