Apple gets its due in BluWiki DMCA spat
Apple has benefited heavily from open-source software over the years, and it has earned a warm spot in the hearts of open-source advocates, despite its heavily proprietary stance.
With BluWiki, however, Apple appears to have gone too far.
In November 2008, as CNET's Tom Krazit wrote on Monday, Apple wrote to the BluWiki administrators to have iPodHash, an open-source program that attempts to enable iPods and iPhones to sync with music software other than Apple's iTunes, removed from the Web site. Apple argues that iPodHash violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by actively seeking to circumvent Apple's iTunes copyrights.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, however, begs to differ. It has launched a lawsuit against Apple, as PC World reports, and seeks a "declaratory judgment action to vindicate the free-speech interests of Internet readers and publishers," according to the EFF's complaint (PDF).
After all, this isn't really about DMCA circumvention, as the EFF's Fred von Lohmann declares. It's about a Web site's right to allow others to post information related to legal, fair use-protected actions. Frankly, it's ultimately about the right to open information, and, tangentially, about open-source software.
Von Lohmann explains:
This is the first time I've seen a company suggest that simply talking about reverse engineering violates the DMCA. All of the previous cases have been cases that involved actual successful reverse-engineered tools.
Apple, in its sometimes-rabid desire to control everything to do with its brand and technology, appears to have overstepped its legal authority in the BluWiki case. Apple argues that it's about much more than the right to have online discussions about reverse engineering, suggesting in a letter to the EFF (PDF) that the iPodHash software could be used to break Apple's FairPlay copy protection system.
I love Apple's technology. I love its brand. I could do without its heavy-handed attempts to protect technology that its own recent actions suggest is heading toward extinction, with DRM-free music now the norm on iTunes.
Apple is a great company because it makes compelling, beautiful products. It's not Apple because it beats up on administrators of discussion forums. At least, I hope not.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
The costs of copyright enforcement or patent protection are the burden of the copyright holder or patent holder. DCMA is a bad law, but it is stupid to say that anyone who petititions or sues for compliance of it acts as an "arm of the Government."
Do you have any respect for the police?
Damn straight I've got respect for the police. They do a crap job and have people like you giving them a hard time about it.
@Perry_Clease
Damn straight I've got respect for the police. They do a crap job and have people like you giving them a hard time about it."
Are you responding my comment or the one made by someone using the handle "shootthecops"
If you read the letter from Apple http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/odio_v_apple/Exhibit%20F.pdf you will notice that Apple has used the same technique in FairPlay and to lock users into ITunesDB. Breaking the latter wouldn't be a violation of the DMCA. However, since Apple cleverly linked the two, you can't work towards one without the other, making the latter a violation of the DMCA. Apple has abused the DMCA to allow it to threaten anyone who attempts to offer syncing outside of ITunes to maintain their tight grip on the digital music market.
For those using Linux, the fact that there is no ITunes, so users have few alternatives to reverse engineering. For those using Windows, ITunes is a clunky, slow resource hog that automatically installs unwanted software (Quicktime, Safari). Yet the user has no choice in the matter.
It's a real shame that Apple can cripple competition for music management software, reducing innovation in the market.
- by Arthur Belle Dent April 28, 2009 7:34 PM PDT
- So its ok to be total di**s like Apple as long as you make cool toys but its
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(13 Comments)not ok to be total di**s if you make crappy stuff like Vista?
Wow, its like high school all over again. The prettier girls get a lot more leaway.
I think there is a word for that. Oh yeah,.. its 'shallow'.
Btw, I have never needed my desktops and laptops to be pretty, just functional.
But then again, I've never attached myself to a 'lifestyle' because of hardware.
As a geek, technology is something I use, not who I am.
Once I buy a piece of hardware, I can do with it what I want. I can puree it in a blender, use it as a hammer or try to get something else like Rockbox or IpodLinux to work on it.
In my spare time, my friends and I have put a V8 engine in a VW hippie van (because we could) and converted a station wagon to run on hemp oil and another on recycled cooking oil.
Whether Volkwagen or Toyota likes it or not makes no difference.
PS: I received an Ipod as a gift from a client and I use it to backup for my music but never use it for a variety of reasons. I use Rockbox for the few times I do.