14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is one of the companies that Media Rights Technologies has targeted with a Cease and Desist letter. The organization is claiming that Apple is amongst those responsible for violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and intellectual property law.
Media Rights Technologies is claiming that Vista, Adobe Flash Player, Real Player, iTunes and the iPod have all been produced "without regard for the DMCA or the rights of American Intellectual Property owners," and has filed Cease and Desist letters against Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and Real to stop production or sale of products that infringe on the DMCA. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, signed into law in 1998, makes it illegal to manufacture products that are designed to circumvent copy protection and according to Media Rights Technologies, all of the aforementioned products violate it.
"Together these four companies are responsible for 98 percent of the media players in the marketplace; CNN, NPR, Clear Channel, MySpace Yahoo and YouTube all use these infringing devices to distribute copyrighted works. We will hold the responsible parties accountable. The time of suing John Doe is over," said Media Rights Technologies CEO Hank Risan.
Incredibly enough, Media Rights Technologies said in its statement that its X1 SeCure Recording Control has proven effective against stream ripping and these companies have been "actively avoiding the use of MRT's technologies." The press release even goes as far as to say that "at the iTunes store, Fairplay protection can be easily stripped away, creating unprotected MP3s with the click of a Stream Ripper "record" button" and also refers to "unprotected media solutions created by Apple." Exactly how the iTunes is unprotected is unclear, since FairPlay is a DRM protection that effectively protects the content from being replicated. As for the fact that FairPlay can be subverted, all protections schemes have proven to be ineffective if hackers actually decide to target them.
There is a far cry between saying something is unprotected and having protection that can be circumvented, but from the looks of it, Media Rights Technologies is simply angry because everyone is making money and not paying them a dime for their X1 SeCure Recording Control.