Apple is a company known for many things, but embracing copyright freedoms has not been one of them. The company loves creating new and innovative products that challenge the world's perception of what it thought it wanted, but it then turns around and aggressively protects those products from being poked or prodded too much by curious onlookers. Some believe Apple is in the right to do this, while others feel the company could set a better example when it comes to using (or abusing) copyright legislation for its own self-serving purposes.

This is a topic that recently came up during our Premier Subscriber chat with Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Fred von Lohmann. von Lohmann pointed out that Google—a company that is often compared to Apple—has been at the forefront of the pro-innovation copyright agenda, fighting the good fight on behalf of tech companies and their users for many years. When it comes to Apple... not so much. The two companies could not be more different. Let's take a moment to summarize some of Apple's latest pro-DRM and pro-DMCA moves.

Apple <3s DRM

Apple has insisted for years that it would embrace an entirely DRM-free world if music, movie, and TV producers would get behind it. Those walls have largely been broken down when it comes to selling some forms of media (namely music), but Apple isn't exactly anti-DRM in any other sense. Aside from still offering DRM-laden movies and TV shows on iTunes (which can reasonably be attributed to content producers), Apple itself is happy to employ DRM to keep its own products from being used in unapproved ways.

The most obvious is the fact that the company uses DRM to guarantee that iPods and iPhones can't be used with any other software besides iTunes. Not only that, but Apple also uses technology to block out non-Apple devices from syncing with iTunes—� la the Palm Pre saga.

Apple also happily employed HDCP in its implementation of the Mini DisplayPort for its portable machines starting in 2008. This means that certain movies that are HDCP "aware" can now detect whether the movie is being output to an approved display—if not, the movie won't play. DisplayPort itself was designed as an open, extensible standard for computers that offers lower power consumption over DVI, so it was Apple's choice to massage HDCP into the mix for its own (and partners') interests. This is, of course, on top of the HDCP that's already implemented in the Apple TV.

Apple vs. jailbreakers

Given the above, Apple's stance against iPhone jailbreakers isn't too surprising. Jailbreaking allows third parties to create applications and add additional functionality to the iPhone that wouldn't otherwise be allowed, including running background applications and inevitably unlocking the device to be used on unapproved carriers.

Apple argues that this kind of activity is against the DMCA and should be illegal. Why? Because jailbreaking, to Apple, means circumvention of DRM, and why would anyone want to circumvent DRM except to do illegal activities? In its argument to Congress earlier this year, Apple said that the "class of works" (that is, unapproved software) that would come out of jailbroken iPhones infringe on Apple's copyrights—not to mention that such an activity could lead to the total and utter meltdown of the cellular network.

The EFF, on the other hand, says that neither jailbreaking nor installing legally produced programs would violate Apple's copyrights, and that's why jailbreaking should continue to be allowed under the DMCA (at least for the next three years). And, let's be honest here: there are relatively few iPhone users in the world who even want to jailbreak their phones. The threat of a hostile takeover by people using rogue iPhones is practically nonexistent, but Apple wants to exercise its control over all users, not just most of them.

Apple vs. people talking on the Internet

Again, this builds upon Apple's overall stance on DRM and users "breaking" it. Earlier this year, Apple took action on that stance by making legal threats against the company behind BluWiki, OdioWorks LLC, after members posted information discussing how to use the iPod with third-party software. Apple accused OdioWorks of disseminating information to circumvent Apple's DRM and enabling copyright infringement by hosting the pages on iTunesDB, which Apple believed was in violation of the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA.

OdioWorks first complied, and then filed a lawsuit against Apple in order to defend the rights of its users. "Companies like Apple should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussion," OdioWorks owner Sam Odio said in a statement at the time.

The company asked the court for a judgment saying the discussion didn't violate the DMCA, but that challenge never got a chance to be tested in court—Apple decided to back off in July, notifying the company that it was withdrawing its takedown notifications. However, this wasn't the success that some had hoped for, as Apple didn't withdraw because of anyone's First Amendment rights. "Apple has stopped utilizing the code in question, rendering the code obsolete for the purposes at issue in this action. Publishing that code is no longer of any harm or benefit to anyone," the company said in its letter.

This means that if someone decided to post a new discussion to BluWiki discussing how to use the iPod with third-party software under Apple's new authentication methods, such threats could (and probably will) bubble up again.

It won't be over anytime soon

These are just a few (albeit major) examples of the steps Apple has taken to squelch open discussion and tinkering with its products, despite the fact that these activities barely affect the company's bottom line. Though most of Apple's customers don't know or care about these issues, they do affect us all to some degree or another—especially if Apple tries to use the DMCA in what some consider to be abusive ways. It certainly seems that Apple has embraced the concept of using DRM for the purposes of control, and this behavior is likely to continue for a long time.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to go make a call on my iPhone while watching some movies on my Apple TV.