Apple Uses DMCA to Halt DVD burning 663
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.
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Apple Uses DMCA to Halt DVD burning
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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. -- A.J. Perlis
Apple have the wrong idea (Score:1, Insightful)
The idea behind computer's is that they be easily upgradable, so that you don't need to buy a new computer if you only want to upgrade one component.
I feel Apple have made a mistake here, which will hopefully be rectified by discussions with the companies involved.
Tim
Where's the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to use Apple's software is worth using, it's worth compensating Apple for it's development. If you want to use a non-Apple DVD writer, that's fine - the OS will let you. Just grab one of the other award-winning, easy to use, and powerful DVD authoring apps out there that are free. Now, where did I see those...
Re:Where's the problem? (Score:1, Insightful)
People Thought Apple Was a Kinder Master than MS (Score:3, Insightful)
No doubt. What is so twisted about software licensing and copyright as it is currently implimented is that, unlike every other piece of technology we buy (your car, your boat, your plane, your refrigerator), you're not allowed to take it apart and see how it works, or modify it to better suit your purposes.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
If you switch to Apple to free yourself of Micrsoft, rather than switching to free(dom) software [FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, whatever], you are merely trading one set of masters for another. Apple may seem to be the kinder master, but it is nevertheless a master. Now it looks like they might not be so kind, after all.
All the apple spinmeisters would have us believe we're somehow 'stealing' from Apple by not paying their inflated hardware prices, to which I respond "you can't have it both ways." Either the software is free (beer) and I'll use it as I damn well please, or it costs money and you'd better charge me a fair market price for it. But to give me something, and then threaten to sue if I don't use it precisely as you intended, is just utter crap.
That the DMCA allows this sort of nonsense is yet another concrete example of the despicable corruption at the top of the Corporate States of America on both the political and corporate side, and the ever greater price the rest of us are paying for allowing that corruption to continue.
some possible solutions? (Score:2, Insightful)
Another possible solution is for Apple to release their own external FireWire DVD-RW superdrive product and bundle iDVD with it.
There is other software that will work with 3rd party external drives, Final Cut Pro does as far as I know (but I could be wrong).
Also, couldn't Apple allow the sale and installation of Apple branded SuperDrives a Apple stores and authorised dealers as upgrades for G4 Macs? It's not as if there is a shortage of these drives at the moment. That way they could sell them at whatever cost they wanted.
I know these are not great solutions, the best solution would be for Apple to allow this kind of thing to happen and not cripple their software in this way, but hey, it's probably not going to happen.
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Re:Great (Score:4, Insightful)
A - Microsoft doesn't manufacture PCs
B - Microsoft doesn't freely distibute Windows on a PC that they have sold
It's all in the license agreement. iDVD was made and given away for consumers that bought the SuperDrive. It is not Apple's responsibilty to ensure that every DVD burner has software to run it.
Apple does supply software that can use 3rd party burners as a seperate purchase: DVD Studio Pro.
A "crack", but how does the DMCA apply? (Score:3, Insightful)
Kjella
Re:Where's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that's Apple's intention, yes.
Agreed. How eager do you think Apple is to support the sale of their competitor's products?
I'm not disputing that. You're absolutely right, looked at from the right angle, iDVD isn't free - it's included for use with purchased and profit producing Apple DVD hardware.
Ah, but that's where you're wrong. They *are* entitled to make a profit on it if they wrote it to support only their hardware. For what it's worth, they ARE selling it for a profit. By making it compatible only with Apple DVD drives, they're guaranteed that they sell DVD drives for it's use. If you crack the software, you've circumvented that protection and deprived Apple of revenue. To counter the arguments I can already feel coming about "If it didn't support non-Apple drives, I'd never use it, so they're not losing revenue" this is akin to "It's ok to sneak into the movies if I wouldn't have paid for the ticket in the first place." The argument just doesn't hold water, sorry.
Presumably, their business model does allow them to make a profit, assuming that people don't illegally modify their code.
iDVD is not "free" (as in beer or speech) (Score:4, Insightful)
Wether or not you think apple should open it up to work with other DVD burners is irrelevant. Apple worte the software, bundled it with thier DVD burners, and sold it.
The only people who would have access to iDVD besides the people who bought a superdrive are the people who pirated it or people who used to have a superdrive, but now use another burner.
Apple put into the license agreement that you can only use the software on apple approved (read superdrive) dvd burners. Any other usage of the software is against the license agreement.
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!
Re:People Thought Apple Was a Kinder Master than M (Score:5, Insightful)
If you switch to Apple to free yourself of Micrsoft, rather than switching to free(dom) software [FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, whatever], you are merely trading one set of masters for another. Apple may seem to be the kinder master, but it is nevertheless a master. Now it looks like they might not be so kind, after all.
Stop spreading FUD. Someone taking action that limits my Freedom (even using your [FSF] definition) does not make them my master.
Apple & Microsoft are just using their freedoms, which FSF doesn't want them to have, to make money off of people--just like anyone else who's ever had a product, from medical supplies to slaves, has done.
I am not a coder. I only have one computer. I use nothing but widely-supported software, and I have no expectation from OSS to get better support than I do from MS. (RTFM? Bah.) In what way is MS or Apple my hypothetical master that OSS coders would not be?
All the apple spinmeisters would have us believe we're somehow 'stealing' from Apple by not paying their inflated hardware prices, to which I respond "you can't have it both ways."
You are stealing from Apple if you don't use the terms they give you for their software, as surely as you're stealing MS software if you don't pay for it and as surely as you would steal GPL'd software if you violated the GPL.
Apple chooses to be a hardware company, and use software to support that. They are open and up-front about this, so you don't (really) have room to complain. (You can note that the system is wrong / broken / evil, but I don't think that's complaning, that's working to try and change the system.)
Either the software is free (beer) and I'll use it as I damn well please, or it costs money and you'd better charge me a fair market price for it. But to give me something, and then threaten to sue if I don't use it precisely as you intended, is just utter crap.
Free (beer) means no cost, not Freedom (as in FSF/ "speech.") Free (beer) software can and does come with strings attached--it has been this way since the dawn of GNU.
Apple, apparantly, shows everyone who gets the iSuite hardware an EULA, that says (I won't say "clearly" about an EULA until they force term-by-term aknowledgement in plain English) that you can only use it with Apple hardware. If you don't like people getting sued when they use EULA'd software over terms that are in the EULA, then educate them about the dangers of not reading the licenses.
That the DMCA allows this sort of nonsense is yet another concrete example of the despicable corruption at the top of the Corporate States of America on both the political and corporate side, and the ever greater price the rest of us are paying for allowing that corruption to continue.
Get a sense of proportion. Alarmists like you seem to be keep any real change from getting done, because they struggle against any ethical-but-not-moral action as hard as they struggle against not-ethical-and-not-moral act.
The proper response to Apple's iSuite is to OSS it better. If this is not practical, then Apple gets to enjoy their lead until such time as it is, just like every other OSS competitor (MS, WP, etc.)
Advocate and build up if you like OSS. Attacking and tearing down only means that you're destroying the existing house to build one on a pile of sand.
Its an MPEG2 liscencing issue (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this is the first legitmate use of the DMCA in history. Apple should be applauded for the proper use of such laws - not berated for suspected misuse.
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
If you read the license it states that iDVD is freely distributed for AppleSuperDrives only. That means if you use the software on another drive you are breaking the license agreement and therefore "pirating" the software. Just because its on your harddrive doesn't legally mean you can do with it what you please.
Do I believe Apple is being totally fair? No. But do I believe they have the right to protect their software? Yes.
Thats what it all come down to.
Re:Great (Score:1, Insightful)
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObject
the system requirements list an apple with a superdrive but I don't think it's illegal to buy software and try an make it work with your computer if it does not meet the stated requirements.
They bundle it with all new macs regardless of if they have a superdrive (DVD-R) or not eating up more than a gig of customer HD space. It's not a software piracy issue as they basically give it away and treat it like shovel ware.
It's a control issue. Apple has a contract with the DVD consortium on a per "player" basis they interpret as being per drive. They think they need to be dicks like this because of the contracts, when I believe any other DVD-R manufacturer has also had to pay these fees, therefore any customer who has any DVD drive has probably paid the cost perhaps more than once.
So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple put limitations on the FREE software. Apple Bad.
Apple produce the software to make the drives they sell more attractive.
So it's not unreasonable to protect the software, or to try to protect the software - otherwise it loses its purpose and they will simply drop it.
I think what grates with most people is the way they use the law (that
BUT. How the fuck else can they do it? I doubt they leapt straight to the 'cuff 'em' stage. If you use lawyers you use the law.
First sale. Period. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have every right under the doctrine of first sale to sell my CD-ROM of iDVD to anyone who wants it, just as I have the right to sell that goofy one-button mouse that I'll be replacing with a multibutton wireless model.
"Oh, but that's a violation of the license!" Judge Pregerson put it best in his Softman _v_ Adobe ruling: "The Court understands fully why licensing has many advantages for software publishers. However, this preference does not alter the Court's analysis that the substance of the transaction at issue here is a sale and not a license."
Those of you who argue that it is impossible to get a copy of iDVD without buying a SuperDrive-loaded Mac are incorrect. Buy my copy. Those of you who argue that Apple has the right to control how their product is used once they have sold it are incorrect. Those of you who argue that the restriction placed on iDVD use is in any way covered by the DMCA are incorrect.
None of that changes the fact that the company with more money can and will crush the company with less money -- or that the company with less money will fold instantly if its business model requires staying on good terms with the company with more money, which is the case in this particular instance.
It's all a stinking, festering shitpile.
It's not a matter of legal rights (Score:3, Insightful)
I think we can all agree that Apple is within its rights (at least legally) to discourage this sort of thing: it's their software, and they don't want it patched to work on non-Apple hardware, since the whole point of the free software is to sell expensive Apple hardware. Fine, good.
But it's still an ethical crime -- this is a patch to Apple's well-written program to allow it to work on non-Apple DVD burners. You're still using Apple hardware to run iDVD in the first place, for crying out loud -- it may not be the latest and greatest machine (and if it's a slower processor, it may take ages to do the job), but it's still Apple's motherboard.
Saying "Apple sells hardware, not software" is just false, because they charge over $100 for the latest OS and $50 for AppleWorks -- those two just off the top of my head. Even if it were true, it's not a good reason.
Without meaning to paint Slashdotters with a broad brush, I think I can safely say we'd be in a unified uproar if HP or Compaq used the same reason to prevent third-party patches to their included CD or DVD-burning software, or to prevent Linux OSes from accessing the burner altogether.
And we'd be justified in doing so, because once you buy the machine and/or download the software, it's yours to do with as you please. If I have the moral right to back up my CD-ROMs and DVDs using my home computer, I have the same moral right to patch my DVD-burning software to run on any hardware I happen to own.
This is Open and Shut, Really (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's license agreement says that you are not to modify or patch iDVD or distribute any modified binary. Perhaps using the four-letter word in the cease-and-desist was a bit of overkill, but it doesn't change the fact that what they did was a violation of the iDVD license.
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
1. iDVD [apple.com] isn't DVD playing software, it's DVD creation software.
2. You're saying it's abuse to package software with a DVD-Burner that lets a customer actually USE it? That sounds pretty stupid to me.
Okay, here's a scenario. You make hard drives. You develop a bad ass new disk defragmentor (or whatnot), you package it for your drives. It's designed to only work with YOUR hard drives. A competitor comes along, decompiles your sofware and adds in support for their drives, then they start distributing their version of YOUR software (not open source) with their drives. Doesn't that sound a bit like they have hijacked your work?
That's pretty much what's going on here.
Re:First sale. Period. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to hack iDVD to do whatever you want, feel free. But I don't particularly see a problem with Apple asking one of it's retailers to not commercially distribute a patch that does so.
I find it highly ammusing that everybody wants software for free, but then gets into an uproar when the developer tries to have some control over how the software is used. If you have that much of a problem with it, buy some other DVD-authoring software that works with 3rd party drives. Why is this such a big deal?
First version of this story did *not* mention DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020812/120170_1.html
This happened back on August 12th (a tad old to be "news"). Other World Computing's story back then was that Apple *requested* that they drop their software and support (because it violates the iDVD license).
There was *no* mention of the DMCA, and no need to invoke it as Apple's iDVD license is quite clear.
Note that the reference to the DMCA in the article is purely the quote of Other World Computing's president. There is no quote from any document they received from Apple.
Note too that this is the same silly news site that manufactured the "Apple + Sun = true love and Star Office for OS X" story.
Lacking any actual proof, beyond someone's say-so who has an axe to grind, reported on a flaky news site, I'm going to presume that Apple is innocent here.
After all, who would you believe, a company that has taken the RIAA to task over their anti-piracy excesses, or one who tried to capitalize on someone else's hard work in order to compete with them?
I am breaking with tradition, and ending with a quote not from Mothra, but from her friend, Steve Jobs:
"Apple strives to protect the rights of both intellectual property owners and consumers alike and believes there is a 'middle path' in digital music distribution which actively discourages the theft of music, while at the same time preserving consumers rights to manage and listen to their legally acquired music on whatever devices they own,"
Steve Jobs, 2002 Grammy Awards, as reported on http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020227/1/2jun2.html.
Sorry, wrong Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair, this is something that Apple keeps waffeling about. Sometimes it thinks it's a hardware company, and wants file specs to be open. At other times it thinks that it's file formats are the crown jewels. (A silly attitude, if you ask me, but I'm not the one calling the shots.) The result is that Apple tends to offer the worst of both worlds, without reaping the benefits of either.
This action fits right in with the standard schitzo nature of Apple.
Bad article, DMCA confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
With the very sketchy information available, it looks like Apple's actual objection may be conventional (pre-DMCA-style) copyright infringement, where copies of their software (or a derivative work of their software) is being redistributed by Apple dealers. If that is the case, then DMCA is probably relevant only because of the notification mechanism that it created.
DMCA was a pretty big law that covers a lot of topics, and some parts of it are worse than others. The anti-circumvention part is the really goofy part, and shouldn't be confused with the other more reasonable parts.
The notification part of DMCA may be a little iffy because of the guilty-until-proven-innocent abuse that it allows, but the basic idea and motivation behind it was sound and justifiable. (Unlike the anti-circumvention part, which is pure evil created with evil intent.) And then there's other parts that I've never even read, like the stuff about boat hull designs (?!), so I can't say if they're sensible or not. Journalists that are going to report about DMCA-related incidents, need to read up on it, so they don't misreport on it.
I know why Apple is doing this... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I do know why Apple is doing what they are doing. It's really simple, when you consider their hardware provider philosophy. Apples are marketed as being very easy to use, and being very reliable. They don't crash (or so they say). One of the principal reasons why the Microsoft OS's are much more crash-happy then Apple's OS's is because Apple doesn't attempt to make their OS compatable with every piece of hardware under the sun. They don't want third-party DVD burners because some of them won't work, and people with Apples will start complaining about how their systems are crashing.
I think that Apple is much more concerned with potential hardware compatibility issues than anything else, in order to protect the "sanctity" of their OS reliability.
What does this do? It drives out the upgraders. But Apple isn't marketing to the upgraders. They are selling new machines, not an OS like Microsoft does. They see little profit in attempting to reconcile old hardware with a new OS. And yes, while I know the hardware in this case (external DVD burners) is new, the system hardware is likely to be not new, and the DVD burners have not been waved over by Apple engineers.
This, by the way, is not evil. When I bought my Dell Dimension 8100 two years ago, Dell promised me an upgrade to XP for $20. I had to wait an additional six months or so after XP came out to get the upgrade, because Dell put a considerable amount of effort into patching the bios, etc. and updating their software package to ensure that upgrading XP wouldn't fsck my computer. As a result, I have a very reliable computer running XP, which is much more reliable than my HP notebook that came with XP preinstalled. I normally keep the machine on ALL of the time. Most of the time I reboot only because Microsoft Update tells me to (^_^).
Dell's acts here had a similar motiviation as Apple's (protect system reliability). As a user, I certainly preferred Dell's open-system approach, but Apple's closed-system approach is a viable model. If you don't like it, don't buy Apple. It's that simple.
Still doesn't make sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, if Apple was able to avoid paying the fee on iDVD because it pays the fee on the SuperDrive instead, why does it have to pay the fee for DVD Studio Pro? If I purchase a Mac w/SuperDrive, plus a copy of DVD Studio Pro, Apple has paid the fee for me twice; but if I purchase a Mac w/SuperDrive plus iDVD, Apple has paid the fee for me once.
Sounds like handwaving.
this is wrong, the DMCA is still bad law (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess a lot of the folks here saying this okay, this is Apple's right, etc., these people must be big Apple fans.
Well, I'm an Apple fan, and I think this is ridiculous. If you sell or give away a product that's perfectly capable of doing something that's useful to the recipient, and you purposely turn off, or don't enable, that feature for whatever reason, you must be nuts not to expect that someone will figure out how to turn it.
If someone suggested this with regular, non-software items, they'd be laughed out of the boardroom. "You mean if someone discovers that free Apple hammers can hammer ANY nail, not just $3 Apple nails, we sue them for telling how?"
The guy was supplying something that was useful for iDVD owners. Apple was witholding this useful feature because they thought it would make them more money. What obligation do we have to Apple to keep the secret? None. They don't have the obligation to make their products as useful as possible, but that doesn't mean we should be prevented from finding new uses for them.
I don't feel sorry for Apple in this case. Anyone who sells any item should know, someone out there will take it apart and figure out how it works. And then they'll tell everybody else.
Copyright law, including the overbroad DMCA, basically allows companies to profit from keeping these kinds of secrets. Many of these secrets are inside the very products themselves. This means people will find those secrets. Does this seem like a stable, self-organizing free market to you?
Re:First sale. Period. (Score:3, Insightful)
2) As you can probably tell, the poster thinks EULA's are a bunch of hooey. Let's put it this way: They can either sell software like a book (i.e. on shelves in a store), and they have no say about what I do with it after I buy it, or they can make a contract with me specifying what I can do with their software (just like I have a contract for my apartment). They can't have it both ways, that is the whole point of copyright law, it supposed to give *all* the rules for the first method of sale. They can decide to exempt me from some rules, but they can't make up new ones. And unless I signed some piece of paper which both they and I have a copy of, I have a hard time saying that any contract was involved.
e.g. software stores should be set up like this: I go in, some guy explains to me the contract for a particular piece of software, what I can and can't do with it and what updates I am entitled to etc. I then sign it and he burns me a CD with the software that I made a contract for. All clean and nice eh? The bookstore model with a EULA is essentially a bait-and-switch.
Re:First sale. Period. (Score:5, Insightful)
The price for the software license came "bundled" into the total purchase price as well, there's no distinction that any reasonably sane person can determine here. I exchanged a sum of money for a drive, some software, cables, a manual, some styrofoam moulding and a cardboard box, and a portion of the sale value went to the manufacturers of every one of those items.
>> Invoking first sale for a piece of software that comes with your hardware is ludicrous
Keep your laws off my wallet. It's clear that you're out of your damn mind.
>> If I purchase a CD-R with Adaptec Easy CD Creator
Sure you did, and sure you can. You don't think adaptec collected a "license fee" from you on that transaction ? Stop speaking nonsense.
>> what price would YOU set for the standalone iDVD?
Whatever you wanted. We don't have a state-controlled economy yet. You could sell it for $2000 or offer to trade it for a sack of magic beans and a 1997 low-mileage subaru station wagon if you wanted to, and I could dicker you down to $1845 and a case of oriental-flavored ramen. The transaction would be perfectly legal in all cases.
>> Apple also wishes to ensure some quality of the user experience
Apple's wishes have no bearing on how I use things that I've legally purchased. If they don't want me doing things they might not have anticipated with their hard/software, or even things they explicitly disapprove of, then they'd better withdraw their products from the market.
Apple sells computers to RIAA, MPAA, et al. (Score:2, Insightful)
More than any other single computer manufacturer, Apple's hardware and software is associated with content creation and production. In addition to Apple simply protecting license agreements it may have on Superdrive and DVD burning software, I see it also as a bone thrown to the big gorillas to let them know that Apple's on their side.
Remember "Rip, Mix, Burn"? Apple needs to make doubly sure that at some point in the future, the Macintosh itself isn't ruled by some court to be a circumvention device. It needs both the PR and legal record to show that it has acted in good faith WRT copyrighted material.[1] Apple may be behaving evilly here, but it's within a much larger context of what individual entities must do to survive in a legal framework that is horribly bent.
For what it's worth, I personally think that OWC is completely within its (moral) rights to distribute whatever patch it wants, DMCA or no. Instructions are instructions are instructions, compiled, in C++, in Applescript, or in english. If you bought a computer, it's yours to run whatever you want on it. If you wrote a program that does something on a computer, and someone else wants to use that same program, you can give it to them. It's very simple. The DMCA is a travesty.
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