FairPlay: Encyclopedia II - FairPlay - Harmony

FairPlay - Harmony

In July 2004, RealNetworks introduced their Harmony technology. The Harmony technology is built into RealPlayer and allows users of the RealPlayer Music Store to play their songs on the iPod. Before the introduction of Harmony this was not possible, because the RealPlayer Music Store uses a different scheme, called Helix DRM, to protect their content that was incompatible with that used by Apple. While using RealPlayer to transfer a Helix DRM-protected song onto the iPod, Harmony transparently converts it to a FairPlay-compatible protected file. Real argued that Harmony was a boon to consumers that "frees" them "from the limitation of being locked into a specific portable device when they buy digital music."[1] Apple responded:

RealNetworks launched an internet petition titled "Hey Apple! Don't break my iPod", encouraging iPod users to sign up to support Real's action. The petition backfired badly. [2] The overwhelming majority of posters reacted negatively. The main points of criticism against Harmony were:

• Many posters accused RealNetworks of astroturfing with the petition they had created.
• RealNetworks was criticised for keeping its own intellectual property and products closed, while asking Apple to open up the iPod.
• The move was also denounced as an attempt to force Apple into a partnership that would only benefit RealNetworks.

Harmony was quietly disabled by Apple around the time of the iPod photo launch, and to older versions shortly after in firmware updates. The change makes it so that all music (past and present) purchased through the RealPlayer Music Store will not work on Apple's iPod. In response, Real has said they will get it working again. Since then, Apple and Real have effectively been playing a game of cat and mouse with Apple blocking Harmony with each new iPod software update and Real fixing Harmony to work on iPods some time later [3]. Music purchased through the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) was not affected.

In August 2005, an SEC filing by RealNetworks admitted that continued use of the Harmony technology put themselves at considerable risk because of the possibility of a lawsuit from Apple, which would be expensive to defend against, even if the court agreed that the technology is legal. Additionally, the possibility that "Apple will continue to modify its technology to 'break' the interoperability that Harmony provides to consumers" would mean that "Harmony may no longer work with Apple's products, which could harm our business and reputation, or we may be forced to incur additional development costs to refine Harmony to make it interoperate again."[4] It should be noted that this type of disclosure is common in SEC 10-Q filings and often represents many worst-case scenarios for a company.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Harmony", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki