Beware the Apple iPhone iHandcuffs

Nrbelex writes "Randall Stross makes a fresh and surprisingly accurate review of one of the biggest "features" in the upcoming iPhone and the iPod in general, 'fairplay'. Stross writes, 'If "crippleware" seems an unduly harsh description, it balances the euphemistic names that the industry uses for copy protection. Apple officially calls its own standard "FairPlay," but fair it is not.... You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever.' Can mainstream media coverage help the battle over DRM or will this warning, like those of the past, continue to go unnoticed?"

Just rip your CD's fool

[bobalu (1921)]

I really don't understand the repeated efforts here to brand Apple as the devil over "FairPlay". I'm no fan of DRM, and don't use it because it's entirely unnecessary. I've bought about 6 songs and one video off of iTunes in the last 3 years. I just don't get the freedom-threatening nature of ripping my own CDs.

Re:Just rip your CD's fool

[CrackedButter (646746)]

At least the article didn't blame Apple, but the music industry. Then again, why didn't he just talk about how the music industry shackles Apple and the other online music stores? Well, if he did that there would be no fan boys to rile up would there?

Re:Just rip your CD's fool

[ahillen (45680)]

At least the article didn't blame Apple, but the music industry.

Well, he also blames Apple. He gives the example of eMusic, which sells a lot of music from independent labels without DRM (and that of course with the labels agreement). The same music is sold by Apple in the iTunes Store with their fairplay DRM. It seems that in theses cases Apple's assertion that "we have to use DRM, otherwise the labels would not allow us to sell the music" is not true.

So I guess he has a point, although I don't agree with everything he says. Starting with the headline: the problem is not the iPhone (or the iPod), the problem is the iTunes Store. If you decide to buy your music somewhere else (like - gasp - CDs) you are not locked in at all. But, OK, the iPhone is what all the buzz is about right now, so that's probably the reason for the choice of headline. He also says that by buying the iPhone, you have to use the iTunes Store if you want to buy music online. Then he goes on to give the example of eMusic, which sells millions of songs online in MP3 format without DRM. Obviously, these files will also work on any Apple device.

So, his arguments are at some points a bit flawed, but I think the general intention of raising the awareness for the possible pitfalls of buying DRM music has to be applauded.

Re:Just rip your CD's fool

[cayenne8 (626475)]

"But you forget that eMusic can only sell unrestricted music from those labels that consent to it (very few). If Apple tried to sell things without DRM, then many (the vast majority of record labels) would tell Steve Jobs to stick it up his... erm... posterior and stop allowing iTunes to sell their music."

Well, apparently, from an earlier poster...Apple sells these same songs on iTunes that are sold by eMusic (without drm), but, Apple puts DRM on these songs just like from the 'majors'.

I wonder why Apple doesn't see the songs that are ok'ed to be sold without DRM, without DRM? I think Apple would lose a lot of flac they get over iTunes if they did sell some content without Fairplay on it...as long as it was authorized by the labels to do so.

Re:Just rip your CD's fool

[7Prime (871679)]

To a certain degree, I can understand it as a part of Apple's "One Size Fits All" marketting (which I happen to think is damn effective). Currently, when you download a music off of iTMS, every file has the same restrictions, and allows the same freedoms. On the public front, this is simply to make it "easier for the consumer". But in actuality, it is a cover, a little trick to keep record lables from ever pushing more severe DRM... if they put up an umbrella specification on their files, and make a big stink about how it is for user-friendliness, the recording industry just flat out can't argue with them.

Apple's DRM reflects their pricing: 99cents per song. Sure, maybe there could have been a few songs here and there placed at 75cents, but it makes sure that no songs are priced at $3. Their DRM policy is invasive, to be sure, but on the scheme of things, it's the least invasive that ever has been, but it keeps the record industry to go any further.

The bottom line is, DRM has no benefit to Apple. The iTMS is a loss or "break-even" leader, in order to sell iPods... and it's possible that not having DRM would result in a FEW more iPod sales. They have no personal reason to ever want DRM on their material... but they gotta, according to the recording industry. People act like they're not fighting it. They're fighting it like crazy, but they know that they can't win without some form of compromise. DRM is simply one part of the music industry's grand scheme of controlling media. Apple put their foot down when it came to pricing, and they came up with one of the least invasive DRM schemes ever. And the reason they've been able to keep with both of these is because they are completely unwavering in their support of this system. If they were to start selling a few non-DRM tunes, the recording industry would see this as a new-found flexability in Apple's infrastructure, and try to take advantage of that.

This might sound fanboyish, but there's a lot of psychology going in to play here. By setting one universal standard, and utterly keeping with it, it creates a rock-solid wall in which the recording industry can't touch.

Re:Just rip your CD's fool

[davebarnes (158106)]

Exactly.
1. Rip your own CDs. Legal.
2. Borrow your friends' CDs and rip. Not legal in USA.
3. Buy MP3s from AllofMP3.com. Legal in Russia.
4. Buy MP3s from eMusic.com. Legal.

Plenty of sources for music that don't involve iTunes Music Store.

Re:Just rip your CD's fool

[_KiTA_ (241027)]

Well, there's 2 camps here.

1. The actually genuinely concerned consumer activists, who don't realize Fairplay is really as good a DRM system as we're probably ever going to get, consumer-wise.
2. The people who are royally pissed that THEIR DRM isn't the stuff being shoved down everyone's throats.

Of course, #2 has some sub camps, based on motivation.
- There are the people who are just royally pissed that they aren't getting the online music sales or MP3 player sales they "deserve" since they're "in the industry", so they obviously deserve a competition free environment. Forever. (The "real" music publishers.)
- There are the people who are royally pissed that the DRM doesn't include a rootkit, doesn't cost $5 a song, allows you to play the songs more than once, allows you to move your music onto normal CDs, onto multiple players, etc. (The anti-fair use people.)
- And there are the people who are pissed that the iNdustry (iPod, iTunes, etc) seems to be propping up Apple, which they thought they had killed off so long ago that no one would notice them borrowing features and themes from OS X for their new big name Operating System release... (The Windows die-hards, not all of which are centered in Redmond.)

All 3 of these camps can easily afford to pay for an astroturfing campaign, so... Who knows?

Buying Apple is like getting married

[LibertineR (591918)]

No matter how sexy or cool things seemed early on, the day will come when you will wonder what the fuck you were thinking.

Buying Microsoft is like losing your virginity

[Bemopolis (698691)]

You do it because all your friends are doing it. So you go out, get drunk, and find the cheapest, skankiest thing you can get home to plug. And now you're actually touching it! And boy you're on it ALL NIGHT (in five minute incremements between reboots). When you wake up in the morning and take your first sober look at the 'face, knowing you could have done much better, you barely succeed in convincing yourself that it wasn't necessarily the wrong thing to do.

Then you realize you have 17 viruses.

Re:Buying Microsoft is like losing your virginity

[hotdiggitydawg (881316)]

You do it because all your friends are doing it. So you go out, get drunk, and find the cheapest, skankiest thing you can get home to plug. And now you're actually touching it! And boy you're on it ALL NIGHT (in five minute incremements between reboots). When you wake up in the morning and take your first sober look at the 'face, knowing you could have done much better, you barely succeed in convincing yourself that it wasn't necessarily the wrong thing to do.
 
Then you realize you have 17 viruses.

And a Trojan in your backdoor?

This is dumb!

[N8F8 (4562)]

The suit contends that Apple unfairly restricts consumer choice because it does not load onto the iPod the software needed to play music that uses Microsoft's copy-protection standard, in addition to Apple's own.

As far as I'm considered, this is a stupid argument. Slam Sony instead. How about a $400 DVD plaver that won't play MP3 file.

Re:This is dumb!

[nacturation (646836)]

How about instead we place Sony and Apple in the same category?
 

Or just merge the two companies. You'd end up with Apony. And everyone, at some point in their lives, has wanted a pony.
 

Article is about iPod, not iPhone

[phozz bare (720522)]

The iPhone is mentioned in the first paragraph and in the headline, perhaps to grab the reader's attention. The rest of the article is about the DRM restrictions in music purchased from iTunes. While this will also apply to the iPhone (as it includes iPod functionality) I really can't see why this article is remotely interesting or newsworthy. I was expecting to read something about the 3rd party software lock-in on the iPhone, but there really is nothing to see here.

phozz

Don't buy it if you don't like it...

[stewbacca (1033764)]

So people want to force Apple to make Microsoft formats work on the iPod? Those same people blame Apple for iTunes purchased songs not working on a Zune as well? I don't get the double standard. If Apple should be forced to make iPods play Microsoft DRM, then isn't it the responsibility of Microsoft to make Apple's FairPlay work on Zunes? I think I'll go buy a Zune then sue Microsoft because my iTunes songs don't work on the Zune. I hope this case gets thrown out and the woman has to pay the court costs.

Re:Don't buy it if you don't like it...

[Eric Savage (28245)]

Let's recap for the parent and anyone else not paying attention.

• Apple owns FairPlay, a proprietary format.
• Apple will not license other players to play FairPlay.
• Apple will not license other vendors to sell FairPlay music.
• Apple will not license DRM from anyone else for their players.
• Apple has a vast majority of digital music player sales.
• Apple has a vast majority of digital music sales. (20x as many as the #2 store according to TFA)
• This article would have twice as many comments and similar ones would be posted weekly if it was s/Apple/Microsoft/g

Locked music? What about locked OS?

[jezor (51922)]

I read the NYT article, and this is really not a new issue, is it? The iPod has had this issue, as did Apple's previous foray into cellphones (the ROKR and now the RAZR [apple.com]). The bigger challenge the iPhone faces is that, according to Steve Jobs [slashdot.org], 3rd party developers won't be able to write programs for the iPhone without Apple's blessing and distribution channels. That's a product killer, given that the most popular smartphones already on the market (especially those running PalmOS and Windows Mobile) are tremendously extensible via 3rd party offerings. It's also a huge mistake. Having a phone that plays music isn't a revolution; it's a necessity these days. Heck, the phones that are being given away by the carriers can all play MP3s at least. Rather, anyone spending as much as Apple wants for the iPhone (even before locking in a data plan from Cingular) is going to want to do whatever he or she can imagine with the iPhone in all aspects of life, not just music or telephoning. That will require 3rd party developers. Apple should embrace 3rd party development, since it will sell many more iPhones, rather than the current strategy.

Personally, I was pondering how to make the business case for an iPhone at work until I read about the current 3rd party app limitation. As someone who's used the PalmOS for 10 years, I am *not* going back to one-vendor sourced apps. {Prof. Jonathan Ezor, PalmAddict Associate Writer} [typepad.com]

Re:Locked music? What about locked OS?

[jezor (51922)]

My point is that a lot of little niche markets make up one honkin' big one, and whether or not Apple is encouraging 3rd party development, if every app has to pass through Apple's screening process and be distributed (read: priced and sold) through Apple's own structure, it will significantly discourage niche products.

As a long-time PalmOS user, I look to Palm for both negative and positive examples. Palm's success was built not on the PIM applications, but on 3rd party tools, and while Palm offered certification for software programs, it didn't require certification in order for programs to run. Not only did that drive innovation by 3rd parties, but many of those 3rd party developments put pressure on Palm to extend the basic OS accordingly. Tapped drop-down menus, fullscreen Graffiti entry, running apps off SD cards, full backup (not just PIM apps) and hard button reassignment all began as 3rd party innovations, and were later adopted by the PalmOS. At the same time, though, Palm's uncertainty about whether it was a hardware, software, or OS company has led to stultification of the underlying PalmOS, to the point where the iPhone has a real opportunity not only to get Treo users but non-smartphone users like me (I use a T|X) to cross over, if it's done properly by Apple.

I'm not counting Apple out by any means, nor am I assuming that 3rd party developers won't be able to create homebrew apps that will load and run on the iPhone, Apple-certified or not. That said, I hope that Apple is looking at the PDA rather than cellphone market for inspiration. Otherwise, this Newton 2007 may rot unpicked. {Prof. Jonathan}

Apple picked the least evil option

[gravesb (967413)]

Apple had to produce a DRM that was acceptable to the music industry, or else iTunes would never exist. MP3 players would still be gimmicks, much like minidisk players, and the advances we have seen across all brands of MP3 players never would have happened. Instead, Apple came up with a solution that appeased the music industry, and which doesn't remove that many rights from consumers. The really brilliant thing Apple did was allow FairPlay to be so easily cracked by burning the music to CD's. I find it interesting that the article complains about Apple locking in consumers, but the far more interesting thing is how they have locked in the music industry. The music industry would love to raise prices, make all services subscription, and restrict our rights in more and more ways. Instead, Apple is strong enough that not only can it maintain the status quo (which they improved by allowing us to buy single songs, instead of CD's with a decent song and 9 crappy ones), they are extending it to other music labels and now movies. They have created a means for more independent artists to make a living without giving into the labels (not as good as eMusic, true, but they had to give up something to get the major labels.), allowed consumers to buy music ala carte, and are changing the face of the industry. There are the vocal few who claim that all DRM is evil, and refuse to buy anything from the music labels. I admire both your stance and your dedication to it. However, most of the public do not understand the issues, and they provide enough revenue for the labels to ignore you. Apple is a middle ground now. Hopefully in the future, we will be able to move to an even better situation. However, without this middle ground, we would all be talking about buying music in a hopelessly outdated, unfair manner, or stealing it.

Anti-Apple week

[Oniros (53181)]

Geez, the iPhone must have scared the crap out of everyone in the industry, seems it's Anti-Apple FUD since the iPhone was announced.

I own an iPod (3rd gen or something), works great with the hundreds of CDs I own and ripped. I bought 1 song on the iTunes store. The article lie in implying the iPod is limited to FairPlay music. This is not the Zune, iTunes doesn't add a DRM layer to your music. It plays non-DRMed songs just fine.

I own a Mac, plays all the fansubbed unlicensed anime series I get on bittorrent. Works even in FrontRow. And on the video iPod and Apple TV if I batch convert them to H264. Again, non-DRMed video plays fine.

So, allow me not to be scared.

If you want to worry, check the big brotherish content protection in Vista:
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt [auckland.ac.nz]

Re:Anti-Apple week

[mccalli (323026)]

Geez, the iPhone must have scared the crap out of everyone in the industry, seems it's Anti-Apple FUD since the iPhone was announced.

Allow me to present my Apple credentials. An original LC owner from around 1993 (I think), then skipped out but back in for a 12" Powerbook when Jaguar was released. Our household has a MacBook Pro, a MacBook, a dual G5 tower, an (Intel) Mac Mini and an SE/30 for nostalgia. Pro-Apple enough perhaps? Well then, I think that as announced so far, the iPhone is a poor product.

• No 3G. A killer in Europe for something at that level. I'm assuming this won't be a problem by the time of launch though, because I simply cannot imagine anyone trying to launch a 2.5G smart phone here these days.
• No video calling. Minor league problem for me and directly related to no 3G.
• "First proper browser on a phone" says Jobs in the keynote. Err...no, no at all. My phone is happily running Opera, as are plenty of others.
• No user-replaceable battery. No spare batteries? Are they serious? Not a problem with an iPod, you just lose your music for a while. Annoying but liveable. For a phone however, that's a much bigger hassle.
• No third-party software. Err...no. Won't fly for me.
• Can't use your "iTunes music" as a ring tone. Now admittedly the source I read for this didn't make it clear if they really meant iTMS-purchased music or just any old MP3 but either way that's pretty poor.
• No GPS (that I'm aware of). I'm spending that amount of money, I'd like a GPS-enabled phone please.
• No radio. For the love of god, what is it that Apple have against radios? Even the built-in Radio function of iTunes is utterly useless. I don't want to carry around an add-on for that, it should be built into the phone like damned near every other phone.
• Fixed capacity - I can't move my own flash cards in and out of the phone.
• No video at all - not just lack of video calling but also it's unclear if that camera will actually shoot video for storing on the internal memory and transferring off later.

I love the look of the interface, though in practice I do wonder how well it's going to stand up to daily use (smears on the screen etc.). Right now though, the hardware itself just looks too weak to me. Not enough features for the cash - my N70 already does functionally more than the iPhone, and that came as a freebie with my contract. I'll admit the Nokia interface is terrible in comparison, but for me at least the OS X interface isn't enough to compensate for the lack of capability in the phone. Not asking for the moon on a stick here - everything I've mentioned can currently be done by other phones, all but GPS in already done by my freebie N70.

Roll on v1.x please.

Cheers,
Ian

I'm confused..

[ack154 (591432)]

How is this fresh? That is... we knew it was an iPod, right? Did people think it would not have DRM just because it was a phone this time?

This is the same argument every time a new iPod comes out... "hey, it only works with songs from iTunes" and "iTunes only works with iPods." No shit. We know this by now. This article really has nothing to do with the iPhone specifically, it's just another DRM bashing article. Which is fine, I'd love to see it gone as much as the next guy... but as far as DRM goes, Apple's is pretty "fair" IMO and definitely simple.

I spend almost 2 hours yesterday trying to get my little sister's Sansa to work with some songs my mom bought for her from the Walmart music store. Now THAT is some crappy DRM. Crappy software. Crappy everything.

Ugh sundays...

[Internet Ronin (919897)]

Sundays on /. always reminds of Ed Norton's monologue in Fight Club, when his boss discovers the rules for Fight Club.

It ends with him saying maybe his boss shouldn't bring him every piece of trash he happens to find.

This, and most 'Sunday' driver stories on /., seem to be the same piece of trash.

Really the issues is that PlaysForSure DRM doesn't work on the iPod. That's almost always what the bitchin' is about. Well, it doesn't work on the Zune either. And on the flip side, FairPlay doesn't work on their media players. It's not the Mp3 (or in this case iPhone) player's issue. In this case, Apple doesn't support PFS because 1.) MS has never been very forthcoming in sharing and 2.) When Apple is totally and completely dominating a single market they just don't need second rate technology.

The good news is that the iPod plays Mp3s. First and foremost. Playing a DRM-ed song is just an annoyance that people have to put up with if they want easily acquired legal digital music. I told people for years that the reason I used Napster was because there was no effective alternative. When Jobs opened the iTunes store (before anyone else mind you), I had to pay the piper. If I continued to steal my music at that point, I could claim no moral high ground, and I would have been robbing the artists just as much if not more than the RIAA. So, I started buying music from the iTunes store. Yeah, it's DRM-ed, yeah I'll probably be stuck buying iPods for a long time. What a shame. Fortunately for me, and everyone else, iPods have really been popular and easy to come by.

Stories like this just make me wonder WTF we even show up here for on Sundays. Go back to bed. Wake up later. Watch the playoffs.

article about ITMS, not iPod or iPhone

[fermion (181285)]

The article summary is bad. First, it is quite amazing how we can get an accurate review about a product that doesn't even exist, at least not in any real sense. The products on display and in use are preproduction prototypes, and reviewers at most have seen in for a hour, perhaps some have used a prototype for an hour. At this point, the iPhone is cool, but until we have massive quantities shipped, it is vaporware. Until it sells, it is nothing more than an interesting concept.

Second, fairplay is not the primary format of the iPod, or even iTunes, and presumable not the primary format of the iPhone. The songs are not translated to a Fairplay format, or any other format, when copied to the iPod. Songs are not by default imported into iTunes as Fairplay files, and there is not even an option to so do. I do not think Apple marks files that are imported in iTunes at all. And while the default import format is the is ACC, is it easy to change it to MP3 which is compatible with most players, except maybe Sony.

So fairplay will only effect users that buy songs from iTunes, and only those songs that are bought from iTunes and not burned to CDs. This is all covered in the article, but not the summary

The article is really about the fact that Apple will not license fairplay. This is really indicates a sad state of writing. First the author decries Fairplay as crippleware, and then complains that it cannot be acquired universally. This is like complaining that polio is a horrible disease, but innoculations means most of us won't get it. The article is correct that if you use the iTMS, you must buy apple stuff. The logical response to this is not to use the iTMS, and fight for non DRM online formats.

Then the article goes onto say that MS is better because it does license formats, but then has to admit that the Zune does not use the format. What the article does not admit is that this situation indicates that there is no money to be made in licenses DRM formats and thus compete with walmart on price instead of locking consumers in to an optional online format.

The point that the article does get to, after losing all credibility, is that consumers may end up with songs a product they cannot use. They may buy Play for sure, and then buy a zune or an iPod. They may have a collection of iTMS tracks, and then buy a Sandisk, in which case they will have to butn all the tracks to CD and reimport then. What the article does not mention is that we did this all before when we copied all our vinyl to tape, and even worse when we replaced all our vinyl with CDs.

I really believe that this article is the case of an uninspired writer cribbing from old articles. The lesson learned, and probably needs to be taught to the masses, is if possible buy a used CD and rip it to your computer.

DRM Jail

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Microsoft has now proved the most popular reason to dump DRM: the Zune player forces users to rebuy their legit content, because its DRM conflicts with the old DRM.

I bought Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_ on vinyl, on "audiophile" vinyl, on cassette, on CD, on "remastered" CD, and again a few times to replace worn-out copies of those (but never on 8-track, smartass - that was my copy of _The Wall_). But then I scanned my audiophile CD to HD/WAV, and have transferred it a dozen times: to backup CD in a closet, to mobile devices, to new HDs that aren't worn out, to SHN, then FLAC compression, to MP3 for streaming to my remote locations. I own that content, and I'll do whatever I want with it that's fair. If I want to prop up a wobbly table leg with the audiophile CD, I'll do it if I damn well please, even if the "license" I bought doesn't specify that use.

These record companies make most of their money from "catalog reissues". Records they made (usually cruelly unfair to artists) deals to sell decades ago, when they profited on their balance sheet. The biggest hits, that already paid for themselves many times over, are naturally the ones most desired to be played today. Because last generation's pop culture is this generations' folk culture - that's why we call our parents our "folks". The corrupt "copyright extension" monopoly laws are bad enough. "Enforcing" them beyond the publisher's rights, destroying rights and purchased privileges of the owner, and the public, is a culture-destroying crime.

And now, Microsoft has painted the picture for everyone to see. Make your player equal "Microsoft", and you'll pay for the privilege of using your own property as often as they "upgrade" their predictably buggy and inconvenient equipment.

Now is the time to make "DRM" as dirty a word as is "censorship". Kill it now, before it's permanently rooted, while people are still surprised to hear we have to dump our "old" content just to play it in some incrementally newer way.

Re:No just DRM like the iPod, but signed apps too

[dfghjk (711126)]

Here's the reason RoughlyDrafted offers for why Apple doesn't offer 3G data:

"With the iPhone, Apple is forcing Cingular to support and subsidize a phone that will save users money."

Apparently, RoughlyDrafted feels WiFi is ubiquitous and free while 3G data forces users into high fees. Couldn't be more stupid than that.

Likewise, its "substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X" is nothing but substantiated. For example:

"Microsoft has intentionally referred to its various operating environments under the brand Windows, despite the fact that its Windows 95, Windows NT, and Windows CE products lines are all significantly different systems."

In other words, iPhone OS X is "OS X" like all flavors of Windows are Windows just as /. people have said. Never mind that most versions of Windows have run all Windows apps and have family resemblences in their UI. No one claims that Windows CE or WM5 is actually "Windows", we all know different, and likewise iPhone "OS X" is not "Mac OS X". The iPhone OS shares no development platform with OS X, it runs no Mac OS X software, and has no UI elements in common. It is in no way "OS X" from a user's perspective, it's simply named so by Apple. Of course, they also offered the following:

"Despite losing the Finder, key ideas are retained on the iPhone that will be familiar to Mac users. Along the bottom of the home screen is an iconic list of its four principle functions: phone, mail, web, and iPod."

They are suggesting that the icons across the bottom of the screen are like the dock, never mind that my dock doesn't run across the bottom of my screen. Apparently, the dock constitutes the "key ideas" that make OS X what it is according to RoughlyDrafted. "Substantiated look" indeed.

The third party software article is even more absurd and offers nothing constructive at all. In fact it's not even worth a read. The author attempts to redirect the argument to the iPod, Zune, and Xbox ignoring the fact that those are fixed function devices while the the iPhone is specifically advertised as a pocketable computer. He also parrots the Apple line that 3rd party software is of unacceptably low quality while ignoring that fact that it's never hindered other computer platforms including the Mac itself and other smartphones before the iPhone. The rest of the article is full of mental masturbation, attempted demonstrations of expertise, and claims of Apple genious and capability. The most blatantly transparent apology of the three.

RoughlyDrafted is just another Apple apologist blog and brings nothing new or interesting to the discussion.