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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1043
Apple Keeps Restrictive Digital Rights Management at Bay
By Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac
October 2nd 2002
Cupertino hasn't gone down the Intel-AMD-MS path. Yet.
Want to hold on to your digital rights? Forget AMD, Intel and Microsoft. Apple is the
only major PC hardware manufacturer standing up for your rights.
That's the story so far, a SiliconValley.com article says. While MS, Intel and AMD
increasingly incorporate use and copy restrictions on the use of media and software on
PC boxes, Apple doesn't. Moreover, unlike MS and friends, Apple isn't intruding into
your privacy by peeking at your PC.
One example, says the article's author, Dan Gillmor, is using Apple's DVD player
software to save an image of a DVD onto your hard drive for playback later. On the
plane, Gillmor says, the DVD-ROM sucks too much juice out of his PowerBook. But
playing it off the hard drive is just fine [An application called Fair Use also
performs the same function - ed.].
This is what Apple terms 'fair use', provided the DVD itself is not a commercial
release with copyright restrictions on it. Similarly, Apple puts no blocks on iTunes'
ability to rip MP3s from CDs, mix them, and burn them at will. However, Apple has put
in place measures to prevent piracy, including restrictions on downloading iPod-stored
MP3s to another Mac or PC.
And, as Apple maintained during the lead-up to the Jaguar release recently, Apple has
"never" placed restrictions on the installation of its operating system software.
While site licenses are necessary for multiple installations, unlike MS, Apple does
not restrict the number of installs on various machines.
XP does.
Analysis: Apple supports 'fair use' of digital media in this era of Digital Rights
Management (DRM), but it doesn't mean the company supports a free-for-all. What it
does do is trust the user to 'do the right thing'.
Will this push people to 'switch'? Maybe. When MS et al become intrusive and invasive
and frustrating enough (and isn't Windows Media Player 9 frustrating enough without
being able to play MP3s out of the box?), then Apple's less restrictive stance on DRM
may be enough to sway a proportion of users that it's 'time to go back to Mac'.
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