Real Networks Hacks iPod; .rm & Real Store for iPod 456
alphakappa writes "According to Cnet, Real Networks is expected to announce on Monday that it has found a way to make its songs play on the iPod. Now songs bought from the RealPlayer Music Store can be played on the iPod. Earlier Real had made it possible for songs bought from iTunes to be played on RealPlayer by transparently starting the iTunes authentication in the background. However since Apple has not licensed the technology to make file formats playable on the iPod, the latest Real initiative could be construed as reverse engineering. How would this fare under the DMCA? Or is it just for the tiny ones?"
Not Exactly Reverse Engineering? (Score:2, Informative)
See BBC (Score:2, Informative)
The program mimics Apple's copy protection software, so Real says it has not infringed Apple's intellectual property rights by developing it.
Sounds like copyright circumvention to me. Maybe Real will get their comeuppance for their old spyware years after all.
The DMCA explicitely permits reverse engineering (Score:4, Informative)
The only time reverse engineering is illegal under the DMCA is when it is used for making infringing copies.
Get your IP law straight (Score:5, Informative)
The only problem that I might see is a license violation for every user that installs these songs onto their iPod. After all, the iPod has a software license, I'm sure, that limits use, and it will be interesting to see if Real is breaking that contract. I don't know how they are binding the Helix copy protection to the iPod without installing software on top of the iPod, but if they have found a legitimate work-around, I congratulate them.
Re:The DMCA explicitely permits reverse engineerin (Score:4, Informative)
i don't particularly agree with this, but i reckon this is what apple's take on it would be.
Re:The DMCA explicitely permits reverse engineerin (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The DMCA explicitely permits reverse engineerin (Score:5, Informative)
Also from chilling effects:
The resulting program must only interoperate with the reverse engineered software, however, and cannot interoperate with the technologically protected content (movie, book, video game, etc.) itself.
Seems that Real must have run afoul of this at some point in their quest to work with Apple's DRM.
Crappy quality anyway... (Score:2, Informative)
So all they reverse engineered is how FairPlay finds keys to do AES?
Re:Not Exactly Reverse Engineering? (Score:5, Informative)
The key in the cleanroom approach is that you already know how the copyrighted work... works. That would be after any reverse engineering, or if you happened to somehow have copyrighted sourcecode or schematics, etc.
Re:Possibility? (Score:5, Informative)
For the uneducated and uninformed... (Score:5, Informative)
Considering both use AAC, maybe it was simply a matter of fooling the ipod into thinking Helix DRM was PlayFair DRM. And even though Real's choice of AAC seemed strange way back when RP10 was released, I think now it's starting to become clear why they chose that...
Strategically, this doesn't seem out of place with what Real's been doing recently. They seem to want to become the endall beall solution for Internet media: releasing Helix Player under GPL, making RealPlayer able to play QT, ITMS, and WM in the same player, and now this.
Press release & Public Beta (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What possible reason...? (Score:3, Informative)
>software license on the iPod,
WHat makes you think that Real have aquired a license (I think the article said they had not) and then broken/violated it? If they do NOT have it or have agreed to it, they can't possible violate it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What possible reason...? (Score:3, Informative)
There are some companies you can piss off, and Apple isn't really one of them here.
Re:For the uneducated and uninformed... (Score:5, Informative)
According to the CNET article, the system will "change the song into Windows Media format if necessary," so in that case it sounds like it's doing a transparent reencode of the track, which isn't much different from burning it to CD and reripping it yourself, except they slap on some Microsoft DRM for you.
If you've got a palm OS 5 machine, it sounds like it'll stay as a Helix DRMed file, since those PDAs already had a native realplayer.
For the ipod: "Harmony also will automatically change songs into an iPod-compatible format. But because Apple has not licensed its FairPlay copy-protection software to anyone, RealNetworks executives said its engineers had to re-create their own version in their labs in order to make the device play them back."
Considering that Real and Apple players already used AAC to begin with, as long as they don't do any reencoding those players will probably have the best quality. That all depends though; seeing as how Real already knows how to manipulate itunes into letting realplayer play ITMS files, this might succeed by manipulating QT/itunes into reripping the original AAC file, though I doubt it; that would take too much time and I don't even know if it's possible.
Re:Apple Stick it to them (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The DMCA explicitely permits reverse engineerin (Score:5, Informative)
Who modded this guy +5 informative??? He's wrong.
TITLE 17 CHAPTER 12 Sec. 1201. (f) [cornell.edu] says:
Reverse Engineering. -
(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
To break that apart:
circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program
It ONLY applies to decrypting a program! And only to specific protions of the program at that. Any circumvention relating to music or any other sort of file is still criminal!
sole purpose of [] interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs
For the sole puprose of getting programs to talk to each other.
to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title
That is NOT a positive statement saying non-infringment is legal. It is a negative statement narrowing what is legal - to additionally exclude anything involving infringment.
So what it really says is that if Microsoft were to encrypt they webserver software, you could decrypt the rerquired portions of that software for the purpose of getting Netscape and Opera browsers to work to be able to communicate with it (so long as you don't infringe their software copyright while you're at it).
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Re:Apple should let them fail in public (Score:3, Informative)
How about the Belkin battery pack [belkin.com]?
Re:What possible reason...? (Score:3, Informative)
I reckon the libertarian party is a lot more likely to eliminate unnecessary expansions of government than the greens or any "left wing" group.
Re:What possible reason...? (Score:5, Informative)
One could say that, but then one would be wrong. Apple didn't attempt to reverse engineer the BSD sources-- they already had the sourcecode, along with a license giving them the legal right (but not the obligation) to modify and redistribute the OS.
Apple did not see fit to apply an open source license to the ipod. Consequently, a great many reverse engineering schemes might be regarded by the federal courts as a infringement.
Software licenses "work" because the act of installing a program (or even of loading a program into memory) itself violates the prohibition on duplicating a copyrighted work. If the user agrees to the license, he is allowed to perform these rather prosaic tasks, but his legal rights in other areas may be further restricted.
This is not a violation (Score:3, Informative)
This is NOT a violation of the DMCA. They are not offering a tool to decrypt AAC...they are encrypting the music, just like Apple does. There is nothing in the DMCA that says they cannot encrypt files.
In addition, check out the verbage of the DMCA, which allows this:
1201(f)(2) - Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
Looks to me there is not much Apple can do about this one
Re:Possibly legal, not Exactly Reverse Engineering (Score:5, Informative)
But Open Source and DRM -- at least, not the corporations' idea of DRM -- don't sit well together. The power to control what works and what does not work lies with the eventual user (who has the source code and the decryption key), not the supplier. A user could lock out certain suppliers, but not the other way round. So, say, picking some names at random
The only reason why Apple's, and Microsoft's, proprietary DRM systems "seem" to work {there are holes you could get a bus through, sideways. Mic trained on speaker? Analogue line-in? Logic analyser on PCI bus listening out for digital data meant to go to sound card? USB protocol analyser prtending to be USB sound card?} is because the source code is hidden from the users. The security is entirely dependent on the idea of making it difficult -- not impossible -- for the user to decrypt the file other than by running a particular program, supplied by the content vendor, which has a limited user interface that restricts its functionality. Hell, you don't even need the full source code; just the right portion will do.
My point is, once you give a user the source code to the player and the encryption key, then the user is in charge. {Of course, even a closed-source player running under Linux -- assuming anybody would tolerate such a thing -- would be vulnerable to a hijack of
How this thing works... (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, it reads the AAC file to get a user identifier. This user ID is equated with a key stored in a file on the iPod itself. This user key allows it to decrypt the encrypted AAC file, which it then plays.
So if you have an encrypted AAC file (these use AES encryption, I believe), then all you have to do to get the iPod to play it is to a) put the key in the right place and b) suitably munge the AAC file so as to enable the iPod to work out which key it needs to use. Part A is simply a matter of putting the key into the right file, part B is messing with several key headers in the "M4P" file itself.
In other words, it's not particularly difficult to take an AES encrypted AAC file, to which you know the key, and munge the file to get it to play on the iPod without actually decrypting the thing and without transcoding.
That's if they wanted to preserve the file's encryption. If they didn't much care, they could just as easily decrypt the thing and write out an M4A file, unencrypted. The iPod could play that just fine too, without messing with the iPod keyring file.
Re:What possible reason...? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Possibility? (Score:4, Informative)
This is why FairPlay is listed in Apple's Trademark List [apple.com]
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What possible reason...? (Score:3, Informative)
Ehh, you mean th elaw says that the store has to present me with a license in the shop if I want to buy an iPod???? If you don't agree to any license when you buy the iPod, then there is none, regardless of if there is any software on the iPod or not. Just as I don't have to agree to any license when I buy a TV set, despite it most certainly have software somewere on some components.
>Presumably the only way to get past it to load
>Linux was by clicking OK
As far as I see, that is someone forcing you into accepting an agreement, such agreements are generally not enforcable. Imagine me visiting you and placing a piece of paper on your kitchen table stating that if you remove it you agree to
Re:What possible reason...? (Score:3, Informative)
Argh. This meme has got to die. From 17 USC 117 [cornell.edu]:
In other words, you are not violating copyright simply by running a program that you've bought, and thus you don't need a license to do so.
Re:What possible reason...? (Score:3, Informative)
Read your copyright law again.
Title 17 USC, Chapter 1.
Sec. 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
In other words, loading a program in memory does not, as you put it, "violate the prohibition on duplicating a copyrighted work".
I'm not a lawyer, but... (Score:2, Informative)