TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs

Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:40:01 -0500

DIGITAL DOMAIN
By RANDALL STROSS

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 it is not.

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

Ms. 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
cellphone 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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/business/yourmoney/14digi.html?ex=1326430800&en=2c5efe51f9d74dd8&ei=5090

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