Apple Computer has invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent its customers from burning DVDs on external drives.
Earlier this month, the company's lawyers sent a stiff warning to an Apple dealer, warning that a patch to Apple's iDVD burning software ran afoul of the controversial 1998 copyright law.
"They alleged it violated Apple's intellectual property and the DMCA act," said Larry O'Connor, president of Other World Computing, a Macintosh dealer.
At issue in the legal threat is Apple's well-received iDVD application, which permits users to burn DVDs only on internal drives manufactured by Apple. In unmodified form, it does not permit writing to external drives manufactured by third parties.
That means Macintosh owners with older computers or laptop computers, or people who opted not to buy the "Superdrive"-equipped Macs, could not use iDVD to save movies.
Matt Deatherage, a former Apple employee who edits a daily Macintosh newsletter, said Apple's legal threat reflects the company's underlying business strategy: If iDVD is useful only on internal drives, people may buy more computers.
"I think it's one of those areas where Apple has decided it's an advantage to have iDVD on new machines and they don't want it available as an upgrade kit," Deatherage said. "Apple's basic job is to sell new machines. Hardware is 85 percent to 90 percent of Apple's revenue each quarter."
For more: C|Net News.com