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Apple Refused to Build Copyright Filters for iPod

arn said:
"Fair use" is not a law. They don't have to allow you or make it easy for you to do. They just can't sue you for it.
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Actually, it is a law -- part of the Copyright Act. But it's a protective law, not a regulatory law.

Thus, like Arn said Microsoft can prevent you from playing perfectly legitimate content on the Zune and you can vote with your wallet not to buy a Zune.

Now, if you've already purchased a Zune and then install this software and your DVD rips no longer play, you might have a legal claim against Microsoft best handled in a class action lawsuit.

And this law protects you against a lawsuit by NBC for ripping your DVDs in the first place. :)
 
megfilmworks said:
Fair use must be the most misunderstood word in copyright law.
It has to do with how many notes in a new composition may be the same as notes in a previously copyrighted song. It has nothing to do with copying your copy of an underlying work. Remember, when you buy a song, you never own the song.
Only the songwriter, publisher, their heirs and assigns own the song. You own a copy of it, not the underlying work
Anyway... way to go Apple. The biggest problem with DRM schemes are the false positives.
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that first part is confusing sorta...ive always heard fair use being used to protect the consumer with purchased media. not to protect the author of said media
 
DMann said:
Funny you say that - MS is absorbing the costs for higher priced content for unified pricing on the Zune. Another desperate move toward becoming a significant player in the market. This is not unlike the hundreds of millions they lose each year with each subsidized XBox sale.
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MS has been making money on the Xbox for well over a year.
 
I used to think that after the iPod, the Zune was the next best MP3 player. Now, I'm not so sure. I can see a lot of loyal Zune fans feeling betrayed by Microsoft after this.

I think this sums it up:
2054365139_9f9da5a0d1_o.png
 
cloudnine said:
mean, how is it even really piracy when it's something that's offered to the public as free in the first place via their television
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It's not "free". It's "ad supported". Big difference. NBC is offering their shows on Hulu.com for "free"/"ad supported".

MacRumors.com is also ad supported.

arn
 
The filter I like to see

Since NBC thinks building filters are fair .... Maybe we just should put filters to screen out commercials in TV's, DVD's, Internet movie sites, etc?

Hey you build filters and so does everyone else.

If you record a movie off the broadcast, air, cable, etc, it comes in with commercials, as long as you do not remove the commercials, I see no issue with recording it in any format we prefer and save it for posterity. We still have the commercials just like it was when shown on tv.

ccunning said:
Ha! Like they would provide an easy method to make a dispute.
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In their mind there is no need, you are guilty until proven innocent and since it is difficult to prove, you remain giulty.
 
Hooka said:
What I find most amusing about all this is that NBC broadcasts its content over the airaves for FREE. NBC take out the commercials and all of a sudden it needs to be protected like it's worth a billion dollars. Why not just play the shows on NBC.com with the commercials if they are so bent out of shape. Besides Thursday night what the hell is even on NBC worth downloading in the first place?
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I really like your argument, NBC does lose credibility big time for making such a big deal out of content they so freely distribute. But there is a slight flaw, nothing is really free in this world, those commercials are what pay for the production and over-the-air distribution of that content. And the content, defined by copyright law, has value insurmountable to even the mansions the executives of these media conglomerates themselves own. So no and yes, they don't have an argument but they do.
 
Hertog said:
but in my opinion it doesn't make much sense from a business point of view.
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We probably need more information on what NBC demanded before we could know if this was true. I speculate the request would have pushed a hit to the performance of the hardware or negatively impacted the user experience. Whatever it was, Apple likely didn't feel like the request was worth the marginal or nonexistent gains in the piracy war.

The business decision was probably based on it being too expensive and not worth the effort. Apple uses iTunes to push hardware sales and runs it pretty much at or below cost. If you look at their numbers for the last 2 quarters, losing NBC is having little or no impact on this strategy.
 
dukebound85 said:
that first part is confusing sorta...ive always heard fair use being used to protect the consumer with purchased media. not to protect the author of said media
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The term "fair use" in copyright litigation has been around long before digital media, or tape decks. Copying recorded material was not the problem, but rather the plagiarism of previously copyrighted material in the creation of new works.
Also the term "fair use" is not to protect purchasers of recorded works but rather a grey area of litigation when arguing plagiarism or copyright infringement by another author/composer. There are a lot of songs that share several notes in sequence. You can't copyright "doe-re-mi" that's fair use.
But add "Doe a deer, a female deer" and you have violated fair use and have now infringed on the original copyright.
 
Good for Apple. I've seen what DRM can do when there's an error. I lost access to all the songs I purchased when my AppleID was accidentally transferred to one of my other email addresses. The last thing we need is another layer.
 
monke said:
I buy a DVD from anywhere. I paid $25 dollars for it. I play it in my DVD player, in my computer, but then I can't play it on my iPod because it's classified as illegal.

I have to say Apple made the right move here. Anyone who buys into this is crazy, unless they solve the problem of putting a DVD on your device.
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good,
now Apple could make the next right move and allow me to play my legally bought DVDs on my Apple computer more than four times before i have to throw away half of my DVD collection due to Apple locking the DVD player to a single region code.

how that is still allowed is truly infuriating
 
Bullpooh!

If Microsoft starts doing **** like this with the Zune, the next thing we know these TV studios will start demanding computers with this filtering. Microsoft is opening a Pandora's box of crap.
 
TheIguana said:
I really like your argument, NBC does lose credibility big time for making such a big deal out of content they so freely distribute. But there is a slight flaw, nothing is really free in this world, those commercials are what pay for the production and over-the-air distribution of that content. And the content, defined by copyright law, has value insurmountable to even the mansions the executives of these media conglomerates themselves own. So no and yes, they don't have an argument but they do.
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The filter is not just for NBC content, you may find it blocks play of a lot more. How could they FOR SURE know the difference between legal content and illigal content?

Once you give in one one thing, it is very difficult to take it back.

Defilla said:
If Microsoft starts doing **** like this with the Zune, the next thing we know these TV studios will start demanding computers with this filtering. Microsoft is opening a Pandora's box of crap.
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you got it. Remember when Micro$oft agreed to pay one of the Major 4 a dollar per Zune?
Every Major wanted the same deal from Apple and they were told to go pork themself.
MS does this crap on purpose.
 
Defilla said:
If Microsoft starts doing **** like this with the Zune, the next thing we know these TV studios will start demanding computers with this filtering. Microsoft is opening a Pandora's box of crap.
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They can't too much because what about home movies and all the new fangled digital camcorders? NO ONE would be able to play home made movies!

I think the battle is for playing the stuff on mobile devices. Zune is leading the pack to make the studios go over to it by making it so its player can only play purchased material.

I think NBC will be the only one to go for it. The others don't want to loose their iTunes business, and people may want to play home videos on their mobile devices.
 
arn said:
It's not "free". It's "ad supported". Big difference. NBC is offering their shows on Hulu.com for "free"/"ad supported".

MacRumors.com is also ad supported.

arn
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So you're telling me that if the "pirated" versions of these television shows included commercials, they wouldn't have a problem?

Odd.
 
because so many people out there have a zune...stupid move on NBC's part they just totally lost a large portion of customers because of the amount of iPod users versus Zune users
 
arn said:
"Fair use" is not a law. They don't have to allow you or make it easy for you to do. They just can't sue you for it.

arn
Click to expand...

Actually, "fair use" is part of the U.S. code... section 107

"Although fair use was not mentioned in the previous copyright law, the doctrine has developed through a substantial number of court decisions over the years. This doctrine has been codified in section 107 of the copyright law."
 
Better for Business?

Ok, so the NBC guy was quoted as saying: "Perrette acknowledged that the steps would meet resistance but insists it is necessary to sustain their business over the long term." So: 1. How is that better for business, they just lost like 90% market share of people who will be able to download the videos, aren't there like 3 people who bought Zunes? :) OK.Seriously...Really, they sold 2Million so far and Apple sold like 10Million in the first quarter, so how is that math adding up to better business for NBC in the long run? 2. What makes anyone believe that Microsoft HAS this technology, can implement it on the Zune (and by implement I mean run it so it doesn't crash or reboot) and that once it's implemented who thinks it will be of any better grade than other MS software which is not really best-in-breed, which means more videos will be able to be pirated, given MS Software's openness for hackers... Anyway, I agree with some here who comment that NBC should come crawling back, though it seems that one, MS and NBC are "in bed" together already, and second, NBC might need to save too much "face" to turn around and grovel back to Apple. Time will tell Thanks!
 
cloudnine said:
So you're telling me that if the "pirated" versions of these television shows included commercials, they wouldn't have a problem?
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Well, not exactly. But in effect, yes. Have you seen Hulu.com? It's "free" movies and tv shows in full, you just have to watch short ads.

The reason it doesn't translate over directly to pirated copies is that neither NBC or the advertisers can reliably count ads distributed through pirated copies.

arn
 
Sooo... NBC basically wants you to only be able to play NBC shows downloaded directly from iTunes.
Now consider the large number of people who don't care about NBC shows or can't get them even if they wanted (i.e. everyone outside the US and/or everyone without credit card). All those people would have a nice video enabled iPod and couldn't use the video because some company said "screw you, we don't want you to play any videos, only the ones we sold you".

I'm actually amazed that ad supported TV content still works. I mean, who actually watches commercials? No one except unattended children and zombies really watch commercials, and those two don't really have significant buying power. Granted, the shows on TV have gone downhill in the last few years and the commercial to show ratio went up to an unbearable level to compensate. So this leaves us with very few good shows with way too many ads. TiVo and the big cable companies all have a DVR so the commercials don't bother you that much but I would feel ripped of I I paid for my commercial to run and no one would even see it. The whole business model has to change. I say, charge viewers a small weekly/monthly fee to watch a channel or subscribe to a show. Maybe show one commercial on live events, this way, people might even remember it. And stop the endless show previews, they're seriously annoying.

Back to the topic: Glad apple told them off.
 
EagerDragon said:
The filter is not just for NBC content, you may find it blocks play of a lot more. How could they FOR SURE know the difference between legal content and illigal content?

Once you give in one one thing, it is very difficult to take it back.
Click to expand...

They can't, and that is why I agree that NBC is out to lunch on this. NBCs executives can hypothetically speak to this issue and even bring it up as boardroom/deal-room banter, but beyond that it is meaningless. And this doesn't even bring into consideration the backlash from general consumers either.
 
Looks like MS did the right thing!!!


NBC should admit they made a mistake, and go back to iTunes(as well as any other service they please)
 
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