“Mac rumor site Thinksecret.com seems quite sure that Apple will announce a video locker strategy of sorts at the January MacWorld show,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS.com. “Though I have written quite a bit about what I believe to be Apple’s emerging media strategy, I have no specific knowledge about this upcoming announcement. That doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t a lot of material to analyze from just the Thinksecret account, which you’ll find among this week’s links.”

“Apple’s take on enhanced Digital Rights Management, according to Thinksecret, is never actually allowing copyrighted bits to be stored on the user’s machine. Instead, when you buy or rent a movie from iTunes, the video will sit on Apple’s server and be accessible to the purchaser or renter in accordance with the rules of that particular transaction. If you don’t have the bits on your machine, the theory goes, you can’t steal them,” Cringely writes.

“There are already software products that can hijack video and audio streams in real time as they play and though Apple can work to defeat those, it will probably be a losing cause. Still, with FairPlay on top of this locker strategy, Apple has something better than what’s being offered by its competition. Movie studios are eager for new revenue sources and Apple has the mojo, so we’ll probably see a bunch of movie studio announcements to this effect in January,” Cringely writes. “But we’re not there yet. What really bothers me about this Thinksecret item is how they finesse the language of what’s actually happening from a technical standpoint. Yes (if the item is correct at all) the movies will stay on a server somewhere. Yes, they’ll be played on your PC or Mac. And yes, they’ll never be stored there because of some clever Apple caching technology. But what does all this come down to, really? Streaming.”

“Streaming likes to have as much bandwidth as possible RIGHT NOW. To make streaming of high-bandwidth content as painless as possible, Apple would need the kind of distributed architecture I’ve been describing at Google. Maybe Apple has that, but if they do, nobody has told me,” Cringely writes. “There are ways around this technically. Maybe Apple is using the Akamai network or its equivalent. Maybe the distribution system leverages peer-to-peer in the same manner as BitTorrent. Maybe there is some secret technology Apple will pull out from behind Door Number Three. But whatever technical solution Apple presents, the company will still have a LEGAL problem.”

“No matter how I look at it, this supposed Apple announcement clearly bumps into the claims of little Burst.com and its nearly 40 video distribution patents. Burst has been quiet lately, which could mean something or nothing. Certainly, they haven’t announced that Apple has bought a license like Microsoft did last year for $60 million. If Apple introduces this video service as described but without a license, Burst will undoubtedly try to shut it down,” Cringely writes. “So if you believe the rumor, then look for an Apple/Burst announcement. I’m not sure yet what I believe.”

There is much more in Cringely’s full article here.

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Related article:
RUMOR: Apple to debut new distribution system, partners for feature-length, TV, and video in January – December 02, 2005