Apple Applies For Automatic Shutdown and Piracy-Fighting Patents

[slicecom]

I'm not a big fan of anti-piracy or activation measures, but I definitely understand the need for them.

I don't. The only people they punish are those who legally buy and use the software. Do you think having to activate programs has stopped piracy on windows? There are a multitude of cracks available for just about every piece of software out there.

The end effect of activation measures is those who would normally pirate, find ways to continue doing so, and those who spend their hard earned money will be inconvenienced, annoyed and treated as if they're guilty of pirating.

 

[GoodWatch]

That's because Apple allowed Bill Gates access to the original Mac OS, which resulted in the knockoff otherwise known as windows.

No. Both Stevie and Billy had a looksee at the marvellous work done at Xerox PARC.

 

[tveric]

The end effect of activation measures is those who would normally pirate, find ways to continue doing so, and those who spend their hard earned money will be inconvenienced, annoyed and treated as if they're guilty of pirating.

That's it in a perfect nutshell. To think of Apple going this way with all of their software makes me cringe. It would be amazingly short-sighted for a company which has shown as much vision as they have in the past.

 

[Slip]

No. Both Stevie and Billy had a looksee at the marvellous work done at Xerox PARC.

Ah, those short sighted Xerox fellows
They coulda made mega bucks and then they go and show it all of, bet the engineers loved that. What was it that Apple gave them in return?

 

[krye]

What a waste of time, money, and energy. These software companies need to learn that people are going to steal their software no matter what they do. Maybe software shouldn't cost $300 or $500 a pop. Maybe if Final Cut was $99, no one would steal it. Or if jam packs were $19.99 no one would steal those either.

I do not steal, nor do I condone stealing software. If I can't afford something, then I don't buy it. Besides, most of the time I have found that there is a cheaper, if not free, alterative to most things out there. These software companies need to start giving people a reason to not steal their stuff.

 

[drierp]

I just bought the USB power adapter.....

In the case of the iPhone for example.. that'd involve switching back and forth between the power adapter and the computer (for syncing)..

I actually do that now by the way, and find it somewhat annoying..

If there were a port (or all of them) that was powered when plugged in, it'd solve that annoyance without wasting cpu cycles/power when I just want it to charge..

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Steve Jobs said that the way to combat internet piracy of music is to offer the music at a reasonable price.

I wonder why he doesn't employ that philosophy with his own software. hmmmmm

He already does. The real question is why is Apple wasting their time with piracy-fighting?

 

[DrMoray]

This looks to me like something they'd do with iPhone software, not Mac software.

Agreed. It seems like it could be used to control the software signing process. Especially if Apple has some sort of sandboxing method for 3rd party iPhone apps.

 

[pohl]

IMHO the hackintosh's are no real threat...

It could be a useful mechanism for Apple to have if they ever intended to do the unthinkable and sell a shrink-wrapped OSX for non-Apple PCs.

 

[deathshrub]

In the case of the iPhone for example.. that'd involve switching back and forth between the power adapter and the computer (for syncing)..

I actually do that now by the way, and find it somewhat annoying..

If there were a port (or all of them) that was powered when plugged in, it'd solve that annoyance without wasting cpu cycles/power when I just want it to charge..

It's called a powered hub.

 

[TurboSC]

It could be a useful mechanism for Apple to have if they ever intended to do the unthinkable and sell a shrink-wrapped OSX for non-Apple PCs.

hahah Apple, developing for the Windows platform, would be a sight to see.. they better hire triple the Tech guys, cause there's going to be errors all night long.

 

[GoodWatch]

hahah Apple, developing for the Windows platform, would be a sight to see.. they better hire triple the Tech guys, cause there's going to be errors all night long.

Ehhhhh, once you run OS X on a PC it isn't a 'Windows platform' anymore. In fact, the innards of my iMac are very PC like

 

[OrangeCuse44]

As for an automatic shutdown, i use a small app called iWannaSleep. Although its not programmable to shut down the computer after a certain task finishes, you can set a timer for it to either sleep or shutdown after a designated amount of time. You can also fall asleep to iTunes music and just select for your Mac to stop itunes after say, 15 minutes.

 

[137489]

Yeah, what a great idea - if your goal is to cause a pain in the ass for people who legitimately buy the software.

Anyone remember what happened when Microsoft introduced activation schemes for Windows XP? A living nightmare for a huge number of legitimate buyers of Windows XP, that's what. Meanwhile, pirated versions on the net were either hacked, cracked, or simply the "non-activation" corporate version of XP. In other words, it did next-to-nothing to combat piracy (casual "make-a-copy-for-my-friend" was the only thing this eliminated) while causing headaches for legit users that wanted to transfer their XP copy to another hardware platform, or even just change out an existing video card/motherboard/etc.

I had one friend who, after buying XP and attempting to move it to a new box 6 months later, ended up getting fed up with the activation "piracy protection" after he couldn't get it to work at all on the new box, and simply downloaded the corporate version. Good job Microsoft, drive actual buyers of your DRM-laden ***** to piracy.

Do we really want to see Apple go farther down this road? Think before you answer.

In a sense I have to agree. I used to build my own PC's. After my last one died and I was in a rush, I bought an off-the-shelf HP. I then tried to load my software on it. The activation gave me an error that it was already active on another machine and I had to call Microsfot support. We got into a big argument. First he demanded the serial number of the old machine. I told him it did not have one as I built it myself. He swore at me and said that MS software is not for people who build their own machines, only machines you buy fully assembled at a store and "you damn I/T people need to learn that." Finally to shut him up, I told him the serial number was SJH1. He asked what kind of a number is that. I told him a derivative of my initials and the first PC MS ever gave me trouble about. He then gave me an activation code to type in, and then got ticked because I wrote it down before typing it in. He was waiting for a response from me to read him the next screen.

Everytime I add memory, etc I have to re-activate and sometimes have to call due to the software thinking it is a different machine.

Apple software is cheap enough, thus why I think it is not pirated that much.

 

[tribulation]

activation works so well for MS

of all apple patents i hope the activation/antipiracy one doesnt ever come to fruition. i'm not at ALL for pirating software and do NOT do it. but putting more energy into trying to stop piracy is and always will be totally useless

activation doesnt even work. windows is easily cracked. all of adobe suite is cracked. & the list goes on forever. sad but entirely true. no amount of anti-anything will ever stop a determined hacker. it just is impossible to accomplish & history proves that & will over & over until the end of time probably

even advanced methods have been broken. look at intels on chip piracy prevention. it was cracked. & then theres stuff like DVD CSS & macrovision & even i believe the bluray and hddvd schemes are cracked. & oddities like the playstation mod chip hacks come to mind. i even admit i did that one for backups of PS games. dongles like the xskeys, iLok, Rockey,Sentinel & so on are also easily reset or cracked and add extra expense to the end software program since the developer has to cover the actual cost & ongoing support cost for users that get stuck with those faulty things. and for anyone thats owned a program that uses those damned things have you ever lost one & had to replace it? it usually costs about the same as buying the program all over again which can be thousands of dollars

the only argument against this is that more advanced piracy schemes make it harder in hopes of people giving up. i'm sure thats true for a small bit of people but most that pirate software will just wait for the crack and then its usually just a quick click and the program is cracked and free

activation doesnt work either.like i said look at MS or adobe or who ever and you can find an easy 1 click patch to bypass it in seconds

the 1 thing more complicated antipiracy and activation junk does well is,it makes endless problems for LEGITIMATE PAYING CUSTOMERS!!!!! WE are the ones who suffer

apple has never used activation or annoying registration schemes on their OS & i pray they never do.maybe this patent is just to give mac developers a built in scheme to use who knows.hope not
i hope that they just wanteed to patent to protect some idea they had just because it was something different and new,not something that they will use or want others to. inventors do that all the time & lets hope apple did it just for that reason to
what a long post for nothing

 

[Huby]

it's 4 Hollywood !

The copy-protection thing won't be to bloat and cripple their own Applesoftware, but it's all 4 these hollywood movie Inc $ickoos:
Bleu-ray and/or HD-DVD films etc will only work with "trusted" hardware..
Vista came out nearly 2 years later just to be "trusted"
read more here: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html a hard (and long) reading, but U'll never see a movie, Vista or any other DRM related subject (AND this thread as well) the same again.

 

[Antares]

apple seems to patent everything they can think of, whether it a hit or miss...

I guess they figure out they have nothing to loss

I wish I could do that. I have tons of ideas. However, filing a patent is a slow and very expensive process....costing many thousands of dollars for a single patent. Apple can easily afford it but not typically a small business or average person.

 

[0racle]

Ah, those short sighted Xerox fellows
They coulda made mega bucks and then they go and show it all of, bet the engineers loved that. What was it that Apple gave them in return?

Xerox (remember them, they owned it not the engineers) got Apple stock out of it.

 

[/dev/toaster]

I wonder when the RIAA and the MPAA will start to wake up and realize that the more restrictions they put on content, the greater chance people are going to pirate it. They keep jacking the prices up and trying to lock things down more.

What they are saying is that I am a criminal. Well, guess what I am not. But they are pushing me to the limit. Apple is helping contribute to this. Its just silly and I can't wait until they wake up.

We don't need more DRM, we don't need stronger DRM. We need reasonable prices and reasonable means to obtain and play the content we desire.

Hardware that shuts down automagicly will be hardware I don't purchase, I don't care who produces it. Its totally unacceptable.

 

[bigwig]

What could possibly be novel or patentable about automatic shutdown? "Do X when Y" is so trivial a 10 year old could come up with it.

 

[DaBrain]

Yeah, what a great idea - if your goal is to cause a pain in the ass for people who legitimately buy the software.

Anyone remember what happened when Microsoft introduced activation schemes for Windows XP? A living nightmare for a huge number of legitimate buyers of Windows XP, that's what. Meanwhile, pirated versions on the net were either hacked, cracked, or simply the "non-activation" corporate version of XP. In other words, it did next-to-nothing to combat piracy (casual "make-a-copy-for-my-friend" was the only thing this eliminated) while causing headaches for legit users that wanted to transfer their XP copy to another hardware platform, or even just change out an existing video card/motherboard/etc.

I had one friend who, after buying XP and attempting to move it to a new box 6 months later, ended up getting fed up with the activation "piracy protection" after he couldn't get it to work at all on the new box, and simply downloaded the corporate version. Good job Microsoft, drive actual buyers of your DRM-laden ***** to piracy.

Do we really want to see Apple go farther down this road? Think before you answer.

One can only hope this is not the forerunner of a windows like genuine advantage activation system. IM a legit owner of all my apple software and hardware, BUT if they go to this windows type crap IM full time linux! I really don't want that as I love OSX but this is one of the main reasons I left WinBlows, it's registry and all the other crap they invent in the name of piracy. When it starts to have a major impact on me then, well it's time to switch. I pray that apple does not implement anything like windows activation!

 

[kjr39]

I do believe that the activation piece is related more towards the iphone than it is towards regular software...

 

[shadowfax]

2 retarded patent applications. I guess someone at Apple failed to get any real research done this year and had to file some fakey patents to look like he was doing something or face getting fired. But that's just my guess.

 

[tuneman07]

First off I can't believe you can actually patent an automatic shutdown, haven't programs been doing this forever? What's next the qwerty keyboard? Patent on clicking? things are getting a little ridiculous. I also didn't know mac OSX didn't use any kind of verification codes, being a Windows users I assumed everyone did that. And I have definitely lost codes leading to me needing to "steal" copies of stuff that I bought legitimately. I can understand the need for some anti piracy however its kinda like leaving the door open at Best buy vs. having a glass door that's locked. Certainly one could bash the door in and go get whatever they want but 99 percent of people won't do that whereas if the door is just open all the time people would probably steal a lot more.

 

[Snowy_River]

I wouldn't consider iWork to be some of Apple's most costly pro software, but it has an activation code.

In any event, I don't have anything against activation, unless it gets annoying. If they can come up with a means of doing this that is relatively transparent to the end user, then I would have no problem with it at all.