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Apple Updates, Cripples iTunes
squiggleslash writes "Apple has issued an update to iTunes 4, iTunes 4.0.1. It can be downloaded via Software Update. The big change seems to be that iTunes will now only stream music to other Macs on the same subnet. This is presumably a response to people publishing public lists of shared iTunes playlists, though it does mean that anyone wanting to stream music from home to work or vice versa is SOL. Oh well." You can't share between 4.0 and 4.0.1 iTunes, so be careful in updating. AppleScript access to shared playlist tracks is fixed, though. Woop woop.
I don't have access to a Mac (let alone two) but couldn't you use a VPN if you wanted to stream from home to work or vice versa? You know, tunnel the traffic so it looks like one local network even though it isn't?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Is it just me, or do companies seem to do this too often... Oh, here's a new version that fixes the bugs that you've complained about, but we snuck in a few restrictions too... (think MS and XP SP1...)
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I can understand Apple's need to restrist internet streaming but there are those of us who like to stream our tunes from home to office and it seems like fair use to stream your own music to yourself no matter how far apart your computers are.
there are a million ways around this, though assumingly unbeknownst to most mac users.
This is simply part of the iTunes 4.0.1 "Stream Different" campaign.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Step 1: Update software with silly restrictions.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Netjuke...streaming, admin, etc. Internet access galore....just the thing for home to office. I use it daily. Just between me and me.
Note Netjuke uses PHP, Apache & MySQL, and can be tricky setting up on OS X, but once it's done you are set for remote music access/admin.
So, if you want to listen to music you have at home at work, why not just put the music on a CD-R and bring it in to work?
> Face it, Apple is after your dollars just like everyone else.
Erm... of course
I mean... it's a company
What did you expect?
Apple never claimed they were going to make free illegal MP3's legal, they only claimed that it was possible to integrate the internet into a solid profitable business plan, showing to the music industry that music over the net can be used for "good" as well.
Of course, if you prefer Kazaa's "we don't think we should pay for what other people put money and effort into" approach, that's fine. Getting muic for free always sounds like a good idea to the people on the receiving end. Funny how many people have a "philosophy" that they should get things for free in life. Thank god Kazaa isn't after your dollars... (oh wait, it is)
We could have seen the end of the feature completely. Now i can still go to a friends with my laptop and listen to his music. If streaming your music to your work is that big of a deal, there are other programs to do so that will grant you more control over it.
...to create a "hotfix" for that? I guess that's 5 mins work and a 3k binary to repair this, for a skilled person... Then just put the "hotfix" along with your music list...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I suppose it's not much help to point out that at least the description of the update makes the crippling pretty clear. Unfortunately, this is the cost of doing business with the RIAA. Until the copyright laws change or artists can start hitting the big time without signing to one of the major labels, no amount of pressure on online music stores - whether Apple's, the upcoming Napster (tm), or anything else with major content - will change this.
iTunes 4.0 shares on a local network appear grayed out and will not let you connect. The "connect to shared music (CMD+K) button" is removed as well meaning that only shares found by rendezvous are accessible. Clicking on daap:// links causes the current song to stop and itunes to sit idle.
Fortunatly you can run iTunes 4.0 and 4.0.1 on the same system without any trouble.
I used to share (stream) with a couple of neighbors but looks like those days are over. I don't believe that this was done to save iTMS from the wrath of labels: m4p files wouldn't play unless you had been authorized - and all files from iTMS were in the protected format. Standard MP3/M4A files would download and play without incident so the pirates will just move on to gnutella and not think twice.
Why not a file format that would stream but not download or require authorization from the streaming computer to play - that way you'd only have to download it once. If you ony let 1 user play at a time it would be like a library.
It was fun while it lasted.
I find it inane that Apple a) didn't simply say "the music execs, thinking stupidly, that this was a great way to steal music, so we downgraded, sorry". b) didn't point out to them that there are some 10 better, faster, simpler, more robust ways to steal music than iTunes 4 and Audio Hijack... ask them if they had ever heard of Gnutella, Kazza, Grokster, Limewire, yada yada yada.
this is stupid, it doesn't so anything to stop "stealing", and only hurts people who were using the functionality legitmately.
I had a bad tingling in my bones when Apple and the big 5 got together.. i hope this is where this kind of bullshit compromizing ends. What are they going to do next, shitcan iChat 2's teleconferenceing because someone can send files back and forth on it and some a-hole at Sony Music complains?
Come on, Apple - if this is what you have to do in order to sleep with the music companies, then to hell with them.
and speaking of which - where the hell are the indie artists' and their music on iTMS? Huh?
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
But then, that Apple never was either, was it?
668: Neighbour of the Beast
But because this is Apple nothing of the kind has happened... uh, I'll get my coat.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
No, i'm complaining, and i'm sure others will as well.
Apple is rapidly approaching a point that their only saving grace is that there is nary a hint that Apple is actively maintaining rights to my Mac to disable any software that may do this, if iTunes 4 won't - such as in XP, w2k, etc.
If/when that happens, then yeah, i will remove X and install YDL on the whole damn hard drive.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Don't be silly. There is no shortage of alternatives for an Apple customer, if Apple becomes just like everybody else. It's a good bet to assume that Apple understands that its survival depends on being better.
This is simply a case of a little secret that people should've just enjoyed quietly. As for the indignant protests from people who want to stream music from home to work: do you really think your IT department will not pay you a visit once more than a few people start continuously sucking 128 kbps each?
Apple's Music Store allows you to authorize up to three Macs to play your purchased music. They could have allowed you to share music with any machine that has your key. This would satisfy the "want to listen to home music at work" request while still meeting their responsibility not to allow outright piracy.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
It would be naive to think that more changes like this are not coming as Mac users figure out how to do what they actually want by working around the "soft" restrictions that has been placed on the music service so far.
:-(.
Personally, I find the general acceptance of Apple's DRM system, especially here, very frightening. When you accept DRM, you accept giving up control over your own computer, and ALL power to use the data in the manner that you see fit. Then you are the subject of the DRM system, which may grant you ability to do things, when and if it feels fit. It doesn't matter if the DRM system has been your friend up until today: tomorrow you could wake up and find that due to new terms from the music industry you can no longer make any copies of the music what so ever. Or that you have to pay per play for your entire music catalogue. Or that the DRM system has been discontinued and all its your... sorry... its encrypted files are useless.
This is exactly the old frog boiling analogy. The music company services like Pressplay and co. made the DRM too annoying, so the users jumped right out. By making the DRM initially quite lenient, the Apple strategy is to get users to accept the the concept that their computers decide what they can and cannot do, because it seems the cauldron actually isn't such a bad place for a swim. Expect the limitations to get tighter and tighter as the general acceptance grows...
And I, who was so fond of my ipod
...and I don't really care. I haven't read the posts here yet, but I hope there's not a lot of grousing about it. Apple is fully in the right on this, if their software is being used in a way they don't like, they can certainly change it. They've never been up for pirating, and shouldn't be.
It's yet another biased, sensationalist Slashdot story. Oh, Apple stopped supporting the abuse of a feature that was never intended to be used in the way that's now being restricted! They MUST be evil (this week)! Folks, this is not the crippling of iTunes; it's a bunch of fixes (like the volume levels problem) and the end of an opportunity for people to pirate music.
I'm not a fan of the RIAA, but that doesn't make piracy of their stuff acceptable. If you don't like the terms, don't buy the music. Apple worked very hard to get the RIAA to soften up as much as it has with DRM in the iTunes Music Store. To risk it all now just to let a few geeks listen to their home music at the office would be a stupid move and it's not as if this particular feature was the only way of doing so. There is absolutely no evidence that this is the beginning of an evil trend of Apple crushing its users in DRM or anything like that!
Unfortunately, a more objective article (as in, one that doesn't shout that Apple is crippling iTunes in the headline) seems to be too much to ask of Slashdot. Sorry guys, I'm as liberal as the next guy, but that doesn't mean that large corporations are necessarily evil demons trying to take over the world. I think I'm leaving this site for good, in case anyone cares (I am registered, but figured that I am alone in being reasonable and might as well be anonymous to you all.).
Whatchutalkinboutwillis?
This worked just fine from both a local Linux and Solaris box:
ssh -g -L 3689:homemac:3689 me@homemac
Then point the workmac -> daap://worklinux
The trick is, you can't set up the SSH tunnel *from* the Mac itself, because iTunes doesn't like connecting to localhost or even 127.0.0.1 (or maybe it was ports other than 3689).
This is a fair move by Apple.
It keeps the RIAA happy. (An unfortunate necessity in order to main catalogue diversity).
It still allows for a modicum of fair use.
The way I see it (and so do Apple I assume) is that when you are on the move, or away from your mac, you listen to your iPod. When you are at home / work (wherever your mac is), you can listen to whatever the hell you like, and if you like it, you can buy it and burn it.
Apple are setting the benchmark for this market now - if other companies join in and add more draconian DRM, they will fail.
I, for one, welcome our new, fruity overlords.
\\ Mitch
All this time, I thought the subnet restriction was already in place because the README had already stated it. I guess 4.0.1 simply implements what the documentation said all along. (and to think that I could have streamed from my LAN to wireless at home all this time.. I should look into bridging..).
They don't have iTunes for another platform yet so in order to stay completely legitimate in the eyes of the labels and public they had to do this. Once they have a Windows version there will be no reason for them to not expand that.
Until then I don't see the big deal. You can burn your downloads to a CD right? Just burn them to a CD and then rip the CD as oggs or mp3s if you really need to share.
This is all about propaganda. If Apple stays 110% on the right side of the law while still being liberal in its feature set then that's a major accomplishment. It will only further undermine the subscription models and similar schemes.
As long as you can burn to a CD and rip that CD, Apple is just doing stuff like this for show. It's so that they can more easily hit the labels right back in the face if they get taken to court for one of the typical bogus reasons.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
This is fine. People just seem to be too stupid to be trusted with any real discressionary rope. So it is hardwired. Pitty cause it was a good feature.
THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND APPLE COMPUTER, INC. (?APPLE?) STATING THE TERMS THAT GOVERN YOUR USE OF THE ITUNES MUSIC STORE SERVICE. [...] IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, DO NOT CLICK ?AGREE,? AND DO NOT USE THE SERVICE. [...] ... APPLE MAY REFUSE ACCESS TO THE ITUNES MUSIC STORE FOR NONCOMPLIANCE WITH ANY PART OF THIS AGREEMENT.
... include a security framework using technology that protects digital information and limits your usage of Products to certain usage rules established by Apple and its licensors (?Usage Rules?). You agree to comply with such Usage Rules, as further outlined below, and you agree not to violate or attempt to violate any security components. You agree not to attempt to, or assist another person to, circumvent, reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise tamper with any of the security components related to such Usage Rules for any reason whatsoever. Usage Rules may be controlled and monitored by Apple for compliance purposes, and Apple reserves the right to enforce the Usage Rules with or without notice to you. ... You agree not to modify the software in any manner or form [...]
.. Apple suspects that you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of this Agreement .... Apple, at its sole discretion, without notice to you may: (i) terminate this Agreement ... and/or (ii) terminate the license to the software; and/or (iii) preclude access to the Service (or any part thereof).
... to disclose any Registration Data [to] a third party, as Apple believes is reasonably necessary or appropriate to .. verify compliance with any part of this Agreement
... this Agreement and to impose new or additional rules, policies, terms, or conditions on your use of the Service. Such updates ... will be effective immediately and incorporated into this Agreement. Your continued use of the iTunes Music Store following will be deemed to constitute your acceptance of any and all such Additional Terms. All Additional Terms are hereby incorporated into this Agreement by this reference.
[...]
You understand that the Service, and products purchased through the Service
[...]
You agree that you will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any other person to, circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service or used to administer the Usage Rules.
[...]
Apple reserves the right to modify the Usage Rules at any time.
[...]
You acknowledge that some aspects of the Service, Products, and administering of the Usage Rules entails the ongoing involvement of Apple. Accordingly, in the event that Apple changes any part of the Service or discontinues the Service, which Apple may do at its election, you acknowledge that you may no longer be able to use Products to the same extent as prior to such change or discontinuation, and that Apple shall have no liability to you in such case.
[...]
Notwithstanding any other provision of this Agreement, Apple and its licensors reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any Products, content, or other materials comprising a part of the Service at any time without notice. In no event will Apple be liable for the removal of or disabling of access to any such Products, content or materials under this Agreement. Apple may also impose limits on the use of or access to certain features or portions of the Service, in any case and without notice or liability.
[...]
THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR ANY PART OF THE SERVICE, EXCEPT FOR USE OF THE SERVICE AS PERMITTED IN THESE TERMS OF SERVICE, IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND INFRINGES ON THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF OTHERS AND MAY SUBJECT YOU TO CIVIL AND CRIMINAL PENALTIES, INCLUDING POSSIBLE MONETARY DAMAGES, FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.
If
[...]
You agree that Apple has the right
[...]
Apple reserves the right, at any time and from time to time, to update
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, don't it? Kinda like a microsoft EULA but in a nicer font!
If the gun industry was like the computer industry all guns would come filled with concrete. Thus, there'd be no risk of you killing somebody and blaming it on the gun manufacturer.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
The license was simple, Don't Steal Music, but still some people did not manage to understand it. Streaming was nice and innocent until some really smart people started ripping the streams and do other funny things.
If you abuse it, they will shut it down - simple and easy.
In the end Apple ist just a company and has its responsibilites. You want to steal music? Fine, get Kaaza/Limewire/What ever, why abuse iTunes?
Thank you guys, just another neat feature disappears...
Weeeee
"Optimized for local MP3, OGG and WMA audio content, but also supports internet radio streams, other audio formats, and/or remote content by adding them manually."
Did you go to the site and check it out? Netjuke simply provides mtu's (or streams, in conjunction with ShoutCast, QTTS, etc.)....the 'play' ability depends on the player on the client side. It is a web based interface, and if your OS and client support a given format you're good to go. We already know how to convert AAC files...
http://www.turnstyle.com/andromeda/home.asp
Been using this for years... easier than iTunes and no restrictions.
4.01 fixes this problem completely which should make it worth upgrading too if you care about the quality of your music.
Yes, but that requires that you have two copies of your music (which could be several gigs worth). That's a hassle that was otherwise avoided.
Avoid? Bull. CD-R is much cheaper than streaming the data repeatedly through a network connection, especially because entry-level residential high-speed Internet access 1. isn't affordable everywhere and 2. is most often limited to 112 kbps upstream after TCP/IP overhead is subtracted. A hundred dollars worth of iTunes recordings encoded as 128 kbps AAC will fit on a single 50 cent CD-R disc; how much does it cost to upgrade to second-tier residential broadband?
Will I retire or break 10K?
and speaking of which - where the hell are the indie artists' and their music on iTMS? Huh?
You know, you can suggest recording artists to the iTunes Music Store. Try doing that and also approaching the label; it may be more effective.
It also takes time to encode a label's catalog and to negotiate digital distribution rights with artists whose contracts were written before digital distribution rights existed.
Will I retire or break 10K?
No, if the gun industry was like the computer industry guns would randomly explode, killing the user, or include backdoors (intended or not) that allowed strangers use the gun to kill passerby without the owners permission. This analogy is fairly true when talking about Microsoft software, which is why they don't have a large following among people experienced enought to know better (astroturfers don't count, btw).
This is another one of Apple's weak attempts at controlling piracy by making the methods nonobvious. Given the Unixy nature of OSX, it's almost trivial to set up a tunnel in order to get streaming from home to work. In fact, I would bet that within 24 hours someone will be offering a free utility geared to exactly this kind of usage.
I suppose this is as good as it gets, as far as DRM is concerned. Circumventable when necessary, but just inconvenient enough that Joe 31337 won't bother trying anything funny.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
For those who need a GUI.
SSH Tunnel Manager
I suspect that Apple did the AppleScript update first, and then under pressure from the recording companies that so graciously allowed the lame DRM that iTunes had, they stopped the WAN sharing. But honestly, how long could that last? At least they still let you do LAN sharing, which if you're at an office or something like that could be quite nice.
Shared office music library. Push your copanies T3 line to the max.
- Sherman
It just seems that streaming isn't really the problem...you can listen to streams any number of other ways, from countless other sources. To be able to (easily & painlessly) grab anyone's public iTunes shares as usable .mp3s strikes me as far, far more offensive to those in power. In fact it flies directly in the face of allowing iTunes to stream but not really share files...
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
My roommate, Blake is the leader of the netjuke project. Although we both think AAC is crap, it is supported in Netjuke. If you player is enabled to play a file it will play. Netjuke can also effortless support huge collections, unlike itunes
You mean like most College dorm which are on the same sub-net and now can't be accessed from outside the subnet (i.e. Other Sharers and/or the RIAA).
/Ronald Weasley
/end RW
Bloody Brilliant!!!
Also, please note it was said that "shares can be seen, but not accessed".
Don't forget that OS X has small things like: FTP/HTTP/AFP/SMB/SSH/SFTP....which I hear can be used to *gasp* share anything!!!
Uh-oh. (ssssshhhh!)
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
If you look at 4.0's help files, it states that sharing is only on local networks (you'll have to go through the package contents as Help will fetch the newer stuff off the net)
AC comments get piped to
Also, I use my fingers to "download" cd's at the local record store to my pocket. This is 98% faster than a dial-up modem.
All IP-tunneling applications, and the users thereof, violate the DMCA because they could be used as tools that defeat Apple's copy-protection measures?
ifconfig lan0 (ip) netmask 0.0.0.0 broadcast 255.255.255.255
And an iPod makes a handy firewire drive for moving music around. Or anything else. There's tons of stuff on versiontracker.com for accessing the iPod as a drive.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Oops, you already did? Maybe some /.er will post the old version around...maybe on a peer to peer?
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Sounds like you really shouldn't be using a Mac if it feels like getting f'd up the ass... my experience has been more like getting a hand job... somtimes you get jerked around but for the most part it feels pretty good (Linux), leaves you satisfied (UNIX) and you don't end up with any STDs (Windows).
With that said, you'd have to be an absolute moron to pay $200 for a $50 part... do you always buy at the boutique? I get my car at the dealership but when the warranty runs out I go down the street to good ol' Clydes 'Good Enough' repair shop, bring the parts myself after buying them online from the same place he does but without the mark up.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
ifconfig interface netmask 0xffffffff
Damn I just put the whole internet in my subnet... what a shame!
-CompuDroid
http://www.zoo-crew.org
another "Type-R" with a bigger wing might pull up next to him in the 'hood, and he'll need to be able to play just the right smack-down tune for the situation
That's why you make a Smackdown CD, just for such occasions. A single CD can hold over 160 tunes that could be just the right tune.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You can still play your AAC files purchaced from the iTunes Music Store, even if you Mac "died" (as you put it). For that matter, you can archive all of those files as either AAC or AIFF files on any media you chose, including the HD of your Linux PC (which should be able to support AAC "any day now")
You seem to have this crazy notion that AAC is another Windows Media Player file alternative, created solely to place ultra restrictions on files and force you to "rent" music rather than purchace it (as a new Microsoft music service is expected to do in a few months). Nothing could be further from the truth. AAC was invented at Dolby for the purpose of offering a better compression algorythm than MP3, and it succeeds briliantly. At a bit-rate of 128, it sounds as good or better than a 192 VBR MP3. Yes, it stores some information in the DRM layer... this is exactly why it will become the new standard. It permits fair use (archiving, copying to other sources, listening on other playback equipment, sharing it with close friends) without allowing you to freely rip off and distribute the files they sell you (and are trying to sell to others) to the entire world.
Kindly offer one example of "fair use" which is prevented by the DRM restrictions Apple places on the files they sell you (and only the files they sell you). Here's a little help: "Fair Use," according to US copyright law, includes the right to make back-ups, to make copies to other media, to extract samples for educational use. Fare Use does not include the right to make copies available to other people, although the files sold by Apple actually allow that on a limited basis.
Now, which Fair Use rights do you think we are being denied? We are all very anxious to hear this.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I thought it was a lame feature anyway.
It has its purposes, but one of them certainly wasn't listening to some random guy's massive collection of Bright Eyes on his ISDN connection, not my idea of fun, no sir.
This may have been posted already, but I didn't see it in a tertiary glance of the comments.
I have been sharing for over a year with previous versions of iTunes. Just set up your home mac for file sharing in system preferences and log into it from another computer using Appleshare over IP (apple-K from the finder). Then make an alias of your home iTunes folder and put it on your work machine in the music folder of your work's home directory. When you launch iTunes everything will be exactly like it is on your home machine, ratings and all. It is just that when you play the music it pulls it through appleshare.
It works great, but can get choppy with bigger mp3 files over my cable connection. It is also admittedly less graceful than iTunes sharing... : \
There's that from the obvious Apple fan-boy (or girl) who will defend Apple to the death - the type who still contends that their $2500 PowerBook is faster than their neighbours £1250 Dell.
The other is from the DRM hater who believes all music should be free and was gunning for Apple from the moment they announced they'd be charging for music and you wouldn't automatically get mailed CD copies to hand out to strangers in the street.
I'd like to position myself between these two camps. I'm not a great lover of Macs, but I do have a sneaking admiration for Apple. Apple are the first company that has actually managed to bring the record labels together and produce a service that actually does work. You can search for a tune you want, click and it's in your ears on your Ipod on your way to work the next morning - all legitimately, artists having been paid etc etc.
The problem as a few people have touched upon is that this update could be the tip of the iceberg - they've changed the way my software operates at the behest of some evil RIAA request, does this mean they'll cave into every whim of them in furutre?
So far Apple have closed an undocumented 'feature' of their previous offering. They never said you'd be able to do it, so you can't sue them now they've closed it. If you don't like it, don't upgrade, stop using ITunes, put a masonary spike through your ipod and post it back to Steve - otherwise quit whinging.
It's not SHARING if it's being downloaded.
Let's look at it this way. What do you define as sharing?
1) You've got your window open, blaring your radio the 5-person crowd on the street. THIS is iTunes sharing...
2) You've got your stereo on and are copying your music collection to cd, then placing them on the window sill for anyone to take. Or worse, people are reaching in, up to 5 at a time, and taking those cds without asking you. THIS is what Apple stopped.
I can't see why this is hard to understand - in the second scenario, you're either distributing or being stolen from, and that's all that's changed.
You can still tunnel to the Mac if you want, and you can still set up web sharing to give out your music if you want. But *you* have to do it - Apple won't do it for you!
And can you blame them? (Obviously, some can...maybe we need to start teaching civics and ethics again).
Apple tries to make it convenient for us to have our music where and when we want it. For the few who have abused that privaledge, some freedom is taken away. When are people going to learn NOT to abuse the nice things in life? Apple has resisted the scum and villany at the RIAA, innovated better software than the Borg, and generally has a pretty happy and loyal customer base. Please, idiots, pirates, and unix heads, don't ruin anymore of this great program Apple has GIVEN us. If you keep finding ways to circumvent Apple's safeguards to protect the artists and music industry as well as give is userbase FREEDOM to with their music as they please, there won't be an Apple Music Store for long.
Stop messing around with iTunes, port numbers, SSH, etc...
carry my tunes with anywhere I went, work, train,
plane, beach, rental car, bicycle, Segway, 4-wheeler,
Ski-Do, hang glider, etc.
Why do I need to stream my music to work? Think about it,
all the other defenses of Apple make sense, and
assuming you are all satisfy these criteria :
1. You can listen to music at work.
2. You have a persistent connection at home.
3. Your connection allows you to run incoming services.
4. You own a Mac.
I think you can afford an iPod to carry your bleeding tunes
to work. Honestly, If you can figure out how to update your
DHCP and run things on high ports so your ISP can't filter,
I think you ought to be able to get your self an iPod, or some kind of
portable storage to bring along to work. Why make it hard?
I think the real issue is that the internet provides the opportunity for a real barter economy - I share something with you; you recipricate.
The amount of sharing going on on the net does not equal the drop off in record sales. The simple fact of the matter is that what is being produced today is not wanted (dare I say it sucks?), as much as they would like to shove it down our throats. Just because a record is released doesn't mean it should automatically make money (particularly if it sucks).
I urge anyone reading this to boycott the major record labels, and conversely start donating small amounts to independent OPEN SOURCE record labels - LIKE THIS ONE
If you are involved in music just to make money, then you are in it for the wrong reasons. Do us all a favor, and become a used car salesman...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
People always try to give me reasons why their music stealing is perfectly allright. They try to tell me it doesn't hurt anyone because the musician can make money some other way, damn RIAA, greedy labels, etc.
Well, I call bullsh*t, this feature was disabled because of all the A-holes who decided to post links to their iTunes for anyone to browse and to create Web sites dedicated to streaming music to anyone. Although I don't agree with it, this probably wouldn't have been that big of a deal, until some other A-hole started telling everyone how he has this great utility to rip those streams to mp3, which caused thousands of other A-holes to start stealing music.
Well thanks a f*ck'n lot. Because now a cool utility that let me stream my music from my machine at home to my machine at work is being taken away. (at some point I'll have to upgrade, I imagine)
This is the biggest problem with people who steal music. (and remember kids, no matter how you try to spin it - it's still just stealing). You cause the powers that be to take fair use rights away from me, and I hate you all for it.
Well, that's just really bloody Insightful. Kudos all around.
You're point - which I can only guess at - is, Apple stuff is great, it costs money, you don't like that, and somehow you feel sodomized by that.
Words escape me.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Any DRM is always about restricting rights. Most often these restrictions also restrict fair use.
You don't seem to understand this kind of DRM is bad, even when it's covered with nice Apple PR, and announced by Steve Jobs.
Music purchased from the Apple Music Store can:
- be played on up to 3 Macs
- be burned on CD (10 times (-playlist thingy-))
- be played on any number of iPods.
It can however not:
- be played on windows(TM) / linux(TM)
- be played on any other portable MP3 player
- be used in all applications on the Mac
Even the US copyright laws consider streaming MY music from MY home to MY office to be legal.
So this really restricts my fair use rights, doesn't it?
(Yes, I know the solution is not to purchase music from the AMS.)
In the 'good old days' of 1997, Apple authored a list of "ten commandments" as a part of it's compatibility tech note. It is the seventh commandment which is particularly interesting: "VII. Thou shalt think twice about code designed strictly as copy protection." Note, that these are the the commandments that are "determined from extensive testing of our diverse software base."
Of course as soon as you choose to make allies in the music industry, you are going to have to negotiate, but one of the primary issues (mentioned so many times on slashdot that there is no point in providing links) is the question of whether we should have our liberty constrained in order to prevent us from breaking the law.
We would love to say 'No!', but then watch how many of us flaunt copyright law as a standard practice.
But also Apple was right - copyright protection is an unending waste of human resource, computer resource, comms resource, and slashdot posts!
Again and again we find that the music/video/text/etc. copyright and patent laws are incompatible with the Internet as a technology, and the Internet is not going to go away. Sorry, lawmakers, but one day soon you will have to wake up to the revolution that came from a direction you didn't expect, and then we will stop having to put kludges on top of kludges to deal with the cultural soup that we are in.
Creative minds will find a way of being able to provide a direct passage to it's audience. The huge publishing corporates are hanging onto a dying game. Monolithic software corporations are being replaced by interoperability standards.
Apple, Listen! Remember! Think different!
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AustralianIT also covers this with their own article. In this, it states that 3 Million songs have beeen paid for and downloaded so far. This is absolutly amazing. Apples market share is nothing compared to Windows. Imagine if it was even close to have a market share like windows, or imagine if instead each other market share was switched for a moment. Im guess there'd be a hell of a lot of Mp3s being sold. This could eventualy make up a very large part of Apples future. Well, they've said they've been wanting to go into this area for quite a while now, i never really though they'd pull it off though. Looks like they've jumped their first hurdle! :}
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
No small business. I work at a large company that pays me enough to buy the computers I want. And when I get home, I don't want to hassle with shit like this.
I have a number of PCs that I use for various things - P4 for gaming, dual Athlon for Linux development, etc. - and the reason they are delegated to specific tasks is because those are the only things the Macs don't do well. Everything else, I can just sit down and do my thing and I don't have to worry about it. But then there's this little "gotcha" and it makes my purchased songs basically a nuisance to listen to most of the time I'm at home. Wouldn't you be agitated if it happened to you?
I know I'm in the minority. Probably an extremely thin minority as well - not everyone can find uses for three desktops and two laptops, and that includes me sometimes. I mostly bought the iBook, for example, for its great wireless reception, so I can roam the house and still keep up with what's going on online and - yes - listen to music. My PowerBook is used mainly for everything else, including DV editing on the road (home movies, mainly - I'm converting all the old home videos to DVD), which the iBook is pretty slow at. The iMac is a play machine that the woman uses frequently (the bitch and the woman are two different people - you don't need to know details, but I don't refer to the decent one as "the bitch"), but I also use it pretty frequently - when I don't feel like hunting down a laptop, for a quick check on something, to play music in the bedroom, etc. The Dual 1.42 is my main machine, obviously, and I use the dual 800 now as a file repository (what a waste - I think I might give it to my dad or something). But the point isn't that I'm in the minority and what does Apple care about one guy? The point is that the restriction is absurd and, in my case, hinders my ability to do what I want (and what is perfectly legal, as far as I can tell).
Economically, Apple wouldn't miss me if I stopped buying Macs. But that doesn't justify the restriction. Apple says you can give the music to your friends, so long as it's only two of them. I don't even want to share! I just want to be able to listen to it in my home whenever I want without having to go through the hassle of unregistering a computer so I can register another. It's absurd that it doesn't work through Rendezvous.
The whole thing puts me in a pissy mood because I'm personally affected by it, and it's made worse the more I support the company financially. The more Macs I buy, the more of a hassle it becomes. If you had spent $16,000 on Macs over the last two years and this simple thing you wanted to do on them was made extremely inconvenient, wouldn't you feel like Apple had taken a big dump in your Wheaties?
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.