Comments on: Apple deletes RealNetworks

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 04:25:47 +0000

You can’t be serious. Not supporting Real’s download store is enough to turn you off Apple? Apple is a questionable choice, I admit, but Real is a million times worse.

The last RealPlayer I installed was worse than any virus. It ate up system resources, rewrote registry keys, reset file associations, over and over and over, without asking once. It was like a demon in my computer; I almost had to call a priest to perform an exorcism.

Real stopped mattering in the world of digital media back in, what, 1998? They are dead; just no one has bothered to tell them yet.

Anyone who still uses Real to stream stuff (Amazon, I’m looking at you) sucks.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 02:23:50 +0000

My question is, how long before the media cabal rams laws down our throats that force hardware manufacturers to build media playback devices that will not play back content that DOES NOT have DRM? Sure, your old MP3 player will work. What happens when it breaks?

P.S. Don’t be fooled into thinking you are “purchasing” songs from iTunes, Napster II, etc… You are paying for temporary rights to listen to a file. As far as that music goes, you don’t own ANYTHING.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:41:56 +0000

I was going to buy an iPod, but this move by Apple has talked me out of it. Congratulations, Steve.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 18:22:52 +0000

We are not really talking about “MP3 players” at all, but players that are using files encoded in brand-specific Digital Rights Management (DRM). All DRM brand-dependent by definition. While there may eventually be standards-based file formats, the keys will always be brand specific as that is the whole point of DRM : to ensure that players obey their agreements with the DRM vendors, or risk no longer being marketable as content is not encoded to their player-keys.

Russell McOrmond – http://www.flora.ca/