New iPod Firmware Locks Out RealNetworks Music

rishimathew writes "Apple Computer has quietly updated its iPod software so that songs purchased from RealNetworks' online music store will no longer play on some of the Mac maker's popular MP3 players." You may remember the backstory: Real found a way to allow their DRM-restricted music to play on iPods, Apple protested, and there was a little back-and-forth. You asked Rob Glaser about the situation, and he said Real had a "comprehensive plan", whatever that means.

What about Hymn?

[SuperKendall]

If they broke RealNetworks playback on iPods, what about files de-protected by Project Hymn? [hymn-project.org]

I would assume it's broken since I figured Real used some of the code from this app. But the article does not say, and there is no news on the Hymn site (lterally, some kind of server error).

Once again the user gets screwed.

[fredistheking]

So is Real going to refund the money that was spent on music that was "compatible" with the Ipod?

Don't you just...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Apple Computer has quietly updated

Don't you just hate it when that happens?

They just reduced the functionality of a unit I already own. I want a refund now for the lost functionality.

And when the next 999,999 people join me, it will happen!

We remember.

[Anonymous Coward]

Realnetworks supported Linux.

Apple didn't support Quicktime for Linux.

Obligatory GEB quote

[Florian Weimer]

Tortoise: Oh, yes. Well, you see, the Crab came over to visit one day. You must understand that he's always had a weakness for fancy gadgets, and at that time he was quite an aficionado for, of all things, record players. He had just bought his first record player, and beign somewhat gullible, believed every word the salesman had told him about it -in particular, that it was capable of reproducing any and all sounds. In short, he was convinced that it was a Perfect phonograph.

Achilles: Naturally, I suposse you disagreed.

Tortoise: True, but he would hear nothing of my arguments. He staunchly maintained that any sound whatever was reproducible on his machine. Since I couldn't convince him of the contrary, I left it at that. But not long after that, I returned the visit, taking with me a record of a song which I had myself composed. The song was called "I Cannot Be Played on Record Player 1".

Achiles: Rather unusual. Was it a present for the Crab?

Tortoise: Absolutely. I suggested that we listen toit on his new phonograph, and he was very glad to oblige me. So he put it on. But unfortunately, after only a few notes, the record player began vibrating rather severely, and then with a loud "pop", broke into a large number of fairly small pieces, scattered all about the room. The record was utterly destroyed also, needless to say.

Achiles: Calamitous blow for the poor fellow, I'd say. What was the matter with this record player?

Tortoise: Really, there was nothing the matter, nothing at all. It simply couldn't reproduce the sounds on the record which I had brought him, because they were sounds that would make it vibrate and break.

(More is here [geocities.com]. Buy the book, those dialogues are really fun to read, even if you are scared by the remaining parts of the book.)

The Apple vs. Real battle will be fun to watch, and of course, Apple has no chance of winning within the system. We'll see when Apple realizes this, steps out of the system, and sues Real.

Re:And yet again, consumers lose

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

May I inquire why it should matter who you bought the music from as long as you own it?

It should not, which is why music formats and DRM should be open standards. Unfortunately, MS is in the process of embracing the digital music industry with yet more illegal bundling. As the industry stands right now, the music seller is responsible for providing support and authentication for your digital music. Real just tried to make Apple do it for them, free of cost and Apple shot them down. If Apple does not maintain control of their DRM, and maintain the best hardware and software in what is increasingly a commodity industry, MS will take over, and there will be one more industry completely dominated, and paying a toll on every transaction to MS. A toll for doing nothing, except having control of the dominant OS, and forcing everyone to pay because of it.

I don't know about you, but I'm much happier having a music seller whose DRM has an easy and legal out, rather than one that is illegal to remove. (Not that I plan to buy music from Apple, MS, or Real anytime soon.)

Re:Thoughts

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I wish they would licence out more. I think Apple stands to gain by allowing anyone to licence Fairplay, if only to push out Microsoft's licencing. While iPod maybe the #1 hard drive based player, I bet that all the rest that support protected Windows Media Player files out number iPod, as well as giving consumers a choice between stores, a lot apparently support protected WMP.

Re:Thoughts

[jsebrech]

Number one, this is old, since the iPod firmware that did this, iPod Updater 2004-11-15, was released a month ago.

Number two, Apple is under no obligation to support ANYONE else's DRM, period.

I'm all for free business, but that also involves customers being able to freely take their business elsewhere. This basically is a lock-in tactic tieing you to the itms if you have an ipod.

Apple can't have it both ways. If they intend to use the ipod to drive sales of the itunes music store, then yes, drm it all you want and make sure that the only legally bought music that will run on an ipod is itunes music store bought stuff.

However. That's not what apple has been saying. They've been saying that they're using the itunes music store to drive ipod sales. Now, I get why in that case they wouldn't want other hardware players to be able to play the DRM'd itms files. But what is completely asinine is locking out users from choice of who they buy their songs with to put on their ipod.

As an ipod owner, I am pretty pissed about this, even if I had no intention of buying anything in the real store. It's just bad business. It's what microsoft would do. Heck, not even microsoft has sunk this low, since at least with the WMA platform you have a range of music stores to choose from. This decision to lock out real is as incompatible with the apple image as possible.

But then, I realise that apple has always screwed over their customers. It's why they're not bigger than they are.

Re:Well, don't use iTunes

[nsayer]

because Apple caps the video out of the iBook at 1024x768

There is a difference between what is supported and what is possible [rutemoeller.com].

Re:I am pro-reverse engineering.

[LilMikey]

Apple said the iPod specifically worked with songs bought from the iTunes Music Store. Would your dealer be obligated to support after-market parts on your car?

Wouldn't you be pissed if you had to go to the dealership to get your windshield washer fluid?

They're being protectionist dickheads with a $400 music player, no two ways around it. You can try to placate yourself any way you want but this behavior is exactly what slashdotters rail against every day.

Re:Apple is under no obligation to support ANYONE

[rizzo420]

yahoo wasn't keeping out drm.

Re:Apple is under no obligation to support ANYONE

[pla]

Obligated to refrain from taking antocompetitive measures in a market in which they are the dominant supplier, that's another question.

Speaking of them as the "dominant supplier"...

A while back, Apple claimed they made basically no profit on iTMS, and only kept it going to boost sales of iPods.

Having Real support the iPod would only increase sales thereof, while the possibility of decreasing sales at no profit via iTMS should not matter at all ("We lose a penny per sale, but we make it up in volume!").


So, the question...

Did Steve Jobs... How to put this... "Tell a deliberate untruth" to all his loyal fans?

Goodness. I don't feel all warm and fuzzy anymore.

Re:Thoughts

[fgodfrey]

Actually, you have no clue whether Apple went out of their way to break this or not. While it's quite likely that they did, it's equally plausible that they fixed a bug or added a feature that caused the breakage. We also don't know how, exactly, Real was fooling the iPod. What if they were exploiting a buffer overflow and Apple fixed it?

Besides, the longer Apple allows Real's stuff to work, the harder it will be for them to break it if there is a valid technical reason to do so in the future.

Re:Apple is under no obligation to support ANYONE

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Your numbers sound suspicious. I was quoting Bloomberg. They claim apple at 80% hardware MP3 players for 2004 and 70% over the last 3 years. Apple does use a closed DRM format, but the DRM can be legally removed, unlike with WMD. The format itself is open, and the player supports a good half dozen open formats. If the firmware update was intended to break Real's hack, why did they not release it for all players, instead of about half of them? Most likely, this is just Real's hack breaking, which is not surprising since it is an unsupported format masquerading as Apple's licensed files. If you sold something and a company renowned for shady business practices and installing spyware started selling products that were similar to your, and claimed you would support them despite your making public statements to the contrary, I'm sure you would not give a rat's ass if their crap broke.

Basically, Apple is not a monopoly, and even if they were, they have not used that to move into any other markets. MS on the other hand is a monopoly, and has used it to both take over other markets, and to force competitors out of business. Some of my favorite software was made by companies MS bought and killed to prevent them from competing with them.

P.S. this release came out a while ago, it's just that no one was stupid enough to buy files from Real, so no one noticed till now that they don't work.

No no no... Fuck Real

[cryptochrome]

Once there was a company that had the only decent streaming video in town. So they cornered the market on content, bloated up their software with ads, and then sat on their asses while the money rolled in. And just for good measure, made it difficult to download. What kind of company makes a video player that requires virtually all system resources, and then puts animated ads on the sidebar? So whose stellar hardware/software combination do you think they decide to leech off of when their lousy plan starts falling apart? Maybe the one whose operating system you neglected the most, with lousy ports months late? You think Apple was just going to sit there while let you suck their profits away while you drag their reputation down with you?

Goodbye parasites. Fuck you and the shitty bloatware you rode in on.

Re:Thoughts

[haledon]

Forget any comparisons between Apple and COMPANY X. Forget whether you agree or disagree. There is one simple reason that Apple did this. They HAD to do this. It took Apple (Steve Jobs)... well, I don't know what it took, but it took Steve Jobs to convince the record companies that he could create DRM that would protect their IP. Hence the Apple DRM mechanism. Allowing Real to do what they did would compromise Apple's DRM.

If Apple sat on its butt, it would only have been a matter of time before good ole Mr. Jobs received several irate phone calls asking why his DRM wasn't doing what he promised it would do. Burn one bridge, burn them all, bingo bango, the major lables are scared back into the stone age, and we loose the tiny fruits that are just starting to grow out of the online legal download industry.

This isn't about Apple or Real. This is about maintaining a contractual obligation necessary for the survival of a very important and infantile industry.

Including yourself?

[Kaseijin]

If Apple allows this questionable scheme, it is a scheme, to continue then they will lose their licensing agreement with the labels which allows them to run the iTunes Music Store.

Nonsense. The labels don't care what kind of locks Real uses to shackle their music as long as their customers can't unlock them. If anyone stood to lose a contract, it would be Real, since the files created by Harmony can be decrypted by Hymn, but in fact major labels have praised Harmony.

The iPod is the single most open digital music device on the market today. It supports the playback of more audio formats than any other device like it. It supports AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, AIFF, MP3 VBR, WAV and Audible. It also supports the DRM from the iTMS.

I count PCM in two flavors (WAV, AIFF), two open formats (MP3, AAC), one proprietary (Apple Lossless), and two encrypted (iTMS, Audible). Compare to the Rio Karma: PCM (WAV), two free formats (FLAC, Vorbis), one open (MP3), one proprietary (WMA), and one encrypted (WMDRM). You might like the iPod's list better, but it doesn't take any prizes for openness.

It does not support any other form of DRM, which is really what has Rob Glaser's panties in a bunch, as it won't support the Real DRM.

The problem from Real's perspective was that Apple won't let anyone else use Apple's DRM. Again, it doesn't matter whose locks are used, just that there are locks.

Re:Thoughts

[alset_tech]

This is ONLY about OO.org reverse engineering the Microsoft DRM (more power to them) in order to allow their ".doc" DRM-protected files to work with Microsoft Office.

I buy tracks from iTMS, and the licensing doesn't get in my way. I don't pay for individual Word documents. I pay for a program to create those docs. I see a hole in your analogy.

Re:Thoughts

[Have Blue]

You're misreading Apple's strategy. The store is not "used to drive the iPod"- it's a feature of the iPod. (The fact that it's accessed through a program on a computer the iPod is plugged into is secondary.) That's why Apple feels that having people buy through the ITMS and only the ITMS is such an important part of the iPod strategy. The closed experience is part of what they are selling.