“What do you get when one company aligns with another company, against the second company’s will? You get a situation resembling the story that broke Monday, when Real Networks debuted its Harmony software, which lets users of Real’s digital-music service play their downloads on a number of new devices, most notably Apple’s iPod,” Eric Hellweg writes for CNN/Money.
“‘There’s probably a certain amount of broken furniture at Apple headquarters,’ says Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research… Apple may yet decide to challenge Harmony in court, but it should carefully think through the consequences: Harmony may actually prove beneficial to Apple and the industry as a whole,” Hellweg writes.
“Obviously, this isn’t the way Apple wanted to let people into its iPod system, and it forces the company to face a crossroads that wasn’t in Steve Jobs’s master plan. The question the company now must answer is, is it strategically more important to preserve its closed system, or is the iPod the future profit machine for the company,” Hellweg writes. “‘They need [an answer] that doesn’t sound anti-consumer and yet preserves the system they’ve built for themselves,’ Bernoff says. ‘I can’t think of a response that satisfies both of those requirements.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple should drop kick Real ASAP and nip this in the bud. What Real did sounds illegal; perhaps it’ll be up to the courts to decide, but Apple could require a firmware update and immediately stop ‘Harmony” in its “tracks,” so to speak.
I want my mp3 player to play music I purchase from ANY online store. I hope Harmony survives but I don’t hold out any hope for that. I do think, however, that now that iPod consumers know freedom is possible, they will want it (at least those not suffering from Tech-Stockholm Syndrome).
Listening to: The Walkmen, “We’ve Been Had.”
Apple should walk up to real with a threat of lawsuit under the DMCA, and give them an option of legally getting a license for fairplay, with a small fine(or a larger license fee)
That way Apple can either show the world the evil of the DCMA, or expand their ong collections, and their marketshare.
Real get’s what it wants one way, the other Real is gone. But Real is gone if it doesn’t hook up with apple anyway. So for Real it’s crunch time.
i actually Hope Apple licenses Fairplay, I would rather have Fairplay DRM over WMA DRM. Like a presidential election it’s the lesser of to evils.
Perhaps its a push in the right direction but Real should not be allowed to survive after blatantly breaking the law.
what real did is just stupid. no matter how bad you want to liscense some kind of technology, you have to get permission, you can’t just go out there and find a work around, especially under the DMCA. I don’t fully agree with the DMCA, but hey, it’s the law right now so as a large corporation, you should follow it. If apple doesn’t go after real ASAP, what sort of precedent woudl that set? What if someone did this to M$? Don’t you think they’d sue the pants off them?
I agree with MDN – but Apple might have a tough time of it in court. What’s the difference, for example, between what VirtualPC does and what Harmony does?
Microsoft sells a copy of WIndows with every copy of Virtual PC. Not to mention that MS now owns VPC.
For one thing, Virtual PC does require a copy of Windows.
Personally, I don’t know if Real broke the law, that’s for the courts to decide. But there definitely is a pro-consumer reason for Apple to disable Harmony.
Let’s say Apple just lets Real go and disribute Harmony and lots of people use different music stores on their iPod.
Apple doesn’t know how the underlying Harmony technology works and Real doesn’t know how iPod’s operating system works.
Apple releases an iPod update completely unrelated to Harmony. People who have Harmony-based music on their iPods have their iPods lockup. Who foots the bill for their repair? Apple. People will blame Apple for not having ease of use and for their iPods being defective.
In light of this, for competitive reasons I think Apple should shut down Harmony but license Fairplay. Once people know they can use other music stores they may not want to go back. Apple will get the licensing fees and hopefully ensure full iPod compatability and Fairplay NOT Harmony will become the defacto standard.
I agree with Jiaqi Li.
I also have another question that has been bothering me: How many times have you heard, or said yourself, that you want to be able to buy a song from the RealPlayer Music Store, or Napster, or Musicmatch, or OD2, or My Coke, or Wal*Mart?
Since any of these stores have opened, I cannot recall ANYONE ever saying that they want to buy from a different store. Why complain now??
My above question relates to the time BEFORE Harmony came out, not after.
Though Real has taken the dirty route to get into the iPod market, I think that Apple doesn’t need to make itself look like an arse while defending its crown jewel. I fear backlash from the otherside if Apple is made to look like the bad guy. You and I both know that C|Net will be all over this just to make Apple look bad, I mean, look at the latest article on ” What will the next iMac look like?”, they’re really picking on Apple with quoting John Doe users and all. In short, C|Net goes out of their way to make Apple look bad if the opportunity knocks.
I just hope Apple does the right thing.
VirtualPC doesn’t require a copy of Windows: it emulates a PC, not a Windows system, so you can install any OS in it, be it Windows, Unix, OS/2, whatever.
Also: what Real has managed to do is the equivalent of Compaq cloning the IBM PC BIOS, and all of you know how important that was long term.
My hope is that Real can get away with it.
A couple of thoughts:
1. Real claims they did not reverse engineer. They claim they used publicly available sources – likely things like playfair and hymn – to figure out the Fairplay DRM.
2. Even if Real is found to have reverse engineered, there is some legal precedent for “reverse engineering for the purpose of compatibility”, which is what Real will claim. Razor blades and printer cartridges come to mind (Lexmark sued over the latter). There really hasn’t been many cases over this issue so the precedent is not solid. However, there is no legal precedent for licensing to others the technology developed through reverse engineering, which Real is thinking about doing.
So an Apple suit is not a sure win for Apple. I think that’s why Apple is still investigating the legal implications.
Juanxer,
You completely missed the point. The point is that Virtual PC by itself gets you nothing. You still need to get a copy of an OS.
Even before MS owned Virtual PC, every copy of Virtual PC sold to emulate Windows came with a real copy of Windows – certificate of authenticity and all. So MS still received payment.
Harmony does not require a copy of Apple’s Fairplay.
If you own an iPod, why do you want to buy from Real? There’s one thing, though, that Real has and Apple doesn’t: a subscription service. Some people may want this option, as it let them try out different music before actually buying them. Also, Real uses a higher bitrate AAC. So Apple should add these two things to its store (an optional subscription service and use a higher bitrate AAC) and only then can Apple really pose the question: Why would anyone go Real? Steve has said again and again that people want to own their music. Granted, but some want to get familiar with music first (and iTunes is a far better place to do this than listening to radio) and then buy the music.
Apple has always been, and will always be…”Anti-Consumer”
Kev, what about the fact that in the license agreement, Apple FORBIDS reverse engineering. Isn’t that breaking the contract?
Either way, this is a last ditch attempt by a 10th tier company to make a name for itself.
Apple should smack them around.
How so ‘MacMan’
I’m for Apple putting a successful kabash on Real for this. I can see problems developing down the line when the iPod can’t play Harmony-based songs.
I do wish, however, that Apple would open up to some other formats such as Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, while also licensing out its Fairplay. More options would be a good thing, and there will be plenty of independent artists out there that will peddle their songs sans iTMS. MP3 is fine, but it’s old. Adopt the new open source formats!
Chomper, you have to buy a song from iTMS for the contract (license agreement) to take effect. Real claims not to have used any song bought from the iTMS in creating Harmony.
MacMan, if anti-consumer means making things significantly easier and more pleasing to use then by all means what you said is true. Companies that poorly design their products – like pitchers that drip when you pour, fitted bedsheets that don’t fit, cars that have poor reliability, software that is full of bugs and difficult to use – those are the real anti-consumer companies. They sell you low-cost products that are truly cheap. (Have you heard that ad from Hotwire about cheap hotels and hotels that are cheap?)
I recently took my Titanium Powerbook in to an Apple store because a key broke off the keyboard. They fixed it for free when they could’ve charged at least 10 dollars. That’s not anti-consumer.
And giving you goodies, like an iPod case, for missing a shipping date is not anti-consumer.
Apple has always been, and will always be…”Anti-Consumer”
Actually, “Anti-Consumer” would be more fitting to Microsoft’s personality!
Connectix offered copies of VirtualPC with other OSes such as Linux. And I think they offered “zombie” OS-less VPCs, too. But yes, I see your point.
As a matter of principle, I hate the idea of putting fenced gardens in the mp3 player market. Because of Apple and everyone else’s politics, I intend not to use anything but hi bitrate LAME Mp3 until non-DRMed AAC becomes popular. And then I’d rather buy CDs that I’ll always be able to rip to any format than be taken prisoner by any brand.
What Real has done actually eases the DRM pain, and somehow becomes the equivalent of that “Liberty whatever” accord amongst companies that wanted e-Identity validation without being taken prisoner by Microsoft’s Passport.
Of course, they have gone Lone Ranger in this, and they have done it for their own selfish reasons, but I for one am grateful that they have opened this little Pandora’s Box.
On the Fairplay DRM licensing issue with Apple, their position is obvious and very calculated so far. They are the market leader and as such their number 1 goal is to build market saturation not only with consumers but also within the industry. And they are doing a brilliant job thus far. When the time comes for true competition in the market, it’s imperative that you have an “ace in the hole.” Apple’s is Fairplay. When the time is right (Microsoft’s product release or a new player in the field) and Apple’s market share has stagnated; that is when you make Fairplay technology available to everyone along with a new “unforeseen” use for it. That sends all your competion back to the labs and solidifies your leader status in the marketplace.
What is the big deal? What kind of CHUMP would buy an iPod and start using iTunes and WANT to use another service?!
Harmony from a user’s perspective:
1. We can acquire 192k encoded songs for 99 cents.
Tradeoff is disk space (and battery consumption). In any case, we can do this now if we buy the CD, but how many of us rip at 192k?
2. We can access additional songs.
Does anyone know how many songs are on Real that are not on iTMS?
3. We have an alternative to iTMS, the threat of which will keep Apple in-line (pricing, songs, quality, etc) and innovative.
The real threats to Apple are CDs, p2p, and convenience.
4. We can listen to Helix DRM-protected songs from Real on the iPod and WMA players.
Risk: Harmony needs to be updated whenever Fairplay or WMA changes in order for us to keep listening to Helix DRM-protected songs on the iPod and WMA players. If Real goes away, who will update Harmony? I guess we can assume someone will buy it and maintain it.