Apple shut Real out of the iPod

As predicted by James Boyle in August, following the ridiculous dispute between RealNetworks and Apple over Real selling songs for the iPod, Apple have updated the iPod's software. Songs purchased from Real's online retail store will apparently no longer play on the iPod. As James said,

"You could tell it was a bizarre feud by the statement Apple issued, one strangely at odds with the Palo Alto Zen-chic the company normally projects. “We are stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod, and we are investigating the implications of their actions under the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] and other laws.” What vile thing had RealNetworks done? They had developed a program called Harmony that would allow iPod owners to buy songs from Real’s Music Store and play them on their own iPods. That’s it...

Their true sin was trying to understand the iPod so that they could make it do things that Apple did not want it to do. As an ethical matter, is figuring out how things work, in order to compete with the original manufacturers, breaking and entering? In the strange netherland between hardware and software, device and product, the answer is often a morally heartfelt “yes!” I would stress “morally heartfelt”. It is true manufacturers want to make lots of money, and would rather not have competitors...

n the material world, when a razor manufacturer claims that a generic razor blade maker is “stealing my customers” by making compatible blades, we simply laugh. The “hacking” there consists of looking at the razor and manufacturing a blade that will fit. But when information about compatibility is inscribed in binary code and silicon circuits, rather than the moulded plastic of a razor cartridge, our moral intuitions are a little less confident. And all kinds of bad policy can flourish in that area of moral uncertainty...

Though this is an entirely unnecessary, legally created mess there is one nicely ironic note. About 20 years ago, a stylish technology company with a clearly superior hardware and software system had to choose whether to make its hardware platform open, and sell more of its superior software, or whether to make it closed, and tie the two tightly together. It chose closed. Its name: Apple. Its market share, now? About 5 per cent. Of course, back then competition was legal. One wishes that the new generation of copyright laws made it clearer that it still is."

And this is why this kind of drm will ultimately fail.

You'd like an expensive digital music player, sir/madam? Well we have a nice range in stock. What's that? Will it play songs from all the music shops you frequent? Good heavens! What an idea! Of course not! But I can certainly sell you a full range of expensive music players that will probably play songs from an approved selection of the major retailers. Pardon? Oh, seems rather extravagant and nonsensical to need 7 different players, when one should do the job? Oh sir/madam, if I may be so bold, that's a somewhat outdated notion surely? Perhaps with mergers and consolidations we may be down to two or three formats in a few years but the technology does move so quickly you know...