Palm Reports Apple to USB Compliance Organization Over iTunes Syncing Issues

[pdjudd]

There is nothing wrong with spoofing. Compaq 'spoofed' an entire IBM PC in order to run DOS. WINE spoofs an entire copy of Microsoft Windows so that Windows apps can run. Palm changes one little USB ID in order to work with iTunes, and Apple fans think there should be charges filed.
Reality does not apply!


Well put.

Legally speaking, Compaq did a white-room reverse engenerring of the X86 platform. Thats why software was advertised as requiring a IBM based PC or IBM PC compatible. It was a clone that was designed to match feature set.

Wine is another clean room situation, but is not really spoofing things. Neither system replicates their parents 100%.

Besides, we aren't talking about system level hardware cloning or API adaptation, iTunes is a closed system that Apple owns and runs.

 

[manu chao]

Why, oh why, are people still using this stupid argument???

Apple is the No. 1 online music distributor. They don't earn money with it?

Gimme a break. As long as you can't provide any source, that deciphers the cost of running iTMS server farms with 1.049 billion bucks for Q2 of 2009, just do me a favor and don't use this stupid argument.

Apple has about a 70/30 split, it is said to keep 29 cent for each 99 cent song it sells. Even if the costs of running a the store are 50% of that 29 cent of that, it will still make, with it now selling 4 billion songs per year, that might still contribute about $600 million per year in profit. It could be less (or more), but several 100 million is probably right.

As others have said, it is certainly a good business but probably only about 10% of their total profits, whereas iPods and iPhones probably constitute rather something like 40 to 50% (guessing that computers and mobile device each contribute about equally to profits, does not have to be the case).

 

[Mjmar]

Wow palm. You've outdone yourself. I didn't know that a company could be that immature. Seriously though, this reminds me of a little girl that moans to "daddy" because she doesn't get what she wants. Logic tells us who's right in this situation, no matter if you want to believe it or not.

 

[pdjudd]

Apple has about a 70/30 split, it is said to keep 29 cent for each 99 cent song it sells. Even if the costs of running a the store are 50% of that 29 cent of that, it will still make, with it now selling 4 billion songs per year, that might still contribute about $600 million per year in profit. It could be less (or more), but several 100 million is probably right.

Thats the figures I have heard. A few hundred million based purely on quantity. Its a very small portions of Apple's overall revenue.

 

[rjohnstone]

Does Palm realize what they claim is a violation means every piece of software that accesses any USB device has to allow any USB device connected to a computer to be able to access it?

How does that make any sense?

What do you mean you Canon Desktop Printer software won't work with my HP printer?

What do you mean your Photo Editing and Management software won't allow my USB flashlight to connect to it?

Clearly this is a desperate attempt by Palm to get attention, believing any publicity is good publicity. Pre sales must have not been enough and they are feeling like they are at the end of the road and things are about done. Nothing else would explain this ludicrous path they have headed down.

No.. what it means is you cannot use the USB device information as a BLOCKING mechanism to the software.

You obviously have no clue how hardware and software work together.
The USB interface is a tiny piece to making hardware and software work together.

The USB CO simply states that you cannot use the USB device information as a method of restricting/controlling access.

That's what drivers are for.
The USB information tells the OS, not the application, what driver to invoke and THEN the software and hardware will work together if the right driver is loaded.

 

[marksman]

Yes Blizzard and Activision, we know you made World of Warcraft, but these guys over here made a game called the Wide World of War and they made their client so it can connect to your servers.

I guess you got to suck it up!

 

[Amdahl]

But I thought that this "spoofing" was the contradiction to Palm reporting Apple to the USB Forum (or whatever it is).
Quote:

In that case isn't that saying the Spoofing is not allowed? Your examples with Wine and DOS is regarded as emulating isn't it? Are spoofing and emulating meant to be the same thing then? I think they are different things.

Yes, the USB spec says that no one should use any one elses IDs. It also says that no one should use IDs to prevent interoperability, because that might cause people to use other peoples IDs. The bottom line is that the USB Consortium does not want the USB standard to fall apart by allowing it to become a part of these kind of games. Who started the game? Apple.

What is the USB Consortium going to do about this? Probably nothing. They don't like getting sued, and they aren't stepping in to the middle of this fight.

 

[Amdahl]

Wine is another clean room situation, but is not really spoofing things. Neither system replicates their parents 100%.

Besides, we aren't talking about system level hardware cloning or API adaptation, iTunes is a closed system that Apple owns and runs.

Yeah, well the Palm Pre is a 'clean room' iPod. Now what?

 

[keredson]

to all those complaining about "pre stole apple's software", remember that you're using apple's software, not palm.

for those of you old enough, did you ever own a hayes-compatible modem? (if you ever used a modem after ~1985, then you did) did you think your manufacturer was stealing from hayes, just because they emulated hayes modems for software compatibility purposes? did you boycott usrobotics? my guess is not...

palm is EMULATING an ipod, that's it. emulation for compatibility is one of the oldest and finest traditions in computer design. don't confuse it with stealing.

btw, if apple really wants to lock palm out, it's a trivial. put cryptographic keys on the ipods themselves and have itunes perform a signature check before syncing.

for the record, i owned the very first ipod (at an eye-popping $400) and several since. along w/ several macbooks. i currently own a palm pre, but don't sync it w/ itunes as apple has yet to bless us poor linux users. but from my understanding it's now far from the simple, fast, easy-to-use app it once was, so i'm not sure i would if i could. my take on this is palm is simply trying to make life easier for the too-dumb-to-know-where-their-mp3s-are-on-their-harddrive windows crowd.

but what do i know? =P

 

[Amdahl]

Does Palm realize what they claim is a violation means every piece of software that accesses any USB device has to allow any USB device connected to a computer to be able to access it?

How does that make any sense?

What do you mean you Canon Desktop Printer software won't work with my HP printer?

What do you mean your Photo Editing and Management software won't allow my USB flashlight to connect to it?

Clearly this is a desperate attempt by Palm to get attention, believing any publicity is good publicity. Pre sales must have not been enough and they are feeling like they are at the end of the road and things are about done. Nothing else would explain this ludicrous path they have headed down.

No, what the USB Consortium (and Palm) is saying is that the USB spec can NOT be used to prevent operation. You must communicate with the device, and then you can use the communication channel to further probe the device (using custom commands, etc) and decide what you are going to do.

 

[Goona]

to all those complaining about "pre stole apple's software", remember that you're using apple's software, not palm.

for those of you old enough, did you ever own a hayes-compatible modem? (if you ever used a modem after ~1985, then you did) did you think your manufacturer was stealing from hayes, just because they emulated hayes modems for software compatibility purposes? did you boycott usrobotics? my guess is not...

palm is EMULATING an ipod, that's it. emulation for compatibility is one of the oldest and finest traditions in computer design. don't confuse it with stealing.

btw, if apple really wants to lock palm out, it's a trivial. put cryptographic keys on the ipods themselves and have itunes perform a signature check before syncing.

for the record, i owned the very first ipod (at an eye-popping $400) and several since. along w/ several macbooks. i currently own a palm pre, but don't sync it w/ itunes as apple has yet to bless us poor linux users. but from my understanding it's now far from the simple, fast, easy-to-use app it once was, so i'm not sure i would if i could. my take on this is palm is simply trying to make life easier for the too-dumb-to-know-where-their-mp3s-are-on-their-harddrive windows crowd.

but what do i know? =P

I wonder why all the other companies haven't been attempting to "emulate" ipods.

 

[marksman]

True, however Apple no longer offers that and that kind of functionality was limited to what iTunes was capable at the time and was done with the blessing and agreement of both parties. The events today have totally changed. THat was then. Now is very different.



How? In what way does Apple force you to purchase music from iTunes? Are you trying to say that Apple somehow has nefariousness disabled all software based cd ripping? Has designed their computers to block all other sources of purchasing music? Prevented you from buying CD's?

All Apple has going for the iTunes store is that they are number one. That does not make a monopoly. There are several legitimate competitors that openly sell music on the Apple platform and are synced onto Apple's players. That is the very essisace of competetion.

Furthermoreopularity!= monopoly and Monopoly != a crime on it's own.

Show me how Apple prevents competition by selling a popular product in unrelated markets. Prove one exists.

I have never purchased a single song from the iTunes store yet I have a 10,000 + song library that I use on several devices I use. I don't understand why people think any of this somehow forces people to do anything. People are obfuscating the issue because there is zero justification for what Palm is doing here.. yet the Apple Basher and Palm Lovers have to still carry the flag so they make up other specious arguments.

 

[.Andy]

yet the Apple Basher and Palm Lovers have to still carry the flag so they make up other specious arguments.

You don't have to be an "apple basher" or "palm lover" to like the idea of being able to use a single media management program (for instance itunes) to sync all your devices whether they are apple branded or not. The same would go for any media playing program. Choice and flexibility is good for consumers. Lock in is good for a single company.

 

[needthephone]

Apple is Dirty Harry going to Palm " Do You feel Lucky-Punk-go on make my day"

I hope apple destroys palm now.

 

[gnasher729]

This doesn't even make sense. If a company cannot use the USB IDs to discriminate between products, what can it use?

Many music player have a USB interface that identifies them has "USB mass storage devices". You could write software that syncs between iTunes and any USB mass storage device. If Apple had such software and it worked with any mass storage device except when it is made by Palm, that would be not kosher.

On the other hand, I think Apple has the right to make iTunes check that any device that claims to be an iPod is indeed a genuine iPod, and refuse to work with anything that has a "Palm" vendor ID. I think there might be a few genuine iPods that have a "Hewlett Packard" vendor ID; refusing to work with them I think wouldn't be right (does anyone here have an HP iPod and can check it? )

 

[marksman]

You've got it backwards. Apple is trying to enforce a 'right' that no one except Apple can sync. They have no such right.

What?

of course they could, and can. Why you think they have no such right to decide what accesses their software is at the best very odd.

 

[iGuardian]

Apple should either; a) Destroy Palm b) Buy Palm and make the iPhone 3Pre S

 

[schalkse]

Apple is guilty of using the USB protocol as a method of restricting device access to iTunes. This is in violation of the USB CO terms of use.

Apple has done nothing to violate those terms of use.
Software is not a USB connection.

If Apple blocked Palm from connecting to their "devices" on all Apple products , then they would have a leg to stand on. But in this case... they don't.
If you write software to sync and use an IO-port, in this case USB, then USB is the road provided to software to sync with the device.

The terms do not state that it is prohibited for "software", that makes use of USB ports, to block other vendors from working with the software.

Using your own vendorID to identify yourself on a computer is a correct usage.

 

[marksman]

Because Apple didn't make it. And this issue was already decided in the Accolade v. Sega case. They made their games say 'Copyright Sega' in order to pass validation on Sega game machines. Court said A-Okay.

I hope you are not a lawyer. If you are I hope you don't have any children.

 

[Porco]

I think Apple should give Palm the finger.

 

[.Andy]

I hope you are not a lawyer. If you are I hope you don't have any children.

This is completely unnecessary.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Yes, the USB spec says that no one should use any one elses IDs. It also says that no one should use IDs to prevent interoperability, because that might cause people to use other peoples IDs. The bottom line is that the USB Consortium does not want the USB standard to fall apart by allowing it to become a part of these kind of games. Who started the game? Apple.

What is the USB Consortium going to do about this? Probably nothing. They don't like getting sued, and they aren't stepping in to the middle of this fight.

Well stated. I think I'm done discussing this thread now.

 

[marksman]

You don't have any right to prevent people from using it in ways you don't like.


Nope, they don't. They may say I shouldn't use OS X to run a nuclear facility, and they may claim they aren't liable if something goes wrong, but they can't stop me from running my nuclear facility with OS X.

I am calling the analogy police on you. You are making some monumentally horrible analogies in this thread.

How running a nuclear facility on a mac similar at all to allowing or disallowing a piece of hardware to access or not access itunes?

 

[Mark Booth]

In the previous topic (iTunes 8.2.1 reportedly breaks Palm Pre Syncing), I wrote this message on July 15, which in part said:

BTW, my bet is Apple changed iTunes' iPod/iPhone verification process in such a way that it will require a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by Palm to re-enable syncing to iTunes. In other words, if Palm gets it working again, they will have a nice fat lawsuit on their hands.

Here's what Wikipedia says about the DMCA:

It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.

There is no doubt that everyone's iTunes library contains copyrighted works. And by spoofing Apple's USB identifier, Palm has just circumvented one type of access control to those copyrighted works. It doesn't matter that the owner of the iTunes library and Palm Pre is entitled to use the copyrighted work as they see fit. It still doesn't give Palm the right to circumvent the access control.

I believe my prediction has come true. Palm is about to get slapped with a lawsuit for violating the DMCA. And I believe they will lose such a lawsuit!

If I owned a Palm Pre, I wouldn't count on the long-term continued viability of syncing with iTunes.

Mark

 

[inkswamp]

You know what I'm backing Palm on this one for a simple reason, I love iTunes but I don't want to have to use an iPod with it. The iPod rocks but I'm an audiophile and would like to get the Sony X series since it seems to sound better from reviews and use it with iTunes.

Damn, dude! You're so right! It's time to go after Nintendo too. I love Super Mario Galaxy but I want to play it on the XBox360. The Wii rocks but since I'm a game-o-phile, I would like to get the XBox360 since it has better graphics and use it with Wii games.