Love the iTunes Music Store but hate iPods and iTunes itself? Don’t fret as their are many options for you such as GTK Pod or Amarok just to get the juices flowing. We all know Apple loves their walled garden approach to the products and is now getting yet another lawsuit because of it. This time it cetners around BlueWiki getting a DMCA violation claim from the almighty fruit stating that their site, which reverse engineers the iPod/iTunes code in order to develop 3rd party progams to sync you iPod with, is in direct violation of copyright clauses within the DMCA. Naturally Apple wants you to only use iTunes because it is the best. No software is ever the best at anything, merely a favorite or one that holds popular majority, but never “the best”. The fighting is about to get uglier as the EFF has sued Apple over their legal threats stating that they are operating well within the law and that Apple has no right to dictate how a person syncs his or her iPod, or even if reverse engineering is illegal. Care to explore? You know what to click.
Now, while the iTunes ToS states that reverse engineering is prohibited, it is merely an “agreement” between the manufacturer (Apple) and the purchaser (you), not an actual legal restriction. Not to mention, since the iTunesDB file, the file responsible for all of this hating going on, is a user created file. Usually, the creator of something holds the copyright. Therefore, Apple couldn’t and shouldn’t be able to claim the copyright on a file that *you* created. Also, since none of these iTunes files are encrypted, there is no encryption circumvention going on. End of case! Some might question and argue that they have a right due to the fact that they own the file structure that the user uses as a “medium” for their music. However, when I hear “structure”, I think file format. Last time I checked AAC is a completely open format. Remember, Apple had absolutely no hand in developing that format, that credit goes to companies such as Fraunhofer IIS, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Dolby, Sony Corporation and Nokia…notice Apple is no where to be seen?! So if the file format is what they mean by structure, then their case is again flawed. However, if they try to argue the use of OS X (which is protected…heavily) or the iTunes code itself is what gives Apple the copyright, while it is still BS, the case will be a tad harder for the EFF.
This whole case is full of drama and lots of fine print coupled with fine lines. This case involves way more than could be covered here in a single post (not to mention what I would want to type out). In order to satisfy your knack for that knowledge, check out:
- The Complaint: EFF PDF
- The Case: EFF (site)
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