[IP] more on Apple's iPod code 'cracked'
Begin forwarded message:
From: Brad Templeton <btm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 25, 2006 7:59:58 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Apple's iPod code 'cracked'
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 06:07:30PM -0400, David Farber wrote:
This article incorrectly states that music downloaded from iTunes
can't be played on non-Apple MP3 players. Apple's downloaded tunes
are encoded in AAC format, which itself isn't playable on most MP3
players. (If it were, and if the players supported the FairPlay DRM
system then they could play them directly too.) To play them on
players w/o such features simply first burn the tracks to CD and then
follow the procedure you'd normally use for loading CD music onto
your non-Apple MP3 player.
This question answers itself. Apple does not offer a "Convert
this fairplay aac to mp3" option it itunes. Yet it "offers"
that functionality through the complex process of burn, re-rip and
transcode, which typically also involves administrative work like
renaming the files though perhaps people have made tools for that.
Apple clearly feels that it is acheiving some goal by allowing you
to do it the cumbersome way, but not the easy way, the way a company
devoted to customer ease of use would do it.
This means it either feels that the burn-rip-mix approach is
annoying enough that it offers "copy impediment" as opposed to
copy protection, and that this copy impediment is sufficient for
some goal, like protecting copyright holders, or making it just
hard enough to discourage the use of competing music players with
music bought from iTunes.
It's also possible that Apple knew that if they didn't let you
burn to CD that many customers would stay away from ITMS, and
in fact would rather not have offered it at all. I suspect the
RIAA would rather it not be offered at all. They go back and
forth on whether copy impediment (sometimes called a "speed bump")
is a good or bad idea.
That people want DVD-Jon's tool is a sign that the impediment
is bothersome and that Apple is not meeting their customer's
needs. That you argue the impediment is small is a sign they
aren't meeting the RIAA's needs.
To me the only likely conclusion is the only needs being met
are Apple's -- make it hard, but not impossible to use CDs and
iPod competitors. That Apple would primarily care about Apple's
needs (while pretending to satisfy the RIAA's) should not be
too surprising.
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