RealNetworks to Apple: Our music will run on your player now

26 Jul 04 05:46 by Crabbyappleton in category Uncategorized To news archive

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Real is supposed to make an announcement on Monday, declaring the ability of their music to be played on an iPod. Apparenty, they have unlocked some of the DRM technology behind the worlds most popular player. In addition, this is just one facet of some new software they have created that will allow them to sell music that is compatible with a variety of different players, including microsoft compatible rivals.

They named the software of all things, Harmony. Somehow I don’t think this is going to create much around the Apple compound. According to this C|Net article, Harmony does a pretty good job of simulating the DRM from an iTune so the iPod will accept it and send it happily to those white earbuds. This is not going to go over well with Steve Job’s, because he hasn’t wanted to let other music companies license an iPod compatibility.

What’s going to be fun to watch is, RealNetworks didn’t ask permission to unleash their iPod fooling software either.

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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.

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>Although the company said this action wasn’t technically “reverse engineering,” the software could trigger intense legal scrutiny.

The license accompanying Apple’s iPod says purchasers cannot “copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, (or) attempt to derive the source code of” the software.

Well, let’s stay tuned to this one, as we have to expect some intense posturing and gnashing of teeth this coming week. You can read the entire story from C|Net right here. Check out this quote from Larry Kenswil, president of Universal Music’s eLabs. He really rubs some salt in the wound!

“Up to now, the world of downloads has been far too close to a world where the CD you buy in one store wouldn’t play on the CD player you bought in another,” Larry Kenswil, president of Universal Music’s eLabs division, said in a statement. “We applaud RealNetworks’ efforts to help correct this situation and appeal to all people and companies in this area to work toward a world of universal interoperability.”

I have never been much of a Real fan, but this makes me smile. You just have to love it when a DRM falls apart.

Source: C|Net

10 Comments

SupremeCheddar: Posts: 139; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 06:09

I will never understand how realnetworks even got this far. It's one of those weirder tech companies that just won't die.
[edited by SupremeCheddar on 26.07.2004 06:09]

Spitfire_x86: Posts: 99; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 07:09

Real must die.

TexasGuy: Posts: 188; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 10:54

Let them entertain us. I bet Apple is pissed. I'd be. Like making a clone of IBM bios and saying it was not reversed engineered. Right...

BadReligionPR: Posts: 1222; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 15:06

Can't Apple just release a firmware update after like 3 months, and screw over all the Real users?

darkpepe: Posts: 27; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 17:28

Anything but MP3 is shit, don't bother...

roadworker: Posts: 749; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 19:58

This is funny...... If a simple person does the same for getting maximum compatibility and removing restrictions on his devices,it's called "cracking" .......if a big company does the same,it's called "universal interoperability" What a joke....:B

petera: Posts: 892; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 21:13

There still breaking the law under the DCMA arn't they? I can't see Apple's problem with FairPlay. Let them licence it and you can get the royalties from some one elses hard work. Seems simple to me.....
[edited by petera on 26.07.2004 21:13]

quantumdesign: Posts: 7; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 21:27

Yes, this is a violation of the DMCA. But more important is the fact that the CEO of RealNetworks is the single biggest individual political contributor this year, and his money is going directly to the co-sponsors of the INDUCE Act, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, Barbara Boxer, and Patrick Leahy. Even if these guys ARE breaking DRM, it's only to cover the fact that they're also trying to steal your VCR.

tranceaddict: Posts: 106; Posted on: 26 Jul 04 23:12

i agree with above poster. how in the hell has real stayed in business all these years?

Mgz: Posts: 219; Posted on: 27 Jul 04 12:55

OK, kid, here is the deal (from HA.org)

Quote:

As you know, the RealNetworks music store sells songs in 192 kbps AAC (as opposed to iTMS at 128 kbps). When transferring your purchased songs to the iPod, the AAC itself is not touched, but the Helix DRM is transmuxed to the DRM used by the iPod, i.e. fully protected and without trans-coding. If you then transfer the file back to your PC (for instance with Anapod), you get an M4P file, that is a protected MPEG-4 AAC file.

You guy jumped into conclusion too soon. I dun like Real either but I have to admit that they're becoming nicer than they used to be. They remove spyware from Real7/8, support Vorbis/Theora/Ogg, GPL'ed Helix Core Player,etc
[edited by Mgz on 27.07.2004 12:56]

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RealNetworks to Apple: Our music will run on your player now

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