'' I though their primary source of revenue was to sue any tech company it possibly could to generate revenue streams, as opposed to actually marketing anything. ''
Actually, that was the plan, but it hasn't worked so far.
Their success so far:
Two major payments from Microsoft and Sun for about $40 million, except that Novell believes they should receive 95% of that money. A few hundred thousand dollars for their license, with cost of sales about twenty times that.
As a business model this is one of the worst failures ever.
'' Does that now mean that any Perl script that "includes" mine is now subject to the GPL? How big does an "inclusion" have to be to trigger the GPL? One line of code? Ten? One hundred? ''
No matter what the size, it doesn't "trigger the GPL".
Lets say I have written an identical two liner and published it, but without GPL, so nobody is allowed to duplicate it. What's the difference between including your code and mine? Each one is copyright infringement and treated identically. The only difference is that the person copying your code has one more way to make his copying legal (by publishing everything under GPL) which someone who copies my code doesn't have. But nobody can ever be forced to publish their code under the GPL.
'' They keep talking about quick boot times. Is this an issue for anyone? I boot my Mac about twice a month anyway, so boot times are a non-issue. And wake from sleep times in OSX have been consistently quick for years. I understand the other benefits, but these points seem moot. ''
You may have noticed that hybrid flash/harddisk combinations are always mentioned in one breath with the "improvements" that Vista is promising, like faster boot times by using some Microsoft-only technology. And of course it is nonsense. If you use your Mac 40 hours a week, and boot twice a month, even if it took two minutes to boot (and it doesn't), that would be just 0.04% of your time. The only reason why anyone would care about boot time is because it is something that the blathering marketing idiots can measure easily. Same for this meme that you would store applications in flash memory to make them start faster. It is absolute nonsense.
The sensible thing to do is to have some good caching algorithms that take into account the special characteristics of flash and hard drive, and let them do their thing.
Re:if wasn't this format, it would have been anoth
on
How MP3 Was Born
·
· Score: 1
'' I always thought that with the advent of broadband and cheap 10^2-gigabyte storage, FLAC would have overtook mp3, ''
The iPod doesn't support FLAC.
(It does support Apple Lossless, but player energy consumption is proportional to megabytes of music read, so you really don't want any lossless encoding on your iPod).
'' There is at least some content on the iTunes store that need not be in 128kbps AAC and cost $0.99 per track, yet it all does. It all stems from the fact that Apple gives one deal to all the independent labels, no negotiation. ''
However, there are good reasons for having one deal only:
1. Independent labels get exactly the same deal as the big labels. So they know they won't get ripped off, unless the expensive lawyers working for the big labels messed up.
2. Negotiating deals costs time and money. Lawyers are expensive. Today, if a small independent label with 200 CDs wants to get on the iTunes Store, the cost involved is: Sending a contract from Apple to the label. Sending a signed contract back. Sending 200 CDs to Apple. Typing in some details about the label into a computer. Shoving 200 CDs into a Mac.
I think having songs with DRM and without DRM in the iTunes Store would be a PR disaster for Apple. 95% of all customers don't take much notice of DRM. If some songs come without it, 100% of customers will notice it.
'' And CDs are a niche product? I really don't get what you're saying. ''
If you read news reports from say Reuters, you will find that there are plenty of idiots out there whose single brain cell has been convinced that "digital" equals "downloadable" or "residing on a computer". You'll read things like "digital music sales have doubled, while CD sales have dropped" and you can tell them hundred times that they are idiots, they won't learn.
''Which means that either Apple would need to start selling music at a loss, which cannot and will not happen, or they would need to raise their prices. In other words, the difference would need to be made up for by the consumer, because there's no way to absorb it. ''
Now think about what would happen if Apple sold lets say Sony songs with DRM for $0.99 each and EMI songs without DRM for $1.19 each. That would tell even the most retarded consumer that music with DRM is a rip-off and worth less than the music that they can get from their own CDs and actually worth less than the music that they can get for free by ripping their friends' CDs. That would be one PR disaster.
Strangely, all music that I can aquire today online without DRM, whether illegal, dubious, or perfectly legal, is cheaper than music with DRM.
'' So now what? A tax on internet access? Charging per port? ''
That would be stupid. A very simple method: You can rent either "internet access" or "internet access with music/video download license". The "music/video download license" goes straight to the RIAA/MPAA and gets distributed somehow. And it allows you to download, store and play any music or videos as long as you pay for this license. Should the RIAA try to sue you for downloading from Kazaa, you just send them a copy of your ISP bill that includes the "music/video download license".
Wouldn't that make everyone happy plus generate lots of revenue for the music industry?
'' Ninety-seven percent of the music on iPods is DRM-free. Customers are not locked in. The lock-in argument is bogus. ''
Actually there is a different lock-in, and I would really like to know how strong it is.
iTunes (the jukebox software) can encode your CDs to AAC, which (a) has much better sound quality at the same bitrate compared to MP3, and (b) plays on the iTunes. My CDs are all encoded in AAC for reason (a), which "forced" me to buy an iPod. ("Forced" is a bit strong, because (1) I liked the iPod that I bought, (2) I caused the situation myself and (3) every other manufacturer could have got a license for AAC. )
For me, buying a player that doesn't play AAC would be a major pain, and I don't want a Zune. I looked a long time for a CD player that could play AAC (plenty of them can play MP3), but I couldn't find one. I'd like to know what percentage of buyers are in the same situation with huge amounts of AAC files.
If I remember correctly, Burst started a court case against Microsoft for patent infringement a few years ago (one of those that we all love on Slashdot), and Microsoft paid them about $60 million in settlements. The court case looked very bad for Microsoft, not because there was any evidence of any wrongdoing, but because Microsoft had "lost" emails exactly for a critical time period, but not others just before or just after that time period. These are exactly the emails that this article is about.
To the courts, it doesn't make much difference whether you say "sorry, we lost these emails by accident" and say the truth, or you say "we destroyed these emails, take that!" and say the truth or not, or whether you say "sorry, we lost these emails" and are in fact hiding them. In each case, the emails are not there, and the courts will assume that whatever they might have contained was not good for you. So whether Microsoft really lost these emails or was just hiding them, it doesn't matter.
Similar, if you are taken to court because someone claims you downloaded music illegally, and you just happen to format your harddisk by accident, you are in deep shit. And it doesn't matter whether there was evidence on that harddisk or not.
'' Once their questionable activities were realized by investors they all ran and the stock collapsed. ''
But not because of their questionable activities. Enron didn't collapse because they were lying about their financial situation, they collapsed because their financial situation was bad in the first place.
'' I haven't been following the story since the last Slashdot article, but did Bill Gates reject the personal appeal, or did Microsoft? Huge difference. I can't find any source indicating what exactly happened from their side. ''
There is nothing either Microsoft or Bill Gates could reject.
Russian police decided to go after someone for an alleged crime. Microsoft didn't. Bill Gates didn't. Nothing they could do.
It now looks as if this was a case where the Russian police wasn't happy with the law, so they decided to demonstrate its stupidity by going after someone for maximum effect so that everyone is outraged about the stupid laws, so that the Russian police will then be told not to enforce the law which is exactly what they wanted in the first place. So far, this is going to plan. An arrest, huge outrage, top politicians involved, no harm done as the teacher goes free.
'' The financial damage was too insignificant? That's a rather strange reason to dismiss a case, as it violates the letter of the law. ''
It's a perfectly good reason to dismiss a case. The financial damage was too little for the company who was damaged (Microsoft) to press charges. This is like someone stealing ten dollars from me, the police finds out somehow, and I as the victim can't even bother to press charges. Should a judge waste time on that case?
'' If someone is violating the GPL, the judge could rule that there is no financial harm, but require the defendant to stop violating. That is fine with me. ''
But that would be a terribly bad judgement and therefore unlikely.
If I wanted to distribute a compiler, I could distribute gcc under the GPL.
If I wanted to distribute a compiler but not under the rules of the GPL, I would have several choices: I could write my own compiler, hire people to write a compiler, pay some company for a license to distribute their compiler, pay all the contributors to gcc for a license to distribute gcc without the terms of GPL. Or I could infringe gcc's creators copyright by distributing gcc under terms violating the GPL.
Clearly the damage done is at least equal to the cost of the cheapest legal alternative.
Let's say the copyright holder doesn't just send you a letter that you should stop infringing their copyright. Let's say they write you a letter: "Either stop distributing our copyrighted software; alternatively you can aquire an unlimited license to our software for $10 million". Now it has a price tag.
Or another example: On my birthday party, I serve very expensive food and some very expensive champagne. Only my friends are invited. They get the food and drinks for free. If you sneak in and empty one of my $200 bottles of champagne, I'll sue you for $200, even though I was giving it away for free. But not to you.
'' In short... if making a copy is required to use the software, then making that copy without permission isnt a violation of copyright. ''
However, once the software has been copied onto _one_ computer, further copies to different computers are not required to make the software run, and therefore not allowed by copyright law.
Further copies copying the software into RAM, into disk caches, etc. etc. are necessary and allowed.
I've been reading the thread as well, and I think some people have some misconceptions.
If I buy software in a shop for £100, I expect quality. I expect originals, because if I want copies, I can do that myself cheaper (why should I accept that a dishonest trader makes profit, when I could be dishonest just as easily myself and safe money). If I were to buy software from a market stall for £5, I expect copies and treat them very carefully.
The £100 is a certain percentage of my monthly income. People wherever they live in the world would be willing to pay about the same percentage of their monthly income for the same software, and they would expect the same quality. If some guy in Thailand buys a copy of Excel for $2, the pain in his wallet is just the same as my pain when I spend £100. So that guy in Thailand won't accept some virus infected crap for his $2, just as I wouldn't accept it for my £100.
If I buy some dubious copies for £5, and what I am sold is crap, I'd regard that as a learning experience. If I pay £100 and I am sold crap, there is trouble for the seller. That guy in Thailand handing over $2 for a copy of some software has the same expectancies that I have for £100. If he doesn't get quality, there is trouble.
Chillout seems to be meters and meters (in screen space) of specifications how one might represent various things that one might want to represent. That part of Chillout is complete overkill for what Apple wants.
What it doesn't do is specify (except for a reference to "users using smartcards") how to handle the problematic parts: How do I make sure that someone who isn't a legitimate user cannot pretend to be an existing legitimate user. How can I make sure that nobody can fake a permission to play music. How can I make sure that a device that is capable of playing music with the right permission doesn't make a copy of the music at exactly that point.
It looks to me as if Chillout is a complete overkill solution for five percent of the problem, and doesn't concern itself with the hard 95 percent.
'' Why would people do that? The best target, surely, is the easiest one to crack (assuming price and availability are equal)? Because you don't have to crack for everyone, you just crack the content you want to release and then let everyone copy the released content. ''
You will find that the Fairplay cracks were published with the goal of allowing customers who _paid_ for their music use that music without the disadvantages of DRM, and _not_ in order to allow them to make illegal copies. Since there are many more people owning iTMS songs with Fairplay DRM, there is much more reason to crack Fairplay to "liberate" that music.
Since 90 percent of the music is sold without DRM anyway, cracking DRM in order to copy the content is not very productive.
'' Does that apply to viruses and Operating systems too? ''
There is a huge difference. An operating system is supposed to be uncrackable. Many eyes looking for improvements will find cracks and fix them, many eyes looking for cracks will find cracks and exploit them. Openness both helps and hinders.
DRM systems are crackable. What keeps people from cracking them is that the cracks are kept secret. There is no point looking for improvements, because the locations of the cracks are known (to a few people). More eyes can only make the situation worse by blabbing out the secrets. Multiple implementations can only make the situation worse, because some people will hide the secrets less well than others. Unlike an operating system, where the cleverest people decide how secure the system is, the security of a DRM system is determined by the dumbest people involved.
'' The only thing stopping you from installing OS X on a Dell is exactly what stops you from installing Vista Basic on a virtual machine: the license agreement. Copying the software (say, from the installation disc to your hard drive) is illegal except as allowed by that agreement. ''
Copyright law also makes it quite clear that you cannot have a copy of OS X installed on two computers simultaneously. So no matter what the license says, if you want to install MacOS X on a Dell, you have to buy a Macintosh first (because that is the only way to get an Intel version), then _delete_ it from the Mac, before you install it on the Dell. Of course you could then delete Windows from the Dell and install it on the Macintosh...
If lets say a truck runs over your MacBook and destroys it completely, you would have a good argument that you can install MacOS X on a Dell laptop. I think that case is rare.
'' All retail copies of OSX are full copies, theres no such thing as an upgrade. ''
That is today, because currently retail copies of MacOS X are all PowerPC only versions, and practically the only hardware in existence that is capable of running these copies is built by Apple. So they are de facto upgrades.
When Leopard is released, there will be hundreds of millions of computers around that are capable of running it (with a bit of hacking perhaps) that have not been built by Apple. Leopard will be an "upgrade".
'' IMO alltunes, the allofmp3 store frontend is a better music store than iTunes, particularly for offering a great deal of choice over codecs and bitrates, and being DRM free. If only they weren't probably/definitely illegal! I'd pay iTunes prices for alltunes content. ''
Tell that to the music industry:(
Everything that people like about allofmp3 comes from the fact that they have no contracts negotiated with the music industry (no DRM, choice of Codecs) and don't pay money to the music industry (low price). I think Apple spends a bit more money on making their interface look attractive; they spend more money for lawyers negotiating with the record companies and for programmers developing and maintaing the DRM, and obviously they spend money to pay the record companies for the music.
As long as the price for a song is ok with you, Apple could easily deliver everything you like about allofmp3 if the record companies let them.
'' I'm not sure of the exact figures, but doesn't microsoft own a substantial part of macintosh? ''
Microsoft probably owns a few hundred Macintoshes.
I have never heard that Microsoft has ever owned any part of McIntosh Labs, maker of fine audio equipment, and anyway, McIntosh Labs has nothing to do with iTunes, iPod or Apple Inc.
Microsoft does not own any part of Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer Inc.
'' So you're conceeding that Apple has pulled a nasty, but it's okay because Microsoft has also done so in the past. ''
You are misunderstanding the original poster completely.
What he was saying was that if Microsoft had ever in the post done nasty things like changing their operating system to prevent competitors' software from working, which shurely they have never done, then it wouldn't be completely inconceivable that they would have pulled something like that again. If we can't find any reports that iTunes ever had problems with any pre-release beta version of Vista, but has problems with the released version, that would be suspicious.
Slashdot Mirror
'' I though their primary source of revenue was to sue any tech company it possibly could to generate revenue streams, as opposed to actually marketing anything. ''
Actually, that was the plan, but it hasn't worked so far.
Their success so far:
Two major payments from Microsoft and Sun for about $40 million, except that Novell believes they should receive 95% of that money.
A few hundred thousand dollars for their license, with cost of sales about twenty times that.
As a business model this is one of the worst failures ever.
'' Does that now mean that any Perl script that "includes" mine is now subject to the GPL? How big does an "inclusion" have to be to trigger the GPL? One line of code? Ten? One hundred? ''
No matter what the size, it doesn't "trigger the GPL".
Lets say I have written an identical two liner and published it, but without GPL, so nobody is allowed to duplicate it. What's the difference between including your code and mine? Each one is copyright infringement and treated identically. The only difference is that the person copying your code has one more way to make his copying legal (by publishing everything under GPL) which someone who copies my code doesn't have. But nobody can ever be forced to publish their code under the GPL.
'' They keep talking about quick boot times. Is this an issue for anyone? I boot my Mac about twice a month anyway, so boot times are a non-issue. And wake from sleep times in OSX have been consistently quick for years. I understand the other benefits, but these points seem moot. ''
You may have noticed that hybrid flash/harddisk combinations are always mentioned in one breath with the "improvements" that Vista is promising, like faster boot times by using some Microsoft-only technology. And of course it is nonsense. If you use your Mac 40 hours a week, and boot twice a month, even if it took two minutes to boot (and it doesn't), that would be just 0.04% of your time. The only reason why anyone would care about boot time is because it is something that the blathering marketing idiots can measure easily. Same for this meme that you would store applications in flash memory to make them start faster. It is absolute nonsense.
The sensible thing to do is to have some good caching algorithms that take into account the special characteristics of flash and hard drive, and let them do their thing.
'' I always thought that with the advent of broadband and cheap 10^2-gigabyte storage, FLAC would have overtook mp3, ''
The iPod doesn't support FLAC.
(It does support Apple Lossless, but player energy consumption is proportional to megabytes of music read, so you really don't want any lossless encoding on your iPod).
'' There is at least some content on the iTunes store that need not be in 128kbps AAC and cost $0.99 per track, yet it all does. It all stems from the fact that Apple gives one deal to all the independent labels, no negotiation. ''
However, there are good reasons for having one deal only:
1. Independent labels get exactly the same deal as the big labels. So they know they won't get ripped off, unless the expensive lawyers working for the big labels messed up.
2. Negotiating deals costs time and money. Lawyers are expensive. Today, if a small independent label with 200 CDs wants to get on the iTunes Store, the cost involved is: Sending a contract from Apple to the label. Sending a signed contract back. Sending 200 CDs to Apple. Typing in some details about the label into a computer. Shoving 200 CDs into a Mac.
I think having songs with DRM and without DRM in the iTunes Store would be a PR disaster for Apple. 95% of all customers don't take much notice of DRM. If some songs come without it, 100% of customers will notice it.
'' And CDs are a niche product? I really don't get what you're saying. ''
If you read news reports from say Reuters, you will find that there are plenty of idiots out there whose single brain cell has been convinced that "digital" equals "downloadable" or "residing on a computer". You'll read things like "digital music sales have doubled, while CD sales have dropped" and you can tell them hundred times that they are idiots, they won't learn.
''Which means that either Apple would need to start selling music at a loss, which cannot and will not happen, or they would need to raise their prices. In other words, the difference would need to be made up for by the consumer, because there's no way to absorb it. ''
Now think about what would happen if Apple sold lets say Sony songs with DRM for $0.99 each and EMI songs without DRM for $1.19 each. That would tell even the most retarded consumer that music with DRM is a rip-off and worth less than the music that they can get from their own CDs and actually worth less than the music that they can get for free by ripping their friends' CDs. That would be one PR disaster.
Strangely, all music that I can aquire today online without DRM, whether illegal, dubious, or perfectly legal, is cheaper than music with DRM.
'' So now what? A tax on internet access? Charging per port? ''
That would be stupid. A very simple method: You can rent either "internet access" or "internet access with music/video download license". The "music/video download license" goes straight to the RIAA/MPAA and gets distributed somehow. And it allows you to download, store and play any music or videos as long as you pay for this license. Should the RIAA try to sue you for downloading from Kazaa, you just send them a copy of your ISP bill that includes the "music/video download license".
Wouldn't that make everyone happy plus generate lots of revenue for the music industry?
'' Ninety-seven percent of the music on iPods is DRM-free. Customers are not locked in. The lock-in argument is bogus. ''
Actually there is a different lock-in, and I would really like to know how strong it is.
iTunes (the jukebox software) can encode your CDs to AAC, which (a) has much better sound quality at the same bitrate compared to MP3, and (b) plays on the iTunes. My CDs are all encoded in AAC for reason (a), which "forced" me to buy an iPod. ("Forced" is a bit strong, because (1) I liked the iPod that I bought, (2) I caused the situation myself and (3) every other manufacturer could have got a license for AAC. )
For me, buying a player that doesn't play AAC would be a major pain, and I don't want a Zune. I looked a long time for a CD player that could play AAC (plenty of them can play MP3), but I couldn't find one. I'd like to know what percentage of buyers are in the same situation with huge amounts of AAC files.
If I remember correctly, Burst started a court case against Microsoft for patent infringement a few years ago (one of those that we all love on Slashdot), and Microsoft paid them about $60 million in settlements. The court case looked very bad for Microsoft, not because there was any evidence of any wrongdoing, but because Microsoft had "lost" emails exactly for a critical time period, but not others just before or just after that time period. These are exactly the emails that this article is about.
To the courts, it doesn't make much difference whether you say "sorry, we lost these emails by accident" and say the truth, or you say "we destroyed these emails, take that!" and say the truth or not, or whether you say "sorry, we lost these emails" and are in fact hiding them. In each case, the emails are not there, and the courts will assume that whatever they might have contained was not good for you. So whether Microsoft really lost these emails or was just hiding them, it doesn't matter.
Similar, if you are taken to court because someone claims you downloaded music illegally, and you just happen to format your harddisk by accident, you are in deep shit. And it doesn't matter whether there was evidence on that harddisk or not.
'' Once their questionable activities were realized by investors they all ran and the stock collapsed. ''
But not because of their questionable activities. Enron didn't collapse because they were lying about their financial situation, they collapsed because their financial situation was bad in the first place.
'' I haven't been following the story since the last Slashdot article, but did Bill Gates reject the personal appeal, or did Microsoft? Huge difference. I can't find any source indicating what exactly happened from their side. ''
There is nothing either Microsoft or Bill Gates could reject.
Russian police decided to go after someone for an alleged crime. Microsoft didn't. Bill Gates didn't. Nothing they could do.
It now looks as if this was a case where the Russian police wasn't happy with the law, so they decided to demonstrate its stupidity by going after someone for maximum effect so that everyone is outraged about the stupid laws, so that the Russian police will then be told not to enforce the law which is exactly what they wanted in the first place. So far, this is going to plan. An arrest, huge outrage, top politicians involved, no harm done as the teacher goes free.
'' The financial damage was too insignificant? That's a rather strange reason to dismiss a case, as it violates the letter of the law. ''
It's a perfectly good reason to dismiss a case. The financial damage was too little for the company who was damaged (Microsoft) to press charges. This is like someone stealing ten dollars from me, the police finds out somehow, and I as the victim can't even bother to press charges. Should a judge waste time on that case?
'' If someone is violating the GPL, the judge could rule that there is no financial harm, but require the defendant to stop violating. That is fine with me. ''
But that would be a terribly bad judgement and therefore unlikely.
If I wanted to distribute a compiler, I could distribute gcc under the GPL.
If I wanted to distribute a compiler but not under the rules of the GPL, I would have several choices: I could write my own compiler, hire people to write a compiler, pay some company for a license to distribute their compiler, pay all the contributors to gcc for a license to distribute gcc without the terms of GPL. Or I could infringe gcc's creators copyright by distributing gcc under terms violating the GPL.
Clearly the damage done is at least equal to the cost of the cheapest legal alternative.
Let's say the copyright holder doesn't just send you a letter that you should stop infringing their copyright. Let's say they write you a letter: "Either stop distributing our copyrighted software; alternatively you can aquire an unlimited license to our software for $10 million". Now it has a price tag.
Or another example: On my birthday party, I serve very expensive food and some very expensive champagne. Only my friends are invited. They get the food and drinks for free. If you sneak in and empty one of my $200 bottles of champagne, I'll sue you for $200, even though I was giving it away for free. But not to you.
'' Nope. You can buy a full copy of Mac OS X from the Apple Store. ''
Nope. You can buy a full copy of MacOS X for PowerPC from the Apple Store.
'' In short... if making a copy is required to use the software, then making that copy without permission isnt a violation of copyright. ''
However, once the software has been copied onto _one_ computer, further copies to different computers are not required to make the software run, and therefore not allowed by copyright law.
Further copies copying the software into RAM, into disk caches, etc. etc. are necessary and allowed.
I've been reading the thread as well, and I think some people have some misconceptions.
If I buy software in a shop for £100, I expect quality. I expect originals, because if I want copies, I can do that myself cheaper (why should I accept that a dishonest trader makes profit, when I could be dishonest just as easily myself and safe money). If I were to buy software from a market stall for £5, I expect copies and treat them very carefully.
The £100 is a certain percentage of my monthly income. People wherever they live in the world would be willing to pay about the same percentage of their monthly income for the same software, and they would expect the same quality. If some guy in Thailand buys a copy of Excel for $2, the pain in his wallet is just the same as my pain when I spend £100. So that guy in Thailand won't accept some virus infected crap for his $2, just as I wouldn't accept it for my £100.
If I buy some dubious copies for £5, and what I am sold is crap, I'd regard that as a learning experience. If I pay £100 and I am sold crap, there is trouble for the seller. That guy in Thailand handing over $2 for a copy of some software has the same expectancies that I have for £100. If he doesn't get quality, there is trouble.
Chillout seems to be meters and meters (in screen space) of specifications how one might represent various things that one might want to represent. That part of Chillout is complete overkill for what Apple wants.
What it doesn't do is specify (except for a reference to "users using smartcards") how to handle the problematic parts: How do I make sure that someone who isn't a legitimate user cannot pretend to be an existing legitimate user. How can I make sure that nobody can fake a permission to play music. How can I make sure that a device that is capable of playing music with the right permission doesn't make a copy of the music at exactly that point.
It looks to me as if Chillout is a complete overkill solution for five percent of the problem, and doesn't concern itself with the hard 95 percent.
'' Why would people do that? The best target, surely, is the easiest one to crack (assuming price and availability are equal)? Because you don't have to crack for everyone, you just crack the content you want to release and then let everyone copy the released content. ''
You will find that the Fairplay cracks were published with the goal of allowing customers who _paid_ for their music use that music without the disadvantages of DRM, and _not_ in order to allow them to make illegal copies. Since there are many more people owning iTMS songs with Fairplay DRM, there is much more reason to crack Fairplay to "liberate" that music.
Since 90 percent of the music is sold without DRM anyway, cracking DRM in order to copy the content is not very productive.
'' Does that apply to viruses and Operating systems too? ''
There is a huge difference. An operating system is supposed to be uncrackable. Many eyes looking for improvements will find cracks and fix them, many eyes looking for cracks will find cracks and exploit them. Openness both helps and hinders.
DRM systems are crackable. What keeps people from cracking them is that the cracks are kept secret. There is no point looking for improvements, because the locations of the cracks are known (to a few people). More eyes can only make the situation worse by blabbing out the secrets. Multiple implementations can only make the situation worse, because some people will hide the secrets less well than others. Unlike an operating system, where the cleverest people decide how secure the system is, the security of a DRM system is determined by the dumbest people involved.
'' The only thing stopping you from installing OS X on a Dell is exactly what stops you from installing Vista Basic on a virtual machine: the license agreement. Copying the software (say, from the installation disc to your hard drive) is illegal except as allowed by that agreement. ''
Copyright law also makes it quite clear that you cannot have a copy of OS X installed on two computers simultaneously. So no matter what the license says, if you want to install MacOS X on a Dell, you have to buy a Macintosh first (because that is the only way to get an Intel version), then _delete_ it from the Mac, before you install it on the Dell. Of course you could then delete Windows from the Dell and install it on the Macintosh...
If lets say a truck runs over your MacBook and destroys it completely, you would have a good argument that you can install MacOS X on a Dell laptop. I think that case is rare.
'' All retail copies of OSX are full copies, theres no such thing as an upgrade. ''
That is today, because currently retail copies of MacOS X are all PowerPC only versions, and practically the only hardware in existence that is capable of running these copies is built by Apple. So they are de facto upgrades.
When Leopard is released, there will be hundreds of millions of computers around that are capable of running it (with a bit of hacking perhaps) that have not been built by Apple. Leopard will be an "upgrade".
'' IMO alltunes, the allofmp3 store frontend is a better music store than iTunes, particularly for offering a great deal of choice over codecs and bitrates, and being DRM free. If only they weren't probably/definitely illegal! I'd pay iTunes prices for alltunes content. ''
:(
Tell that to the music industry
Everything that people like about allofmp3 comes from the fact that they have no contracts negotiated with the music industry (no DRM, choice of Codecs) and don't pay money to the music industry (low price). I think Apple spends a bit more money on making their interface look attractive; they spend more money for lawyers negotiating with the record companies and for programmers developing and maintaing the DRM, and obviously they spend money to pay the record companies for the music.
As long as the price for a song is ok with you, Apple could easily deliver everything you like about allofmp3 if the record companies let them.
'' I'm not sure of the exact figures, but doesn't microsoft own a substantial part of macintosh? ''
Microsoft probably owns a few hundred Macintoshes.
I have never heard that Microsoft has ever owned any part of McIntosh Labs, maker of fine audio equipment, and anyway, McIntosh Labs has nothing to do with iTunes, iPod or Apple Inc.
Microsoft does not own any part of Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer Inc.
'' So you're conceeding that Apple has pulled a nasty, but it's okay because Microsoft has also done so in the past. ''
You are misunderstanding the original poster completely.
What he was saying was that if Microsoft had ever in the post done nasty things like changing their operating system to prevent competitors' software from working, which shurely they have never done, then it wouldn't be completely inconceivable that they would have pulled something like that again. If we can't find any reports that iTunes ever had problems with any pre-release beta version of Vista, but has problems with the released version, that would be suspicious.