Apple Uses DMCA to Halt DVD burning

VValdo writes "According to news.com, Apple has warned one of its own dealers to stop handing out a patch to allow DVD burning with iDVD on non-Apple hardware." Mmmmm, laws.

Re:Great

[entrox]

First of all, Apple is in the business of selling _hardware_, not software.

iDVD is part of the i-suite of provided FREE applications with the sole reason to boost sales of Macintosh systems and Apple hardware in general. They don't make a single penny on iDVD per se, but on the drives it supports - if somebody now makes iDVD work with third-party burners, they take away the only reason why it is provided at all (for free).

Re:Where's the problem?

[Amarok.Org]

Um, if it's a Mac, Apple's received revenue....

For the machine? Yes. For the development of iDVD? No.

iDVD is a great FREE tool for CD authoring, better than many EXPENSIVE tools out there. Apple didn't write it just to be nice, they wrote it to sell DVD burners.

Re:Same news, different day . . .

[pi radians]

Company uses DMCA to prevent competition, film at 11.

On the contrary, now there is room for another company to come in and develop a DVD authoring application. Apple has stated that their free software is only licensed to buyers of Apple's SuperDrive.

For a user who adds some other company's DVD burner they have to use a competitors product.

Re:Oh, no!

[pbrice68]

You are correct. iDVD is NOT a *free* program to just give to everyone. iDVD is part of the SuperDrive package. If you do not purchase an Apple SuperDrive, then you do not have rights to iDVD. You can purchase an internal SuperDrive after the fact form Apple to put in your Tower, and guess what, you get iDVD. OWC was freely distributing Apple's software, which was NOT free. On top of that, Apple must pay a licensing fee for every DVD encoder it ships. If Apple didn't bundle iDVD with the SuperDrive, but just gave it away freely, they would have to pay a licensing fee (you wouldn't, they would) for every copy shipped/downloaded. Imagine, they sold 20,000 SuperDrives, but 50,000 copies of iDVD were distributed? They'd be paying for other people *free* access to encoding DVD's. If you want to hack, hack. If you want to encode DVD's without proper authorization, encode. But wehy do you expect Apple to pay for you to do this? Jeesh...

The facts (for a change)

[damieng]

The fact is that any software or hardware utilizing DVD technologies has to pay a licence fee.

I clearly recall a discussion recently where it was revealed that Apple do not pay any such recording licence fees on iDVD but instead on the SuperDrive in order to keep costs down.

By allowing people to distribute hacks to let their software work on other drives (which will have just the standard drive licences, not those associated with DVD encoding etc) Apple will loose their position with the DVD licencing authority and end up having to pay such licences for every copy of iDVD.

Yes, perhaps they should have done this but the fact is the software itself is free. Windows doesn't even come with DVD playback let alone authoring and I don't recall anything similar in a Linux distro.

Apple do offer DVD Studio Pro for $1000 that is fully licenced and will work with any mac-compatible DVD-R drive or alternatively pick up a copy of Roxio Toast 5 Titanium for $100.

Not everything in life is free.

Get used to it.

Heh, got it in one

[mblase]

If I buy a car from ford, ford expect me to get the car fixed and repaired using only ford authorised mechnics and parts (which they make money on?).

Actually, they do. When your engine has a problem, it flicks on the "check engine" light and generates a code in the car's internal computer. These codes are not standard; they're custom to each manufacturer, and only a Ford repairman has the equipment and reference guide to interpret them. Your average non-branded mechanic has neither the technology nor the information to interpret those codes.

Now, there's some noise being made about this, and independent mechanics are pushing dealers to publish those codes so that they don't have a monopoly on maintenance. But so far, to my knowledge, they've been unsuccessful.

Just letting you know your example was more accurate than you thought.

Re:Great

[joshsisk]

No, it's really not the same thing at all.

One is an end user making a patch to software they have bought, on their machine.

The other is a company distributing tools to alter the software of one of their competitors, in order to sell more of their competing product.

Re:iDVD is not "free" (as in beer or speech)

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Everyone here cries foul when someone violates the GPL, and no one chastises the author of the software for it (recent xvid fiasco) but if it's another license, whoooo boy, watch out. the hypocricy comes out to play!

Dumbass. There is no hypocrisy. People who support the GPL would prefer if there were NO software licenses, including the GPL. Restrictive licenses are bad. If someone violates the GPL by putting a restrictive license on your software, that's bad. If someone violates a restrictive license, I don't particularly care.

The GPL is a software license designed to prevent software licenses. If you think it's hypocrisy to support that but oppose regular software licenses, well, you're retarded.

MPEG Licensing

[hoggy]

I understood the reason that Apple stop people distributing these cracks is that Apple have to pay a licensing fee for the MPEG2 encoding algorithms used in iDVD. Since they effectively give away the software there is no way to track sales and pay the fee. So Apple struck a deal to pay based on sales of the SuperDrive instead - since iDVD can only be used with the SuperDrive.

If people start cracking iDVD to work with someone else's drives then Apple end up effectively breaking their agreement with MPLA. Even though it's not their fault, their software is being used without the fee having been paid. Apple have to enforce the license or stop giving it away and sell it instead.

Re:Great

[neuroticia]

The "patch" is the same as a "patch" that would allow the version of Nero that came bundled with a $150 24x Sony CDR-RW drive to work with every CDR-RW drive on your network.

It's extremely common to bundle software with a particular drive and attempt to limit the use to that drive only. If a retailer starts selling cheap no-name 24x burners bundled with a patch to make aforementioned copy of Nero work with it, you can bet Nero would go after them.

-Sara

Re:Heh, got it in one

[xercist]

My '96 Ford's check engine light came on a while ago. I went down to the nearest car parts store, borrowed their *standard* OBDII (On-Board-Diagnostic II) scanner, plugged it in, read the code, looked it up in the manual, and knew exactly why the check engine light had turned on.

Given my car is 6 years old, perhaps they've come up with a new "standard" to piss people off since then?

Patching iDVD? Hmm. That's NOT kosher.

[crovira]

The articlementionned that the patch was screwing around with Apple's own iDVD.

That's the wrong place to apply a patch.

Find the right place to patch. (Wrapper the driver that comes with the hardware and stick the patch in the wrapper.)

Re:Where's the problem?

[bnenning]

If you no longer wish to comply with the license, you're no longer legally able to use the software.

Repeat after me:

You do not need a license to run software.

You do not need a license to run software.

You do not need a license to run software [cornell.edu].

Sorry, I just find it very annoying that software publishers have gotten this meme established so well.

Re:Same news, different day . . .

[jafac]

it's worse than that, because bundled into the price of the third-party DVD burner is the MPEG license fee. bundled into the price of third-party DVD authoring software is the MPEG license fee. So when you buy Apple's solution, you pay once (with iDVD). When you buy a third party solution, you pay twice.

Then Apple makes sure you can only take advantage of iDVD with a NEW entire system (not making the drives available for separate sale) and highballs their markup, so that they can undercut the price of "paying twice" - where their costs only consider paying once.

I've read many news articles - reviews, of the new iMacs, and the main thing they all said was that it was so easy to create DVD's and that they all reflected horror stories of friends trying to author DVD's on a PC, with great expense and no success. The reason why is this sweet deal Apple has with the MPEG licensing, and the convoluted way they've exploited it to maximize profit.

I really wonder why Apple's stock is so low. Because this plot is deviously brilliant.

UNTRUE. - was Re:Great

[firewort]

It is impossible for them not to pirate the software. iDVD is only supplied as a free application with a SuperDrive that Apple sells you.

UNTRUE. Apple sells iDVD2 on it's website store for $19.99. It is listed as an upgrade version. The license is standard EULA but doesn't seem to require any prior existing copy of iDVD, and it doesn't check for one. It only checks for the SuperDrive while starting the application.

So, you can buy a SuperDrive, and Apple is happy to sell you the software. I fail to see the problem. In fact, I have a g4/400 powermac which I installed a DVR-104 SuperDrive into.

I then purchased the iDVD2 Upgrade software from Apple and it installed with ease, as expected.

I am using a computer that is out of warranty, so I don't worry about voiding any warranty. It works beautifully, if not a little longer at preparing video for burning onto the DVD disc.

So, that shoots down your piracy argument.

Apple is well within their limits

[Enrique1218]

iDVD purpose is to increase the value of Apple systems whose revenue Apple depends on. It is not to provide anyone with quality dvd editing software. If someone wants to upgrade their system with a third party burner they should look for third party software. According to the article, OWC bundled this add-on to sell their DVD drives instead of licensing a third party alternative. In essence, they stole iDVD just to add value to their drives. Obviously, Apple has every right to put a stop to it.