Former iTunes Engineer Tells Court He Worked to Block Competitors

Gee. I dunno. When you’re playing in The Majors, it’s kind of your JOB to WIN, ain’t it?

Attorney Plaintiffs call former iTunes engineer called as last witness for plaintiffs to say he worked to block other stores' downloaded music. . . but he also says that "his former team reflected the digital-music market’s need for copyright protections of songs. Later, though, he said it created “market dominance” for the iPod." He also "agreed agreed in court Friday – that it released many improvements to iTunes, and not isolated changes to stifle competition." — PING!

Apple iPod Kangaroo Kourt Anti-Trust Kase Ping!

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Gee. I dunno. When you’re playing in The Majors, it’s kind of your JOB to WIN, ain’t it?

You got it. . . and Apple was under no compulsion to allow other companies' DRM on their players. . . nor were they under compulsion to allow Apple's FairPlay on theirs. RealNetwork hacked Apple's software, a Federal crime, to insert their Codec onto Apple's iPod so their music "Harmony" DRM protected "songname".ra files could be loaded and play on the iPod. When Apple closed the vulnerability in the iTunes and iPod software that allowed RealNetwork's hack to insert their foreign code, the music could no longer be decoded. . . and it could no longer play on the iPod because RealNetwork's OWN DRM blocked it from doing so, as it was intended to do. Meanwhile, Apple's own protection, by contract with their music suppliers, kept DRM music from other sources off. . . but not music that had no DRM.

Apple ends its arguments in the DRM trial, but it’s far from over

Questions remain about who will represent 8 million iPod buyers
By Josh Lowensohn on December 12, 2014 07:42 pm

All the evidence for the $350 million court case against Apple is now in, but what we still don't have is someone to represent the some 8 million who purchased iPods during the class action period. That's an important detail that's still being hashed out ahead of next week, when the trial comes to a close and a jury of eight begins its deliberations. Despite the lack of a plaintiff, Apple presented evidence defending itself from the claims that it harmed consumers when creating the DRM system for iTunes and the iPod.

Today, Apple's lawyers said they still needed another day to file last-minute paperwork over "some last pieces of information" about a potential plaintiff who has spent the past few days being vetted in order to replace two other plaintiffs who were removed earlier in the trial. Last week, evidence emerged they either did not buy the correct devices or bought them outside the time period of the complaint, leaving the case's lawyers scrambling to find a replacement.

THE JURY GETS TO DECIDE NEXT WEEK

The entire complaint hinges on exactly why Apple hardened its digital rights management software in iTunes and iPods nearly a decade ago. According to the suit, which was filed back in 2005, two updates Apple made to its iTunes and iPod software actively kept other companies from connecting their devices the jukebox software, as well as kept users from playing music from other stores on their iPods. It also claims Apple used that system to systematically raise the prices of iPods during that time, making more money in the process.

Taking a turn to defend itself this week, witnesses for Apple, which included two economists and its former VP of marketing and business management, made the case that the company not only improved its products from 2006 to 2009, but also managed to reduce prices of those devices in the process. In question are some models of the iPod nano, the iPod Classic, the iPod touch, and iPod Shuffle.

Mark Donnelly, who worked under Apple's marketing chief Phil Schiller and retired from the company last October, argued that Apple was always trying to fit more features into a new models, and consistently discounting older models. He recalled one such time that Jeff Williams, who is currently Apple's senior vice president of operations, ran into him in the middle of Apple's campus, and excitedly told him they could double the amount of storage they were planning to include in the upcoming iPod nano, but without spending more.

"NOBODY REALLY KNEW WE'D DONE THAT."

"Jeff said ‘Mark, we're getting lots better prices on the flash. We could actually do better — we could double the memory of these [iPod] nanos,'" Donnelly recalled. The only problem is that the company had already finalized the product's launch, and was in the process of assembling millions of them overseas. The pair successfully pitched the idea to increase the memory up to Schiller, and Apple went about striking the deal on the larger memory, immediately building the higher configurations, then ultimately shipping the original ones to smaller markets at a lower cost, with nobody the wiser. "Nobody really knew we'd done that," Donnelly said. "We really enjoyed that we were able to pull it off."

iPod CD

Donnelly also recalled his time as part of an exclusive Apple committee that would come together to decide the prices for all the company's new products. Where late Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said the company had "zero" committees because Apple functioned like a startup, Donnelly painted an entirely different picture, explaining in detail how the company's senior executives and other "decision makers" would meet together in person, or on the phone to come up with the price for upcoming products, poring over gross margins, product specs, and head-to-head comparisons with devices made by other companies. Earlier in the case, the plaintiffs had brought out planning documents from these meetings to suggest that Apple was acutely aware of the competition and its market share, including that of iTunes. Donnelly said he'd looked at the iTunes market share "from time to time," but that did not elaborate on how it affected how Apple priced its products.

Prior to Donnelly, Apple called upon two professors from the University of Chicago, Robert Topel and Kevin Murphy, to poke holes in the damages calculations of the plaintiffs' economist Roger Noll. They said Noll hadn't factored in improvements to Apple's products in his analysis, and that changes like extra storage, longer battery life, larger screens, and new software features made iPods better over time. Murphy also compared Apple's integrated system of the iPod and iTunes to video game consoles from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, as well as Amazon's Kindle, saying it was an identical idea.

"INTEGRATION IS NOT AN ALL OR NOTHING THING. THERE ARE VARYING LEVELS OF INTEGRATION."

"Some of the [game] titles will be the same," Donnelly said in his comparison to video game consoles. "But the actual thing you purchase will only work on that other system. They're malevolent. Integration is not an all or nothing thing. There are varying levels of integration."

The part of Apple's integration that under scrutiny are two security measures that were rolled out a year apart in iTunes and Apple's iPod software. One verifies the iTunes library, whereas the other verifies what's known as the keybag on iPod - basically a set of digital keys to unlock songs that have DRM. Once activated, these security measures did a number of things, from keeping iPods from playing songs that had DRM that had been tampered with, to keeping third-parties from changing the database of songs with jukebox software apps.

"I WAS TOLD TO AUTHENTICATE THE THIRD-PARTY PLAYER AND KEEP THEM FROM SYNCING.

Rod Schultz, a former Apple engineer who had built a key aspect of the library checker, said today that he'd originally been tasked with the job because the company wanted to keep Linux-based music players from accessing the iTunes library after it had been reverse-engineered. "I was told that third-party players were corrupting [Apple's] database, so I was told to authenticate the third-party player and keep them from syncing," Schultz said. That became a feature in iTunes, and later right on the iPod, though Schultz - who left the company in 2008 to go build DRM technology for Adobe - said he hadn't worked on the version that went onto the iPod.

Earlier in the trial, Apple had argued that such third-party players, including one made by RealNetworks, attempted to hijack the iPod and created all sorts of issues for users that would damage a user's music library and the performance of their iPod. That's become a point of contention where Apple's said it was trying to protect users from buggy software, while the plaintiffs have accused it of shutting out competition.

The $350 million in damages Apple could be on the hook for is relatively small, but could triple if the jury says the company wilfully violated antitrust laws, something that would push it beyond what Apple initially won in its patent trial against Samsung two years ago. Today was the last day of evidence from either side, with the jury set to begin deliberations after closing arguments next week.

Another reason why i’ll use anything NOT Apple..

I’m not an Apple fan, but there is nothing wrong with what he worked on. No different than the Colonel protecting his blend of herbs and spices.

Another reason why i’ll use anything NOT Apple..

Then you are not understanding this case. . . and what the engineer actually testified to. Read the article entirely. He was closing vulnerabilities in the OS and iTunes. It was the way the questions were asked by the Attorney Plaintiffs and the misleading headline that results in people thinking his assignment was solely to block competition.

The part of Apple's integration that under scrutiny are two security measures that were rolled out a year apart in iTunes and Apple's iPod software. One verifies the iTunes library, whereas the other verifies what's known as the keybag on iPod - basically a set of digital keys to unlock songs that have DRM. Once activated, these security measures did a number of things, from keeping iPods from playing songs that had DRM that had been tampered with, to keeping third-parties from changing the database of songs with jukebox software apps. . .
"i was told that third-party players were corrupting [Apple's] database, so I was told to authenticate the third-party player and keep them from syncing," Schultz said. That became a feature in iTunes, and later right on the iPod, though Schultz - who left the company in 2008 to go build DRM technology for Adobe - said he hadn't worked on the version that went onto the iPod."

What actually was going on was that RealNetwork had HACKED into iTunes and the iPod and inserted their own DRM (red tampering with the DRM) and inserted their own "jukebox app" into the iPod software. This was actually an illegal act under the Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, but whose looking. Apple made major changes to iTunes including new abilities.

The Attorney Plaintiffs (order intentional) are focussing on iTunes 7.0 and 7.4, both of which ushered in major functionality increases. Cover-flow, iPod games, gapless playback, and ALBUMS were added to the abilities with iTunes 7.0 on September 12, 2006 and all of those increased abilities overwrote any RealNetwork's Codec installed and the vulnerability that may have existed in iTunes 6.x. Then here's a biggie. On September 7, 2007, Apple updated iTunes 7.4 for the iPod TOUCH. . . the most major upgrade since the iPod was originally released. . . introducing support for a TOUCH SCREEN interface!

When these updates were installed, the RealNetwork's hacks were overwritten by the new software Apple had created for their products. The Real "song title".ra files with their proprietary Harmony DRM would no longer play because the hacked codec was no longer present nor was the hacked "jukebox" software that HAD NO BUSINESS to be on the iPod in the first place.

The vulnerability that allowed RealNetwork's hackers to get in and insert their hacked codec and jukebox software could also have been used by malicious hackers to install DRM breakers, which under Apple's contracts with the music companies would have resulted in the publishers PULLING all of the iTunes store's music if Apple had NOT closed those vulnerabilities. It was required by their contract that they close the vulnerabilities in a specified number of days.

This sounds pretty bogus - its basically arguing that a company cannot create a proprietary data format and then build a device dedicated to it alone. Where is it written that every company has to make products that accept every other company’s products? That’s ridiculous!

I ran a big marketing division. If my people didn’t have this as a secondary goal, I transferred them to the mailroom where competitive blocking was not important. This is what you do if you are in business. Geez, corporations should offer their competitive advantages to competitors? Mindless Socialists!

I have some iPods and an iPad. I have regular MP3 Players and some android tablets too. The Apple products are definitely a mixed blessing, but one common factor is that they purposely make it very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to use certain formats and content, or to use non-Apple accessories, like power cords and the like. In the case of iPods, everything must be in an iTunes format to be loaded on the player, and some MP3s and other formats cannot be converted. The only clear reason for this that I can see is to drive the user into the iTunes store. The

By contrast, Sony MP3 players are acoustically far superior to the iPod, and they accept any format that can be converted to an MP3 file, which is basically anything, but they lack the storage capacity of an IPod. Other MP3 players I've used in the past, some of which do store amounts comparable to an iPod, like the Zune, do not have the file organization qualities nor the sound quality of the IPod or the Sony devices.

I have some iPods and an iPad. I have regular MP3 Players and some android tablets too. The Apple products are definitely a mixed blessing, but one common factor is that they purposely make it very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to use certain formats and content, or to use non-Apple accessories, like power cords and the like. In the case of iPods, everything must be in an iTunes format to be loaded on the player, and some MP3s and other formats cannot be converted. The only clear reason for this that I can see is to drive the user into the iTunes store.

Sorry. Nothing could be further from the truth, Pugachev. Many iPod users loaded other content on their iPods and NEVER went to the iTunes store. . . ever. I do not believe I have ever purchased a piece of music from iTunes. So your characterization is totally wrong. Apple provides tools to convert almost every type of file. The number of file types that can be loaded and used is quite comprehensive. iTunes supported audio formats include: MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, Audible .aa files and iTunes purchased M4A and M4P music files. iTunes can convert between MP3, WAV, AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless.

One does essentially need to use the iTunes App to load the files, but the iTunes Store is just a portion of that App, it is not required to purchase anything from it, or even visit it, to use an iPod, iPad, or iPhone.

Other MP3 players I've used in the past, some of which do store amounts comparable to an iPod, like the Zune, do not have the file organization qualities nor the sound quality of the IPod or the Sony devices.

That is certainly true.

I would estimate than not less than 25% of my MP3 files do not convert to iTunes. I’ll take your word that Apple offers a variety tools that might overcome the problem, but why do I have to spend the effort digging them out and using them? Why doesn’t Apple just allow MP3s to load onto their players? Sony and everyone else does. Why require iTunes at all? It isn’t that iTunes is a more audiophile format, it’s only because Apple want to make it easier to get you music from iTunes, and harder to get from elsewhere. That theme seems common to all Apple products.

If your file were standard MP3, they'd play. It's obvious they're not. Apple fully supports the files I listed. I don't know what those files are, but it's obvious they're encumbered by their sellers with a proprietary Non-standard DRM. Nothing needs to be "converted" to any iTunes file type to play. They just play. You can convert them if you chose from one type to another within iTunes, but it is not required. You cannot increase bit rates, though, or increase quality, if it's not there to begin with.

If your files were obtained from RealNetworks, for example, they may claim they are MP3, but they might be protected with either HELIX or Harmony DRM schemes that would require a RealNetwork player/file decoder to play. If they were purchased from the Microsoft Zune store they used MS's proprietary DRM and require a Windows player to decode or strip them of the DRM. This means they are not pure MP3 files. If you got these files back from a commercial source before mid 2009, they most likely DO have DRM.

Apple has negotiated a way to handle all of these with the labels. . . Join a special service through iTunes and ALL your music from whatever source, however you got it, even pirated, becomes legally licensed, and you can download a DRM free version, at the highest bit rate free from iTunes to replace your low bit rate MP3s. I believe that service is $25 to get all your music legal and unDRMed in the best format available.