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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.
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.
I think a more accurate assessment would be: well, we tried to let you share your stuff between work and home, but then tens of thousands of dillweeds decided to share with random strangers instead, so now we have to fuck everybody.
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)
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.
Indeed. With that kind of sharing(streaming songs to strangers, multiple people at a time), Apple stood a good chance of running afowl of the DMCA, which has some slightly sharp teeth. Apple had to fix this, or risk a major legal battle with the RIAA; and if you've seen the RIAA's ideas on file sharing numbers, they'd hit Apple up for millions upon millions of dollars. I don't know about you, but I prefer Apple solvent.
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.
Since when is apple in the business of law enforcement?
Since a failure to enforce copyright provisions or enabling consumers to share pirated music will cause lawsuits to rain down upon their heads a la kazaa, napster, etc, etc.
Has nothing to do with Law enforcement. Apple are (to my knowledge) still negotiating with the "Big 5" for the ability to use iTunesMusic store with Windows users. I'd lay good money it was done not to piss those guys off.
Frankly, I'm not too worried about it. I sneaker net all my crap to work via iPod anyway.
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.
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
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..).
Your comment reminds me of an old SNL skit called "Ruining it for Everyone." In a talk show format the host interviews in turn the first hitchhiker to kill the guy that gave him a ride, the guy that defecated in restaurant restrooms, and so on. And now no one picks up hitchhikers, bathrooms are for patrons only, and internet streaming is one step further away.
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 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!
I hate Grammar Nazi's
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
4.01 fixes this problem completely which should make it worth upgrading too if you care about the quality of your music.
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).
Isn't that what the restrooms are there for?
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Basically, to satisfy the labels, apple must raise the bar on piracy enough such that the average joe, say 99% and more of the users of the store, cannot easily send the music to anyone.
iTunes made it too easy for total strangers to share music so Apple had to raise the bar of entry. Setting up SSH tunnelling is way too hard for most people. Burning a CD and re-ripping is too annoying for most people, and even such a simple task is beyond the reach of many many folks.
So basically apple has to make easy sharing just slightly out of reach of most people and the tiny minority like you and me who know about SSH and such will be able to share music as usual.
This is why kazaa is attacked and usenet file trading is never attacked. It's too hard for most people to trade files over usenet. Kazaa makes it blindingly easy. Only when piracy is accessible to the average joe does the industry start to take notice.
Seriously, there are so many ways to legally share your music... heck, just setup a live365 station if you want to share your music. Why insist on doing it illegally, and ruining it for everybody?
Apple Solvent: Dissolving your freedom, one bit at a time.
Let's see if I understand this. Apple is dissolving your freedom by covering their corporate ass, particularly with regards to software they give away for free? The very same software nobody forces you to use? Yeah, Apple is sure dissolving your rights. Grow the fuck up.
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.
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
Quazar, I normally would agree with you but your argument completely ignores the new surge of iTunes stream downloading, which *IS* stealing. While I would love to listen to my collection from home, the benefits do not outweight the costs...Apple has to act responsibily to everyone involved. You want to rail at someone - complain to the authors of iBug, iSlurp, iTunesdl and iLeech. It *is* unethical and illegal...They took innocent narrowcasting and converted it to a means of internet song distribution, a mini-p2p with one small change: it's *without* the music owner's permission. iTunes 4 becomes Kazaa with a soundtrack. Apple stuck its neck out to bring us the iTunes store, to give us ease AND choice and finally, to make it affordable. And it had to shove this model down the throats of an industry that had done everything it could in the past 10 years to get rid of the music single. It's a real 180-degree turn for music companies, and Apple deserves to be supported in this venture - they can't afford mistakes (or iLeeches).
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.
If I had mod points to give, one would be yours, FRB.
When I first heard about the iTunes streaming service, I immidiately began speculating about the many ways I would use it. The thought of accessing all of my music from all over my house and even at work, while keeping it all stored on HD that's shared out to everywhere else I go... it seemed like a new Golden Age was dawning.
But then, for the sake of my CD-less car stereo and listening to music while jogging, I bought an iPod. Once I had the iPod, all these thoughts of streaming completely vanished. I've got my entire record collection in my hip pocket at all times now, and I can listen to it on any music device that I can extend a stereo mini-jack from (which, thanks to RCA-to-mini cables, FM transmitters, and those tape adapter thingies, means damned near everything that has speakers.) Screw streaming from a server... I would need another computer running iTunes to do that. The iPod is the music library now. Every time I get another album (or cave into the desire to download a song off iTMS,) I just rip to my main computer, and sync the iPod to it in a matter of seconds next time I plug in the Firewire cable (which won't be long, since that's how I recharge the iPod 90% of the time).
I had friends parrot the "iPod will change the way you listen to music," hype to me over the past year or so... and now that I have an iPod, I see the light. You can call us all "pod people" if you like, (or "iPod people"... hmm, "iPeople?") but this tiny little gadget actually was a bigger revolution than I really expected it to be before buying it. Those of you who haven't acquired an iPod yet probably think I'm crazy, but iTunes for Windows comes out at the end of this year and the rest of the world will catch up. I'll see you when you get here. I now value my cheap little iPod more than my car or my TV. The hype was not a lie.
Fuck streaming.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
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... : \
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.