p2pnet - rss feed: Apple vs RealNetworks
p2pnet.net News:- Apple has threatened to block access to Harmonised iPods next time it updates the operating software.
Because it won’t let RealNetworks circumvent the seriously misnamed Apple FairPlay consumer-control DRM technology, RealNetworks is offering Harmony so people who are misguided enough to want to use RealPlayer 10 in the first place can hear downloads on any player - including iPods.
Powered by Windows Media Player format and RealNetwork’s Helix, RealPlayer 10 is, “the worst of all of Real’s releases - after years of complaints about the same problems, the company made only token efforts to address them,” says Rob Pegoraro in the Washington Post here.
“And the program’s major new feature, an online music store, is an appalling mess.”
Be that as it may, with Harmony, songs can be copied to various mp3 players because, as a New York Times story here quotes Real boss Ron Glaser as saying, “Our view is that if you buy a song, you aren’t buying it for that day or that month. You are buying it because you are buying it.”
Glaser isn’t alone with that view, which is why PlayFair, Hymn and FairKeys came into being.
Will Apple chief Steve Jobs use the same tactics against RealNetworks that he used against PlayFair? Only The Shadow knows.
But in the meanwhile, a ’stunned’ Apple has accused RealNetworks of adopting ‘the tactics and ethics of a hacker’ with Harmony software,” says the Washington Post here.
The Post doesn’t say if that’s ’stunned’ as in unconscious or ’stunned’ as in deeply shocked, but adds that Apple is checking out the implications of Harmony under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and other laws, adding that Apple says it’s “highly likely that Real’s Harmony technology will cease to work with current and future iPods when the company updates the music player’s software”.
Should be interesting, Stay tuned.
July 29th, 2004 at 5:47 pm
Well, REAL doesn’t allow others to re-code their horrible video into, say, MPEG quality (remember Streambox?).
Or allow transfer of RealAudio into other formats without crying about it and suing.
They sucked before and this reverse-engineering by them certainly displays their true nature.
And REAL loves the spyware aspect of their releases as well.
Apple should just go ahead and promote Real converters in their stuff as well, tit for tat.