Apple is SERIOUSLY pissed at RealNetworks

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by Programgirl:

fs, I believe that a copyright violation could potentially be established based on chapter 12, section 1201, subsections 2 and 3 which state:

 

"(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that

 

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

 

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or

 

© is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

 

(3) As used in this subsection

 

(A) to circumvent a technological measure means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and

 

(B) a technological measure effectively controls access to a work if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work."

You may be correct, Programgirl. However, Apple is not the owner of the MP3's held onboard an iPod. Therefore, there is no encryption of those files. I would say the section you quoted does apply to any files in AAC or other Apple designed formats. I still think some of us have it backwards. Isn't Real trying to allow users to put Real files on an iPod and play them, not necessarily trying to pull files from the iPod?

 

Thanks, Frankenputer ( ) for reminding us mp3 is, indeed, a for profit, patented, format.

[Programgirl]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

You may be correct, Programgirl. However, Apple is not the owner of the MP3's held onboard an iPod. Therefore, there is no encryption of those files. I would say the section you quoted does apply to any files in AAC or other Apple designed formats. I still think some of us have it backwards. Isn't Real trying to allow users to put Real files on an iPod and play them, not necessarily trying to pull files from the iPod?

To clarify; The iPod was not designed to allow music players other than iTunes to upload to it (hence the free PC and Mac version of iTunes with the purchase of iPod). The idea was that you could purchase the mp3 from the Apple online store, download it to iTunes, and transfer it to iPod. You're not limited to the Apple store, you could actually import your music from any source (including the Real music store), but iTunes is supposed to be the tool you use to get it to the iPod. What Real has done is to eliminate the iTunes step from that process by modifying their software so it can force the iPod to accept data from it, even though iPod wasn't designed to do that. By doing this they probably hoped to lure shoppers to the Real music store since they can now interface directly to the iPod from there.

 

In order for Real to find the methodology that would enable them to plug into the iPod and transfer data to it, it seems they would have had to decrypt the data transfer module of either (or both) iTunes and iPod. That way they could figure out how to establish a connection to iPod that allows the data transference to work.

 

It would be similiar to say... creating a device that would allow American plugs to fit into European outlets. You need to know the specs of the plug and the outlet in order to create the adapter. The electric current (like the digital medium) isn't part of the dispute here, just the method you use to conduct it. If you didn't have permission to look at the schematics of the outlet, you would need to take it apart to figure out how to get your plug in there.

[fantasticsound]

I think I see... but I'm still not sure where this becomes a true case of reverse engineering. I wish they would put forth the specific arguements for and against Real's ability to do this. Of course, we'll never see that.

 

BTW - If you didn't see elsewhere, read your PM's,please, Programgirl.

[Programgirl]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

I think I see... but I'm still not sure where this becomes a true case of reverse engineering. I wish they would put forth the specific arguements for and against Real's ability to do this. Of course, we'll never see that.

Yes, that discussion would become long and tedious and expensive - which is probably why they decided to come to an agreement rather than going to court. And do you know how hard it is to prove someone cracked your code to write their own? Unless you catch them with their floppys down, it's darn near impossible.

 

BTW - If you didn't see elsewhere, read your PM's,please, Programgirl.

Done