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Apple Watch: RealNetworks Hacks Fairplay; Apple Teams With Motorola
Tuesday, 2004 July 27 - 6:02 pm
Two iTunes developments today, both interesting.

Today RealNetworks announced that they had reverse-engineered the iTunes digital rights management (DRM) scheme, "Fairplay", allowing music bought from Real to be played on Apple iPods. This would be a first; Apple has been highly protective of the iPod/iTunes combination.

Some are expecting Apple to sue RealNetworks here, but it's unlikely Apple has a legal leg to stand on if they claim trade secret violations, as long as Real didn't hack any Apple encryption or steal any source code. Apple might be able to use the DMCA here, but that's iffy as well; after all, Real isn't circumventing the DRM, it's duplicating it. Courts have long been friendly towards reverse engineering efforts, so long as there was no patent infringement or trade secret theft.

One question is: why would Apple care? It doesn't make profit from the iTunes music store. The music store only helps to sell iPods. If more people buy iPods because they can use it with the RealNetworks store, wouldn't Apple encourage that?

The fear may be that if someone can reverse-engineer the iTunes side of the equation, then a clone of the iPod may not be far behind. And that would give Apple cause for concern, because the iPod is a huge cash cow right now.

So with that in mind, the second development is interesting: Apple announced that it will put a mobile version of iTunes onto Motorola's upcoming cell phones. The cell phones would become little iPods, with maybe the capacity to carry a dozen songs and without the stylish iPod cachŽ. The odd thing about this announcement is, would people still carry their iPods if their cell phones could play just enough music? Does this signal that Apple will embrace iTunes licensing on other devices, reversing their long-term strategy of tight hardware-software integration in order to propagate their technology into the mainstream? Gasp! It's almost Microsoftian, gaining a monopoly position and then wielding it to an advantage. It's mind-boggling how out-of-character that would be for Steve Jobs... except that he never fails to surprise his critics. Hmm.
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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

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