Comment Contents of the Letter (playfair.txt) (Score 3, Informative) 370
(cut out '-' used to serve as underlines for section headers to get past /.'s "lameness filter" and made all paragraphs into one line to get past /.'s "lines contain fewer than 38 characters". Enjoy)
BACKGROUND
Sarovar (http://www.sarovar.org/) was setup about a year back as a facility for free software hackers. It's running the GForge software under Debian GNU/Linux. Think of it as a Savannah in India (http://savannah.gnu.org/ and http://savannah.nongnu.org/ are servers providing facilities for distributed development of free software projects). The Sarovar server is physically located in Trivandrum, India. It is sponsored by Trivandrum based company River Valley Technologies and maintained by Linuxense, another Trivandrum-based company. Rajkumar S, who works at Linuxense. is one of the maintainers of Sarovar. These 2 companies (River Valley and Linuxense) maintain Sarovar as a service for the free software community in India and abroad. Sarovar now hosts 130 projects and has more than 930 registered users from across the world.
PlayFair is a tool to enable fair use for music purchased from Apple's iTunes music service. It lets people play music in non-Apple authorized hardware like a GNU/Linux PC, provided an authorized key is available. It does that by stripping the Digital Rights Management (DRM) facility from a song, provided the key to playing the song is available. PlayFair is licensed under GNU General Public License (GPL -- http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL).
The author of PlayFair prefers to remain anonymous.
HISTORY
PlayFair was originally hosted at Sourceforge.net, a US-based project similar to Savannah and Sarovar. Apple invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against PlayFair and Sourceforge took down the project. Since DMCA has an anti circumvision provision, PlayFair *may* be illegal in the USA.
Once Sourceforge shut down the project, PlayFair's author contacted Sarovar for hosting, and since India do not have a DMCA like law, Rajkumar S approved the project as it is legal in India. The project was available at Sarovar for about a week and had about 30,000 downloads.
Last Friday (2004-04-16) Apple sent a Cease and Desist (C&D) letter to the sponsors, maintainers and ISP of Sarovar.org invoking the IT Act 2002 and Indian Copyright act, and instructed them to take down PlayFair within 24 hours. The full letter from apple is available at
http://sarovar.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=474
Since the letter was addressed to the ISP and sponsors, and as they had some limitations on fighting the case, Sarovar decided to take down PlayFair, even though they believed that it was legal.
Some of the hackers who maintain Sarovar.org had pretty strong feelings about this case, but were helpless against the legal force from Apple.
As we think about the implications of such a C&D letter from a corporation against a free software project, it becomes apparent that the issue at hand is not just related to PlayFair or Sarovar or River Valley. What is really happening is a corporation is using legal means to shut down a free software project in India for the first time and the small project is left defenseless even though they believe that they are right.
This letter from Apple will have a profound impact on freedom for Indians and people all over the world. If we do not fight back, we will be on our way on a slippery slope. If we win it will be a momentous victory with impact all over the world.
PLAYFAIR IS NOT MUSIC THEFT
PlayFair does not give the user any special facilities that Apple itself has not given the user:
1. PlayFair requires a valid key from Apple to convert the format of music downloaded from iTunes. PlayFair cannot convert downloaded songs' formats without authorized keys.
2. PlayFair is not a music distribution program. All PlayFair does is convert songs from one, restricted format to another, less restricted format.
3. PlayFair is not a method for making illegal copies of iTunes songs. PlayFair by itself cannot be used to copy music to CD, distribute on a peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing network, play music or edit songs.
4. PlayFair saves time in converting songs. The Apple iPod permits the iTunes user to make a music CD out of iTunes songs. After that the user can convert the songs in that CD to MP3 or another digital format for playing on portable, non-Apple music players. By converting iTunes songs directly to a common digital format, PlayFair shortcuts this sequence by eliminating the need to make a CD and then convert it.
THE ISSUES
PlayFair has been written from scratch by it's author, who likes to remain anonymous, using only freely-available tools and modules, and does not violate the copyright of any of those tools and modules. He has made the code for PlayFair freely available to anyone who wishes to use, view, modify and distribute it. PlayFair is not in violation of the copyright laws of any country.
Apple appears to be taking the position that PlayFair can be used to illegally copy and share music. However, PlayFair is not a tool for illegal copying and sharing of music any more than CD writers, tape recorders and radios are. If PlayFair is in contravention of any law related to music, so are radios, CD writers and tape recorders and should be treated accordingly.
Apple has stated that PlayFair contravenes the Indian Copyright Act. 1957 and the IT Act, 2002, but have not specified how these acts are violated. While these acts make the unauthorized copying of music illegal, they nowhere bar the creation of tools that could potentially be used to illegally copy music. Trying to stop dissemination of a tool that permits legal licensees of songs from iTunes to play them on non Apple-authorized hardware is purely a business loss prevention strategy from Apple and must be deplored.
CURRENT STATUS
M P Anand Babu, a well-known member of the Indian free software community who currently resides in the USA, has taken over as project maintainer of the PlayFair package. Anand Babu, the Indian free software community and a large number of concerned Indian citizens are working together to devise a strategy by which PlayFair can be made available to the world; they are also working on understanding how to counter the threat of corporates abusing the legal system to protect their own financial interests at the cost of freedom.
Authors
Rajkumar S
Raj Mathur
BACKGROUND
Sarovar (http://www.sarovar.org/) was setup about a year back as a facility for free software hackers. It's running the GForge software under Debian GNU/Linux. Think of it as a Savannah in India (http://savannah.gnu.org/ and http://savannah.nongnu.org/ are servers providing facilities for distributed development of free software projects). The Sarovar server is physically located in Trivandrum, India. It is sponsored by Trivandrum based company River Valley Technologies and maintained by Linuxense, another Trivandrum-based company. Rajkumar S, who works at Linuxense. is one of the maintainers of Sarovar. These 2 companies (River Valley and Linuxense) maintain Sarovar as a service for the free software community in India and abroad. Sarovar now hosts 130 projects and has more than 930 registered users from across the world.
PlayFair is a tool to enable fair use for music purchased from Apple's iTunes music service. It lets people play music in non-Apple authorized hardware like a GNU/Linux PC, provided an authorized key is available. It does that by stripping the Digital Rights Management (DRM) facility from a song, provided the key to playing the song is available. PlayFair is licensed under GNU General Public License (GPL -- http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL).
The author of PlayFair prefers to remain anonymous.
HISTORY
PlayFair was originally hosted at Sourceforge.net, a US-based project similar to Savannah and Sarovar. Apple invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against PlayFair and Sourceforge took down the project. Since DMCA has an anti circumvision provision, PlayFair *may* be illegal in the USA.
Once Sourceforge shut down the project, PlayFair's author contacted Sarovar for hosting, and since India do not have a DMCA like law, Rajkumar S approved the project as it is legal in India. The project was available at Sarovar for about a week and had about 30,000 downloads.
Last Friday (2004-04-16) Apple sent a Cease and Desist (C&D) letter to the sponsors, maintainers and ISP of Sarovar.org invoking the IT Act 2002 and Indian Copyright act, and instructed them to take down PlayFair within 24 hours. The full letter from apple is available at
http://sarovar.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=474
Since the letter was addressed to the ISP and sponsors, and as they had some limitations on fighting the case, Sarovar decided to take down PlayFair, even though they believed that it was legal.
Some of the hackers who maintain Sarovar.org had pretty strong feelings about this case, but were helpless against the legal force from Apple.
As we think about the implications of such a C&D letter from a corporation against a free software project, it becomes apparent that the issue at hand is not just related to PlayFair or Sarovar or River Valley. What is really happening is a corporation is using legal means to shut down a free software project in India for the first time and the small project is left defenseless even though they believe that they are right.
This letter from Apple will have a profound impact on freedom for Indians and people all over the world. If we do not fight back, we will be on our way on a slippery slope. If we win it will be a momentous victory with impact all over the world.
PLAYFAIR IS NOT MUSIC THEFT
PlayFair does not give the user any special facilities that Apple itself has not given the user:
1. PlayFair requires a valid key from Apple to convert the format of music downloaded from iTunes. PlayFair cannot convert downloaded songs' formats without authorized keys.
2. PlayFair is not a music distribution program. All PlayFair does is convert songs from one, restricted format to another, less restricted format.
3. PlayFair is not a method for making illegal copies of iTunes songs. PlayFair by itself cannot be used to copy music to CD, distribute on a peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing network, play music or edit songs.
4. PlayFair saves time in converting songs. The Apple iPod permits the iTunes user to make a music CD out of iTunes songs. After that the user can convert the songs in that CD to MP3 or another digital format for playing on portable, non-Apple music players. By converting iTunes songs directly to a common digital format, PlayFair shortcuts this sequence by eliminating the need to make a CD and then convert it.
THE ISSUES
PlayFair has been written from scratch by it's author, who likes to remain anonymous, using only freely-available tools and modules, and does not violate the copyright of any of those tools and modules. He has made the code for PlayFair freely available to anyone who wishes to use, view, modify and distribute it. PlayFair is not in violation of the copyright laws of any country.
Apple appears to be taking the position that PlayFair can be used to illegally copy and share music. However, PlayFair is not a tool for illegal copying and sharing of music any more than CD writers, tape recorders and radios are. If PlayFair is in contravention of any law related to music, so are radios, CD writers and tape recorders and should be treated accordingly.
Apple has stated that PlayFair contravenes the Indian Copyright Act. 1957 and the IT Act, 2002, but have not specified how these acts are violated. While these acts make the unauthorized copying of music illegal, they nowhere bar the creation of tools that could potentially be used to illegally copy music. Trying to stop dissemination of a tool that permits legal licensees of songs from iTunes to play them on non Apple-authorized hardware is purely a business loss prevention strategy from Apple and must be deplored.
CURRENT STATUS
M P Anand Babu, a well-known member of the Indian free software community who currently resides in the USA, has taken over as project maintainer of the PlayFair package. Anand Babu, the Indian free software community and a large number of concerned Indian citizens are working together to devise a strategy by which PlayFair can be made available to the world; they are also working on understanding how to counter the threat of corporates abusing the legal system to protect their own financial interests at the cost of freedom.
Authors
Rajkumar S
Raj Mathur
