Apple TP-DRM
p2pnet news view DRM | Freedom | P2P:- Even as Steven Jobs (supposedly) works to remove the DRM from iTunes sold content, Apple itself is joining the ranks of the copyright industry by defending the iPhone from hackers “jailbreaking” their phones.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act bans people from defeat in technical protections for copyrighted materials (such as DRM on iTunes songs and encryption on DVDs). The act requires the government to review items that should be exempted every three years.
A recent filing to the US Copyright Office elicited a response from Apple, and smartly.
It seems Apple doesn’t want users to be able to dual boot in differing operating systems; and I quote »»»
Ever since the first model, Apple engineers have designed the iPhone to contain technological protection measures (TPMs) that protect two critical pieces of software resident in the device that are core to it functioning – the bootloader and the operating system (OS). Th bootloader is a small computer program stored in nonvolatile memory (ie, memory that is not erased when the power goes off) that is automatically read and executed when power to the iPhone is turned on.
Its principal function is to perform a few initial tests of the hardware, then to load the OS into the device’s main (volatile) memory for operation. The OS is the core operating software of the iPhone. It is responsible for handling the details of the operation of the device’s hardware and for management and coordination of activities and operations that are necessary for the making and receiving of phone calls and for application programs (such as email and calendar) to execute on the device. Apple owns the copyrights in both the bootloader and the OS.
And later in the same document »»»
These TPMs do more, however, than simply help ensure the quality of the customer’s experience with iPhone applications. They also protect Apple’s copyright interests in its own content, as well as the copyright interests of third parties in their content, that plays on the iPhone. There are many instances in which unauthorized persons “strip” the TPMs protecting such content, thereby placing it “in the clear” (i.e., in unprotected form). With the TPM removed, pirated copies of the content in unprotected form can then be widely distributed among persons who do not pay for it, typically through unlawful peer-to-peer networks and other online distribution sites. Such has happened, for example, to a copyrighted game owned by Apple called “Texas Hold ‘Em,” as well as to a host of popular games from third party vendors. However, the stripped games can be played only on jailbroken iPhones, because the TPMs on the iPhone would otherwise prevent them from playing. Apple believes thatn the proposed exemption would further facilitate and encourage this form of piracy. Piracy, in turn, can ndiminish the investment that developers are willing to make in then creation of copyrighted works for the iPhone, contrary to then fundamental purpose of the copyright law to encourage the creation of bnew works of authorship.
In other words, their real objection is you might use your “jail-broken” phone for P2P.
Yep – Apple has definitely joined the ranks of the Industry.
Will the next step be RIAA takedown notices for modified boot-loaders on iPhones?
Tom Koltai – p2pnet
[Koltai says he's an, "old fart (50 yo) who's an economist in Sydney Australia. He's been online for 26 years, has run several ISPs and, "lobbied governments in four countries to prevent Internet restrictive usage legislation from being enacted". He says he's a strong believer in P2P, "as being a technological requirement to fully exploit the convergence of telephony with computers and remove the last barriers to human communication and interaction".]
February , 2009
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February 14th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Apple OSX already ‘phones home’ on boot, we found this rear its ugly head in 10.1. I am sure that iPhone does too, hence why I don’t own one. Next will be embedded software that will ‘validate’ everything on it, identify illicit material, and then notify Apple/MPAA/RIAA about the offense and send you a bill for the song/movie/font/tv episode.
And smile that their system fucks the end user so efficiently, and monetarily.
stw
February 14th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
“….typically through unlawful peer-to-peer networks and other online distribution sites.”
Notice how they say that *p2p networks* are unlawful? Not that the *distribution* of copyrighted works on p2p networks is unlawful (well, according to laws that have been bought and paid for by Big Media anyway). Yes, attack p2p networks, once again. Same old RIAA bullshit.
I remember reading some RIAA site a while back, where their advice is to encourage you to remove ALL p2p apps and they say it in the veign of “You know it’s really not good for you, what with all those nasty viruses and spyware on it and so on. Go on, be a good boy and get rid of it. Now. Or we will… ”
Oh and what’s with the typos? FFS this is an official court submission! They should at least have decent standards of English, if nothing else. Fucking illiterates.
Hi Surfer!
February 14th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
TP=Toilet Paper