Sun, Jan 14, 2007 page12

• Apple's FairPlay standard anything but fair: analysts

  Some say the copyright system for the iPhone and iPod is `crippleware' that serves Apple's interests alone

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  Steve Jobs, Apple's showman nonpareil, provided the first public glimpse of the iPhone last week -- gorgeous, feature-laden and pricey.

  While following the master magician's gestures, it was easy to overlook a most disappointing aspect; Like its slimmer iPod siblings, the iPhone's music-playing function will be limited by factory-installed "crippleware."

  If "crippleware" seems an unduly harsh description, it balances the euphemistic names that the industry uses for copy protection. Apple officially calls its own standard FairPlay, but fair is one thing it is not.

  

  Jeff Gamet, from the Internet magazine ``The Mac Observer,'' looks at the new Apple iPhone at the MacWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco on Wednesday.

  PHOTO: AP

  The term "crippleware" comes from the plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit, Melanie Tucker versus Apple Computer Inc, that is making its way through a US District Court in California. The suit contends that Apple unfairly restricts consumer choices because it does not load onto the iPod the software needed to play music with Microsoft's copy-protection standard, in addition to Apple's own.

  Tucker's core argument is that the absence of another company's software on the iPod constitutes "crippleware."

  I disagree. It is Apple's own copy-protection software itself that cripples the device.

  Here is how FairPlay works: When you buy songs at the iTunes Music Store, you can play them on one -- and only one -- line of portable player, the iPod. And when you buy an iPod, you can play copy-protected songs bought from one -- and only one -- online music store, the iTunes Music Store.

  The only legal way around this built-in limitation is to strip out the copy protection by burning a CD with the tracks, then uploading the music back to the computer. If you're willing to go to that trouble, you can play the music where and how you choose -- the equivalent to rights that would have been granted automatically at the cash register if you had bought the same music on a CD in the first place.

  Even if you are ready to pledge a lifetime commitment to the iPod as your only brand of portable music player or to the iPhone as your only cell phone once it is released, you may find that FairPlay copy protection will, sooner or later, cause you grief.

  You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever. Because your iTunes will not play on anyone else's hardware.

  Unlike Apple, Microsoft has been willing to license its copy-protection software to third-party hardware vendors. But copy protection is copy protection: a headache only for the law-abiding.

  Microsoft used to promote its PlaysForSure copy-protection standard, but there must have been some difficulty with the "for sure" because the company has dropped it in favor of an entirely new copy-protection standard for its new Zune player, which, incidentally, is incompatible with the old one.

  Pity the overly trusting customers who invested earlier in music collections before the Zune arrived. Their music can not be played on the new Zune because it is locked up by software enforcing the earlier copy-protection standard.

  The name for the umbrella category for copy-protection software is itself an indefensible euphemism: Digital Rights Management. As consumers, the "rights" enjoyed are few.

  Some wags say the initials DRM should really stand for "Digital Restrictions Management."

  As consumers become more aware of how copy protection limits perfectly lawful behavior, they should throw their support behind the music labels that offer digital music for sale in plain-vanilla MP3 format.

  Apple pretends that the decision to use copy protection is out of its hands. Apple's lawyers noted in passing that digital-rights-management software is required by the major record companies.

  "Without DRM, legal online music stores would not exist," they said.

  In other words, the fault is the music companies', not Apple's.

  This claim requires willful blindness to the presence of online music stores that eschew copy protection. For example, one online store, eMusic, offers 2 million tracks from independent labels that represent about 30 percent of worldwide music sales.

  Unlike the four major labels -- Universal, Warner Music Group, EMI and Sony BMG -- the independents provide eMusic with permission to distribute the music in plain MP3 format.

  EMusic recently celebrated the sale of its 100 millionth download; it trails only iTunes as the largest online seller of digital music.

  Among the artists who can be found at eMusic are Barenaked Ladies, Sarah McLachlan and Avril Lavigne, who are represented by Nettwerk Music Group, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. All Nettwerk releases are available at eMusic without copy protection.

  But when the same tracks are sold by the iTunes Music Store, Apple insists on attaching FairPlay copy protection.

  Terry McBride, Nettwerk's chief executive, said that the artists initially required Apple to use copy protection, but that this was no longer the case. At this point, he said, copy protection serves only Apple's interests.

  Josh Bernoff, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, said that copy protection "just locks people into Apple."

  He said he had recently asked Apple when the company would remove copy protection and was told, "We see no need to do so."

  David Pakman, the CEO of eMusic, said the major labels have watched their revenues decline about US$10 billion since a 2001 peak.

  Meanwhile, revenue earned by independents has held steady. McBride predicted major labels would finally drop copy protection to provide iPod owners the option of online music stores other than iTunes this year.
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