Unfairplay

What a great name for a technology, Fairplay; unfortunately it should be called Unfairplay.

Recently Apple announced that they have negotiated the inclusion of "iTunes/iPod Ready" digital copies on Fox DVDs, this is great news for those iPod users that aspire to take their legally purchased content with them. 

These digital copies are thoughtfully provided in both WMV and H.264 encoding, a great step forward if you ask me; I applaud Apple for their negotiation of this deal, the problem with this I have is that this content is protected with Apples "Fairplay" DRM scheme.

Now to be clear I do not have a issue with the DRM, content owners rightfully wish to prevent the unauthorized distribution of their content. my problem is that Apple refuses to license their DRM scheme that they so craft-fully named "FairPlay" (unlike Microsoft and the Plays4Sure and Designed for Windows DRM).

The irony in that is Apple has convinced Fox to take standards that are available for anyone to implement (Windows Media Video [WMV] and H.264) and wrapped them in Apples proprietary non-licensable DRM making it only compatible with their products.

I don't know who I am most dissatisfied with Apple for their exclusionary practices or Fox for buying into them.

Print | posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 7:50 PM

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 re: Unfairplay 1/19/2008 4:52 PM Krishna

Apple will do what is best for Apple. Uniqueness and edge are two of the qualities that tech companies aspire for.

You should be unhappy with Fox.


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# re: Unfairplay 1/21/2008 11:04 PM Ryan

Of course they are a business and will do whats right for them and their stock holders, my issue however is not with what, it is with how.

I do wonder however how they are able to keep so many snowed into thinking they are open and respectfull given this his how they do business.

As for who is the biggest bozo here? I agree its Fox, but I fear this is just splitting hairs.

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