Slashdot Mirror
Windows Program Enables MP3 Downloading From iTunes
Joey Patterson writes "CNET reports that an independent software developer has released a program called MyTunes that allows people to share and download each other's MP3s on a network via iTunes." This is very much like a Mac program I saw a while back called itunesdl, which allowed one to download MP3s from friends who were sharing their playlists, exactly as MyTunes claims to do.
If you read Slashdot regularly, you will find an abundance of published stories that seek to push hardware and software beyond their normal limits, thereby allowing greater freedom and possibly skirting the law at the same time.
In this case, I was led to believe that I could use MyTunes to download from computers across the Internet, when in fact it is designed strictly for those who listen to Mp3s across a LAN--like a dedicated music server, for instance. It is not intended to enable sharing of MP3s across the global internet (even though it, too, is a "network").
Thanks Slashdot!
Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
This will work just fine with MP3's, but won't work with Apple's DRM'ed files. For those, you need to actually authorize the computer so it can play the AAC file.
Mr. Zeller,
I recently was referred to your web page about your program MyTunes.
Your program sounds most excellent, however I note that it is only
available for windows. The internet community would most definitely be
pleased if you were to make this project open source. Since you are
charging nothing, you will only gain from this change.
As open source software, it can be ported by other people, to mac OS X
for example. Development would allow for greater stability, more
features. Also, I believe sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/) will
host such a page for free.
--his reply--
Hi,
I absolutely support open source software and have been active in the
community (see www.zempt.com).
The reason this version was not open source had more to do with the time it
would have taken to choose the correct license as well as getting all the
files together, registering for sourceforge, etc.
I'll hopefully be able to make it open source soon.
Best Regards,
Bill Zeller
By reading this sig, you agree to be bound by all terms and conditions I choose.
I guess someone goofed. Soemtimes, it isn't easy being the first ones to screw up. They shouldn't ahve implamented the filelist sharing. Something like this was bound to happpen. Now, they've threatened ticking off the RIAA.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
MyTunes is for Windows. iTunesDL was for Mac's when iTunes first came out. That's basically the fundamental diffeerence. I can't speak for MyTunes since I don't actually use a Wintel machine (No I won't go there!!) In terms of exploiting the exploit: I'm sure you can change some extensions of videos/movies, software, & whatever else floats you and you'll be on your way to a full fledged {almost} P2P. I'll leave that for someone with Windows to try and post back for the rest of us!
From the bottom of the site:
And remember, copyright infringement is illegal. If you have any question whether what you're doing constitutes an infringement,
visit the RIAA's great anti-piracy website.
Kissing asses here, scared allready or just kidding?
DRM = protection of the music files.
But the player then decodes the audio stream and then plays it through sound card.
Most sound cards have line out.
DRM *will not* work for audio in this way.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Has this guy heard of the RIAA?
This is another exciting event in the evolution of a Business model. There are billions of dollars at stake and it is so interesting to see how this unfolds. The industry (whatever it will be called in the future) is evolving as we watch it. An emerging standard has just been defeated by new technology. The industry thought it had it locked up (itunes), and here they come. I still think they're on the right track, but ultimately, they're f---ed by technology and smart users. When does the truce take place?
..so long as it doesn't break any laws. Apple is the good guy here. We don't want the recording companies pissed at Apple. Unfortunately, my confidence in this program is vastly lowered by the "additional notes" section on the bottom of the MyTunes page:
/.'ed, you can still visit the RIAA link.)
If you plan on stealing music, do not download this software. If you plan on infringing upon copyrights, do not download this software. Only download this software if you plan on acting responsibly.
Warranty: There is absolutely no warranty of any kind whatsoever with this software. The software is provided to you "AS-IS", and all risks and losses associated with its use are assumed by you. In no event shall the author of this software, Bill Zeller, be held accountable for any damages or losses that may occur from use or misuse of the software. Use at your own risk.
And remember, copyright infringement is illegal. If you have any question whether what you're doing constitutes an infringement, visit the RIAA's great anti-piracy website.
Read that last line there. If that doesn't constitute butt-kissing, I don't know what does. (I preserved the link so just in case the page gets
It's called KaZaa, or Limewire, or [fill in name here].
Don't forget that Apple actually took this feature away after the RIAA hounds frightened themselves shitless over the potential power of such a system: filesharing that was completely decentralized. So after scaring every recording company, Apple yanked the feature, leaving only local network capabilities.
If this were to become mainstream, music downloading would certainly become more interesting again. Having full albums, possibly CD art, and the like all included as you drag files over or (at the least) simply streaming MP3s without a centralized network would be an awesome power. Friends would merely share IP addresses and have access to libraries of music, allowing others to view libraries of music and download selectively.
In fact, there are really only two problems with this system: only being able to download from one user at a time and no simple way of browsing libraries beyond your friends' libraries. All in all however, it makes iTunes a compelling choice as the next KaZaa.
Now we just need a convenient way to load those pesky protected AAC files....
The Political Programmer
This doesn't seem quite sound...this guy will get shut down. Hell, his own website contradicts him. He says this:
Tunes is mainly meant to be used as a music manager and means of purchasing music online. However, in addition to purchasing music, one can listen to any of the music shared by others on a network. So, for example, if another person on your network has iTunes and decides to share their music, you can listen to it. iTunes does not allow you to save this music to your hard drive. MyTunes lifts this restriction by allowing you to save music from other computers to your hard drive.
Then he says, down at the bottom, something of a "disclaimer" which, although I am not a legal specialist, does not sound like it has any legitimacy:
If you plan on stealing music, do not download this software. If you plan on infringing upon copyrights, do not download this software. Only download this software if you plan on acting responsibly. Warranty: There is absolutely no warranty of any kind whatsoever with this software. The software is provided to you "AS-IS", and all risks and losses associated with its use are assumed by you. In no event shall the author of this software, Bill Zeller, be held accountable for any damages or losses that may occur from use or misuse of the software. Use at your own risk. And remember, copyright infringement is illegal. If you have any question whether what you're doing constitutes an infringement, visit the RIAA's great anti-piracy website.
He also links to Apple's iTunes website, which has to have some sort of legal implications, seeing as this is a program which can (potentially) be used in malignant ways.
It'll be interesting to see if Apple tries to do an "over-the-internet auto update" like Microsoft does with its patches, for this, or if they try to guise a fix for this as a "feature upgrade". If they do, they better have some new features. This is exactly what iTunes update to 4.0.1 did for Mac users, when it was discovered people could share music with other exact IP addresses.
"hey, can you throw ________ onto the server, i want that for my iPod."
and there you go, i have the original rip/dl
no news here, continue as you were.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
what about downloading from your friends of friends??
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
I think you're confusing butt-kissing with nose-thumbing.
This is just like the Mac version. Apple put lax restrictions on, people abused it, and Apple had to lock down iTunes a little bit more to avoid getting sued by the RIAA.
I'll tell you about defeated technology, we used to put Mac OS 7.5 up against Windows 3 and it was hard. Hard! Man! Now we're swinging swords for iTunes and hackers? F--- hackers, I'm talking about rip-offs of 8-track tapes on my casset tape player. Damn you, fools! I've got a cassette tape ripped from an 8-track of Styx in my Cabriolette at this very moment ... and it's CRANKED! Ya'all don't know piracy! Ya don't!!!! Get down with the brother who once played Zork for 45 straight hours.... Can't deal with ya'all no more.
Filesharing of copyrighted material, in most cases is wrong...end of story...
Sure, limited swapping of music amongst friends (mix tapes, party mixes) is absolutely 'fair use', no question, but no one believes programs like this or iTunesDL have any other use than the wholesale theft of music that the user has not payed for...
I would make one important exception -- something that we had, but lost due to just this type of wrongheaded thinking -- sharing your own music with yourself remotely...iTunes had this originally and it was removed because of abuse...so you already fucked it up for us...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Music sharing BAD
Music buying GOOD
Are we clear on this?
No?
How bout this...
Music buying per-song BAD
Music service subscription per-month unlimited download GOOD
See, here's the thing. We have Kazaa. It lets us download free high quality digital music. Now, why would we want to degrade ourselves to paying for music *per track* again? It's my opinion that few people would actually want to do that if they weren't scared into it by the RIAA (which is the wrong approach, anyway).
However, if music were offered in some sort of lossless format digitally in a subscription service (read: pay per month for unlimited access) that benefitted artists (and wasn't high-cost), I'd probably be interested. The key here is that the music couldn't be DRM'd though, because as I said above, DRM will never work.
So what's to prevent people from giving the music to their friends instead of actually downloading it? Nothing, I suppose. But if the service were low-cost, subscription-model, and benefitted artists, I suspect more people would be willing to use it.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
1) Looks like ass to me.
2) No music store.
3) Requires KDE.
4) No, really, it looks like ass.
Also, sweet fucking christ that web page is terrible. Pink on green? Green text on a green background? Did they hire a monkey on a five day crack binge to design that?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
I've been using it this week and like it quite a bit. My company has about 8 iTunes users on my local subnet and I have been "borrowing" all week long. It isn't exactly feature rich and you must start playing a song to make it available for download. Otherwise, it's nifty!
this sig deleted by another sig
Here's a better way to share your music library over a local network: For Apple, enable Appletalk and make your music folder public. In Windows, share the folder with the network. Now, you can drag & drop. Or, just put a selected tune in your public folder if someone asks you for it. Faster than realtime.
harmonious design
Dad?
Music service subscription per-month unlimited download GOOD
...
If you mean that, for as long as I pay a monthly fee, I can download music, and that I continue to have the music after I stop paying this fee, then that's cool for the customer, but seems horribly impractical as a way of making much money - I can download an awful lot of music in a one month period
If you mean a service where you only have access to the music for as long as you pay for it, just no. I don't like the idea of my music disappearing as soon as I decide I no longer want to or are able to pay a monthly fee.
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
Giving money to your enemy BAD
Stealing from your enemy GOOD
The slimes responsible for the DMCA are my enemy. At this point, appeasement will no longer work. It's time to bankrupt the RIAA. Steal, download or buy used if you must have their music, but remember that every song purchased on iTMS prolongs the reign of the RIAA and helps fund more lawsuits.
As far as I know you can already share a folder (read only) and allow anyone on a network to copy the music and you can already stream music through iTunes to anyone on a network. The only question would be if is these things are sufficiently harder on a Windows machine to require a special program?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
In addition to iTunesDL, mentioned in the article for mac, there's iSlurp which does basically the same thing in platform independent java. and has been out for six months.
But now we have a bunch of hype and publicity.
So the Record companies are probably going to give apple shit and force more limitations down our throats, just like when Apple had to limit iTunes to sharing on the local network only.
Good job people.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Music sharing EVIL.
Music purchase over internet BAD. (Or any place we can't gorge you on prices)
Music CD purchase GOOD.
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
It's it sad that when i came across that article at work I thought to myseld, "Self, you better download this little program before you can't access the site" I'm now a happy owner of a file none of you can get that I have no intention of even using tonight
:) Oh and if it gets bad i'm sure i can put up a bittorrent for yall
Cheers
All this thing does is copy the stream that is coming across Rendezvous. That stream is limited at 64 kbps. Even if you were streaming non-protected AAC files, this is a pretty power quality copy, similar to copying a CD to a tape.
I'm certainly not. What constitutes sharing? Playing it for myself alone, but loud enough for the neighbors to hear? Playing it in the car when my friends are listening? Playing it for a room full of people? Playing it for an auditorium full of people?
Is it my fault if some guy is making a recording without my knowledge?
What if my computer gets hacked, and my legitimate digital backups are compromised? What if my backup CDs are stolen, but not my original copies? What if I still have the backups if the originals are stolen?
Can I buy "used" CDs? What about purchasing a "mix" CD? A recording of a concert? Can I sell my "used" CDs? The copies if I destroy the originals? The digital copies if I destroy the originals?
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
Great. Pretty soon Apple will disable this option and I will not be able to use iTunes simple zero-conf mp3 sharing. I loved opening my iTunes from another computer and listen to my songs. The loser: Me.
In the meanwhile all the kiddies will keep using Kazaa to get their songs.
I like when the RIAA says this:
Plus, good luck returning a pirated tape or CD when the quality is inferior or the product is defective, as it often is.
I think it should actually read:
Plus, good luck returning a legal tape or CD when the CD doesn't conform to CD standards or play on your CD player, as it often is.
You should let iTunes organize your music for you. It will copy everything into the iTunes directory and organizer by artist/album. You could then setup rsync between the two computers... Hmm, sounds like I've got a new project for this weekend.
Should it not be called HisOrHerTunes instead of MyTunes? After all, if downloaded from someone else, they aren't mine as in MyTunes. Even better, the software could probably be called, WeDon'tKnowWhoLegallyObtainTheseFirstTunes.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
MyTunes developer name: billzeller my username: greenstork Here's the link, this is what the developer had to say in the Macrumors forum: Macrumors Forum, go to page 3
1) In #3 you say KDE is good. This does nothing for your credibility as a judge of aesthetics.
2) DRM BAD!!! We can just steal whatever we need. Information wants to be stolen!
3) See #1. Also, KDE is a bitch to set up on a Mac, and I'm not sure it can be done on Windows at all.
4) Also see #1.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
MyTunes developer name: billzeller my username: greenstork Here's the link, this is what the developer had to say in the Macrumors forum: Link
you need a model where someone gets paid for making the music AND it bypasses the RIAA.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
g'day,
the faq says "if you can't see the other shared computer, then this software won't be of any use to you."
now... we have 2 computers hanging off a billion router which i believe does NAT automatically for us. neither iTunes can see the other.
does anyone have any ideas on how to make it work like it should?
all the best, prof.h
Personally, I never found Kaaza even remotely "compelling", considering all the spyware/adware it loads your PC up with as part of the install.
Furthermore, if you *are* going to engage in "illegal MP3 file trading" over the Internet - it only makes sense to use the most obscure product and network possible for the activity. I wouldn't choose a tool like Morpheus or Kaaza that *everyone* seems to be well aware of!
Who modded this informative?
You can't share other stuff with iTunes! That's nonsense! iTunes' music sharing works by sending an MP3/AAC stream to the other computers. It doesn't just do a blanket file copy without regard to file type or whatever.
If anything, the parent should be modded troll for making such an inane comment pretending to know what he's talking about.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
This has long been argued about amongst p2p freaks - why doesn't "the herd" follow quality and get behind good p2p software? The answer is: people will go where the content is: more users means more sources means more diversity means less time twiddling your thumbs and waiting for a download.
Once a given application obtains sufficient market inertia, it's almost impossible to wrench control away without shutting down the network entirely ( c.f. musiccity, napster ). And KaZaa has signifigant market inertia - its practically become synonymous in most peoples minds with peer to peer trading.
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
eMusic had this. For about the price of two cd's a month, it was all you could eat. One of my friends was a subscriber, and with his downstream 'all you could eat' was quite a lot.
Now, there wasn't a lot of great stuff... but if you're not getting charged by the disc, there's no harm in experimenting ( and show me another online music service that features Arab on Radar and is associated with Matador Records, the New Pornographers label ).
Sadly, last month they changed the terms of service - at least for some users ( including my Friend ). Unlimited downloads are a thing of the past, and you get about two albums a month for the same price as before. At that rate, you might as well buy A list stuff from the record store.
Perhaps they were only targeting high usage users - there's nothing about the change on the frontpage ( no surprises there... ), but the free lunch appears to be over.
YLFIP.S. Oh yeah, their download manager for OSX sucks hard.
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Please someone post a mirror, everyone at my school (baylor) uses itunes for music because kazza is banned and they cracked down on waste (yes they are that evil, but they couldn't prove anything) I would greatly apreciate a torrent/e2klink/filemirror
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
of course, if you'd read the iSlurp page you'd see that it no longer works with anything post 4.0
LIke 4.0.1 where Apple started doing key passing and he doesn't want to violate the DMCA.
So, you really can't use iSlurp unless you use old copies of iTunes.
"Once upon a time, slashdot was entirely independent."
/. that long.....
Damn have I been reading
we had music before the recording industry, we'll have music afterwords. at least afterword it will be made by people in it for the music, not the money.
I saw a guy not to long ago, playing some great rifts. he was making money, pretty good from the looks of it. He as standing on a street corner getting paid by people who liked his music.
Million dollar cantracts may go away, but music will not, it is intrinsic to be a human being.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
An official bittorrent file of MyTunes can be downloaded here:
t
http://www.drunkenaardvark.com/MyTunes.exe.torren
That windows is bad. When iTunes was exclusively for mac, any cross-network-P2P carried along almost silently. Not even a month after ITFW(iTunes 4 Win) was released, there is a program written to exploit the trust upon which the iTunes was founded. Just as one poster already pointed out, everyone loses. The Fscking RIAA will perpetuate the idea that no download DRM-less network is safe(which is true, because there's always some asshole willing to betray the trust of the ones who put the trust out there). Apple offers what most people want, or at least settle for, a network where one can buy and download clean audio with no DRM. Apple sees that it's a success, and attempts to broaden their market by porting the service to W32. [too drunk to finish my rant]
Nonsense. The only thing that makes sense in your case is that you're actually trying to share the whole directory structure, which is a Bad Thing.
iTunes has a builtin sharing feature, where discovery (finding other iTunes shares) is handled by Rendezvous (Zeroconf). Enable sharing in Preferences, open one (1!) port, and poof! All the other iTunes on the local network can see it and use it.
MyTunes going open source is actually a bad move in this case. Hacks & a more broad functionality for MyTunes will likely be accelerated by going open source. While another app or two is required to get full-fledged Kazaa-like sharing over the internet currently, this would be quickly integrated into an open source MyTunes. OSS development would probably keep ahead of any desperate attempts by Apple engineers to restrict illegal file-sharing by iTunes users, including AAC files.
What would be the result of this? Major labels terminating their license agreements with Apple to sell music via iTMS, certainly. iTunes subsequently waning in utility & popularity as other players catch up with iTunes while still offering secure online music purchases (these also eventually fall prey to their own myTunes if they get popular enough). Either Apple and others exit market leaving us where we started before all this, or hardware-enforced DRM (such as Palladium) gets a further boost from this obvious example of the dangers of lax DRM.
Good job! Net result will be a worse future than present. Yeah, yeah, OSS = Good; Proprietary = Evil, etc etc. In the practical world we live in, open source may actually hurt the market & consumer choice in this case.
Sometimes - they don't think about the consequences of releasing such a product deeply enough.
I get the feeling the MyTunes author did this for ego-inflation, knowing full well that this is exactly the type of program wanted by the masses.
MyTunes, as far as I can tell - is just a DAAP client, that instead of keeping the audio data only in RAM, writes it into a file instead.
As far as I can tell, DAAP is not streaming - requests are fulfilled with the whole file as is stored in the library - the potential for MyTunes has been there for a long time - what's worse: it's easier to write a MyTunes-type DAAP client than a iTunes-type DAAP client.
Hes kissing the RIAA's ass on the surface, which is a good idea for obvious legal reasons. But he really means it to be satire, on the inside, and the RIAA cant prove otherwise. Thats my take anyway.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
Well, that page is talking about TotalRecorder. It's available here: http://www.highcriteria.com/
It's only $12, so it's not like he's charging a lot for it. It does have some nifty features. First, yeah, it sticks a driver in so that it can capture sound data directly. But it's got some other coolness to it, actually.
-The 30 second auto-buffer lets you hit record after the song has started and still get the song.
-Choose your own format, of course. But it can send the data to an encoder too (Ogg, LAME, whatever) before saving it off to disc.
-Detection of the beginning and ends of sound being played so as to trim the silences and save into separate files automagically if you so choose (works surprisingly well).
-Suppress system beeps and such while it's recording, so you don't get those in the resulting file.
-Timer based recording so that you can have it record a daily radio show or something similar.
And some other nifty stuff. It's rather well thought out, actually. It's worth the $12 if you want to convert virtually any DRMed format to something a little less protected. But it's worth the $12 not because it simply saves the stuff to disc like some free drivers might be capable of doing, but because it's a good program overall with some good effort put into it.
Oh, it works with iTunes too. Just change QuickTime's playback settings to "Playback through TotalRecorder" and it works just fine.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This doesnt change anything, people don't just pay iTunes because they have no other choice - they pay because they are scared to shit for the RIAA breaking down their door and smashing their heads into the computer screen. Oh and some might be paying because they want to. But the point is even though iTunes made a stupid mistake, pay sites are still here and people can continue to pay so everyone is a happy little bunny.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Granted, we have all gotten away with 'sharing' music with friends and co-workers over the years, but realize that the scale and nature of 'sharing' is vastly different today for most people...mind you, I don't care, I am not saying this from a high moral ground, I am simply stating the facts and I don't believe the way to change some laws you do not like is to be unlawful...vote differently, participate in your country's IP dialog, but don't be un-informed.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
...sharing anything with 15 people is wrong...now 'wrong' is a loaded word, I agree, but as I said, this 'feature' existed in iTunes originally, the ability to stream to a limited group of friends...this was removed because programs like iTunesDL broke the agreed upon trust, and allowed people to download the music being broadcast -- not fair...
So, yes, I do think personally you should be able to 'play' your music for a group of friends/co-workers, but that is not what this program is really about...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
I was hurriedly 'opine-ing' as my wife was giving me the 'It's time to go look'...Thanks for looking out ;)...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
that we all were 'self-righteous YABW's'...but anyway...
That's some way of showing no "ill will"...
Regarding your hope that I not connect with any online source...what a ridiculous idea...I hope I can clarify -- I believe in the right for an artist to be compensated for her work. Crucify me...
'Sharing' in today's terms is not really what we term sharing from oh, say 1970. I know it is an unpopular view, but I believe it is accurate. Programs such as this behave like 'corporate veil' defenses..."I just want to share the music with a couple of friends..." really means, "I just want to release the music into the wild without the copyright holders consent..."
Now, I have said it before, I believe most musicians should make their money touring, etc... however, I don't believe that civil disobedience in this case is the practice of consuming copyright content and not compensating those who legally should be compensated...If you don't like the practices of the RIAA, the Record companies and the Artists who sell their rights to said companies, don't listen to the music represented by them. That means don't be two-faced and download the music you enjoy, pretending you are doing something radical or meaningful by doing so...you are not, you are stealing...
p.s. While I wish you no ill, Jesus is Santa Claus...HAND...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
explain yourself.
The mirror exe is different from the developer's exe?
All exe's have a backdoor program?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
This entire effort seems misguided. If one wanted to share one's MP3 collection for the purpose of copying, one could simply create a shared network folder.
Much more useful would be a server which creates a "virtual" AAC or MP3 collection which can then be played back in iTunes. The nicest things about iTunes are a.) its interface (including live search) and b.) its iPod compatibility. But its support for formats other than MP3/AAC/WAV--most notably FLAC, as contrasted with foobar2000 or Winamp, is sorely lacking. By contrast, foobar2000 and Winamp, have much less aesthetically pleasing interfaces and no iPod support. So, a daemon which did on the fly conversion of, say FLAC to MP3, would permit playback and transfer of your lossless audio collection in iTunes or another other device which supports ZeroConfig (such as Tivo Home Media Option). And that server daemon could be implemented as a plugin to either foobar or Winamp.
The program allows mp3 STREAMING over itunes on windows, not mp3 DOWNLOADING
This is as bad as television shows where they often confuse uploading with downloading. To TV, everything that involves information transfer and a computer = downloading.
Morons.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Shareaza is now the best. It's freeware with no spyware, and it supports P2P transfers on Gnutella, Gnutella2, eDonkey, BitTorrent, etc all simultaneously in one interface...
Unfortunatly to many who read here, it's a Win32 app.
The only thing that I've wondered for some time now is that I don't know what the motivation is behind developing this application for free other than to establish the Gnutella2 network... But that even seems like a lot of work considering how much work has been put into interfacing with the other networks...
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
I don't want to immediately have this devolve into a shouting match so I will try to systematicaly address your points because I am not a self-righteous person and would like to understand your position, as it has never been persuasively explained to me...maybe you don't care, but anyways
People are not at the mercy of corporations...you are free to not participate, to not support those who choose to participate, eg. artists who don't 'sell out' -- they will not have sold their rights to their works, and you will never infringe upon anyone's rights in sharing/enjoying their labors and consequently you will never be in a position to be persecuted(reasonably) for your activities. Think indy rock/underground/local punk scene/etc...To think otherwise is unneccesarily defeatist/alarmist.
55MPH -- Should we have no speed limits? I say that facetiously, obviously...surely there are times where we need 25MPH zones, eg. around schools, on narrow roads. Conversely, while I agree that 55MPH might be ten or twenty miles slower than what today might seem reasonable, I see the merit in having some law regarding speed and safety. Also, having known a number of Police over the years, I know that They are generally forgiving within that reasonable range ( +10-15 MPH) -- similarly, no one is going after reasonable fair use -- generally, it is egregious 'sharers' who are targeted for fines and litigation.
Copying your buddy's CD -- I agree, see above...Historically, such use while not technically 'legal' was tolerated. I would NOT call it stealing, I am reasonable, and have, like you copied the occasional CD and vice-versa. Today, that is not the same as 'file-sharing' -- the wholesale free-distribution of content that is not paid for.
As a quick side note, I am a vocal supporter of legalizing low-fidelity (aka radio quality or
Artists getting hurt -- Brittany, Phil, Beoncey, Puff...If you are not the one downloading their works then you are not hurting them...but what are you downloading? -- whose labor are you enjoying for free? They are the artists whose work you enjoy and yet you actively choose to harm them...with fans like you who needs enemies? At least the labels and RIAA pretend to pay them for their work (occasionally they do get a check or two).
Me being a windbag -- I guess...I am writing this reply, so you are probably right -- your reasons are not right though...I do not pretend to hold the high ground -- I have the artists (many of whom I know) best interests in mind -- I want to make sure they are compensated for their work TODAY...I also believe in changing the system, but boy, todays artists sure make good cannon foder for most other folks in this war for tomorrow...
You are the bullshiter...you simply want something for nothing and provide no improved model or means for artists to make a living. You are the one who's views should be ignored.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Actually MyTunes _does_ do a blanket file copy without regard to file type.
Go back to watching Jerry Springer you jackass.
p.s. You are reading what I wrote.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
(My version numbers on this may be wrong. I just entered the situation with the Windows version.)
In the days of iTunes 4.0.0, there was no attempt at encrypting or otherwise protecting streaming data. The streaming itself is accomplished using a combination of Rendezvous (aka ZeroConf) and a modified HTTP server. This spawned programs like iLeech, iSlurp and various other wittily-named iPrograms.
However, with the next incarnation of iTunes, 4.0.1, Apple got smart. Likely fearing the wrath of the RIAA, a new header was added to all the requests posted to the iTunes serving the music. This value, called Client-DAAP-Validation, looks, smells, and tastes like an MD5 sum. Without the proper DAAP-Validation, iTunes refuses to serve up any content.
Obviously, this broke iSlurp and iLeech. And since there's no easy (read: DMCA-compliant) way to find the source of this value, programs that run separately from iTunes and provide download capabilities are, well, screwed.
Enter myTunes. It's a two-pronged solution to this problem. Behind the scenes, there's a packet scanner watching for requests on the Rendezvous port (3689). When it comes across a request to stream a file, it notes the "URL" and proper DAAP-Validation.
However, all files accessed via the modified iTunes HTTP server are represented via numeric IDs. To get the proper information about the file, myTunes uses a bastardization of the iTunes for Windows Visual Plug-in SDK. For some reason, all visual plug-ins receive notification when the currently playing song in iTunes changes. The myTunes plugin writes this value to the registry, where it is later read by the myTunes GUI and displayed for downloading via libcurl.
This approach raises some interesting DMCA questions. Since the generation of the DAAP-Validation value has not been reverse-engineered, only captured, has anything been circumvented? In effect, myTunes is only a packet replayer.
To counter some of the ill-informed people above, the original file is saved in original format without bitrate modifications. The response to a stream request is the file itself.
General DAAP info
Music will continue to get made no matter what.
I've been a musician for 21 years and for some of those years i've made a living of it. Whether i was making a profit or not, I continue to make music and record. It's what i do. it's what any true musician does. If we didn't have this huge industry all we would lose is the machine cramming insincere bullshit at us all the time. Music is more available than ever, which is the ultimate point. Most musicians get screwed over by the machine anyway, some of whom never come back.
In any case musicians realize at this point that the revenue model is changing and the real money is to be made in touring (and merchandise) (where it was for most musicians anyway). Times are changing, go with the flow, get used to it.