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Apple's iTunes DRM Cracked?
joekra writes "The author of DeCSS is back in the spotlight with a new application called QTFairUse. The new application attempts to convert DRM'd AACs to non-DRM'd AACs on Windows machines. MacRumors has done some limited testing on it and has found it doesn't yet work as advertised... but they do offer a look into how it works."
...that this hack was done by Microsoft as a way of gaining a monopoly by taking down a player that managed to get *way* ahead of them.
Imagine that, it got cracked!
tee hee
thread here.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I read the comments on MacRumours, and basically this program is not an Apple DRM crack but a hack for QuickTime (windows version) which dumps the decrypted AAC stream to disk before it is sent to the AAC. This is done by patching QuickTime and writing the data in memory to disk. It is easy for Apple to change QuickTime to make this app useless, but it is nevertheless an interesting approach.
That said, it is certainly possible to reverse-engineer the decryption routine in QuickTime instead of hacking the application itself. It is just a matter of time.
The Register is way off in their article. They clearly don't understand the way this App actually works... and are comparing it a simple stream ripper.
One day they'll figure out that computers have made the marginal revenue for producing a song ~= $0. The whole music industry needs to undergo a revolution to stay profitable and I don't think anyone has figured out what that revolution needs to be.
I'm trying to figure out if this is a vaporware hack or hwat. It's been described as an analog hole hack.
????
Unelss he's written a prog that captures the analog playback and re-encodes in a non-DRM'ed ACC format (which is what it sounds like), then the Register article makes no sense at all.
Even if it is for real, man he just begs for trouble, doesn't he?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Hopefully this doesn't have any negative impact for the end users. It's always sad when the generic end user gets screwed because someone decided to hack/crack a product to give them additional functionality.
Just 3 Steps: download, burn it, rip it voila no DRM... and the "fair use" is allready there... is
Why release it with your name attached to it? Didn't he learn something after the whole De-CSS trial?
I am the person who did the original testing for MacRumors. Here are the final steps:
The raw aac file that QTFairUse produces can be played in a windows app called foobar.
To play back in itunes is a little harder. One must run an application called faad.exe to fix the "atoms?" of the aac file. After that is done one must add the MPEG-4 wrappers using the program mp4creator found in MPEG4IPutils. Make sure to use the -optimize tag, or else the file will triple in size. After this is all done you end up with a m4a file with the decrypted aac content in a MPEG-4 wrapper playable in itunes.
Now if there just was a way to copy shared iTunes 4.0.1 music.
For any question related to DeCSS or QTFairUse, you can reach Jon at jon.johansen@sealandgov.com
...
Here's a photo of his new place of residence incidentally
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I tought he just wrote the gui front-end for DeCSS.
:)
So is he once again the frontman for another tool?
I mean he already been to court and probably got that routine down pat, might even get him another job since the place that hired him went belly up.
Not his fault I guess, since they where banking on WAP to make it big
It has nothing to do with analog.
No doubt this app is illegal under the DMCA; good thing the author is not in the USA.
Where have all the mp3's gone ?
:-)
Long time passin'
Where have all the mp3's gone ?
Long time ago.
Where have all the mp3's gone ?
Gone to CNET every one.
When will they ever learn ?
When will they ever learn...
You tayka my myusic, I hacka your format.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
DRM in iTunes is changed. Please repurchase all of your old songs. Seriously, the DRM with Apple's music wasn't that bad. Why make it so that they have to change things around? Remember iTunes Music Sharing? You use to be able to stream from any computer to any computer. Since people didn't use it for personal use, they forced it to only work on the same subnet (thereby not allowing users at work to access music from their home machine). I wouldn't say Apple is perfect, but they're more on our side than Microsoft is.
I have no
It's not analogue, it's a DLL that latches on to QT (windows) and intercepts the raw AAC data and writes it to a file.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
By breaking the means the industry hopes to use to make their business viable you are only going to force them to cancel future projects which make music and other media easy for consumers to buy. Not everything can be free. Do you expect to get paid for a days work? And if Apple is forced to end their service because everyone just steals the music, then what will be left with? I will tell you. Microsoft will push a DRM-based protection scheme which is based on hardware and locks out non-Windows users.
Stop screwing these companies!
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
This programm strips out what Apple puts in to identify you. Probably nice for privacy.
BTW iTunes works only for US customers, it would be nice to get songs for 1 EURO in Europe, too. I would probably start buying songs then!
There are plenty of programs out there that will capture your computer's audio output. WireTap for example is a free Mac utility from Amrbosia that does this. You can also burn your music to audio CD and re-rip it as an MP3. I don't see why this is a big deal. Apple's DRM is fair and people who buy songs from iTunes already have the opportunity of using something like KaZaA but have chosen not to. This isn't going to make any exclusive content available on KaZaA or anything. Reading the description I think the whole point is just to try to humiliate Apple and the music industry. If thats the case its a bad thing, because Apple is FINALLY turning the music industry around on digital music.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
MacRumors has done some limited testing on it and has found it doesn't yet work as advertised...
Maybe if MacRumours had actually bothered to fully test it they might have found that it does!!
When not forgotten
Are there any other places logs are left of installation?
Just a rip off - Not a rip
Subduction leads to orogeny
You mean he wrote a VB GUI for the crack, right?
Why put your name on the crack? Why even crack it in the first place? Why eat the Apple?
Because we're human.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Copyright's brief existence is over.:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Actually, you didn't need to have Windows present at all. You could just install "OS/2 for Windows" by itself and you'd have a pure 32-bit OS/2 system. And because it didn't have Windows, it was fast!
It pissed us off royally in Boca that IBM never advertised this.
Oh, since I can say this with it being somewhat on topic, OS/2 wasn't being ported to PPC. We were re-writing the kernel. It was based on the Berkeley Mach Kernel.
I've seen posts in the past stating this and I wasn't able to post in time to dispute it.
There is no spoon or sig.
It's being compared to an analog hole attack because it doesn't actually solve the encryption scheme, but instead lets QuickTime do the decryption, and then captures the plaintext AAC file that is stored in memory.
Truely, it's still digital at that point, so it should be called the "plaintext hole".
Apple has been pretty liberal with their protected aac files compared to some other digital music retailers. Play on up to 3 computers, burn to cd, play on iPod. I've bought about 250-300 songs from iTMS and have never been inconvenienced by their DRM. Do you think their DRM being cracked might change any of this? I can just imagine the RIAA trying to use this as an excuse to implement some sort of draconian measures. For years now people have been screaming for fair online digital distribution. We finally get something that works well and is fair on both sides and some jackass cracks it. I sort of feel like next time the RIAA dupes some ignorant senator into introducing some insane bill that completely infringes on our rights we're not going to have a leg to stand on. Apple gave people what they asked for, then got shit on. What does everyone else think?
That is re-writing the kernel for PPC based on the Mach Kernel.
There is no spoon or sig.
j/k
Joy: Being able to listen to any of my songs the second it occurs to me
Sorrow: having to "authorize" myself to listen to music that I love
Joy: sharing my favorite songs with my friends
Sorrow: Having to spend hrs giving friends tech support dealing with work arounds to stupid DRM measures that make them feel lost
Joy: finding new music that I love
Sorrow: fearing getting busted for checking out someone's recomendation
Joy: art, technology, freedom
Sorrow: greedy fuckers; the constant vigilance freedom requires
Joy: Cracking the shit out of IP
Sorrow: It's come to this: having to justify it to the stupid Slashdot consumers
Small point (or maybe not)... Mach wasn't from Berkeley. Try CMU.
This is not exactly a "crack" in the DRM scheme. It's not even very interesting. First off, even if the author manages to produce working code (as well he should, IMO), it will only work on AAC's that you are licensed to play and export. Secondly, everyone, even Apple, acknowledges that their DRM has a hole so large you could drive a truck through it. Their own software gives you the ability to export to an unprotected digital format: the audio CD.
It's also noteworthy that similar code has been circulating quietly for quite some time on the Mac side. Anyone with even moderate knowledge of the QuickTime APIs could implement code to do this with minimal effort. It's trivial. I myself have written code that re-encodes the protected AAC's to MP3 so that I can play them on an old Rio that I still use sometimes. It's such a small bit of obvious code that I've never bothered to distribute it; anyone who needs it can produce it themselves. Hell, it may even be available here. If not, one of the QuickTime samples requires only small modifications to make it work.
I guess we should all say, "Way to go, Mr. Johansen. You've demonstrated the ability to learn the QuickTime API. Congratulations." Did he feel the need to publish his first "Hello, World" on the web as well? (I don't wish to disparage his work on DeCSS... that was good. This is not on the same scale at all, though!)
.sig: file not found
I don't get it. You can burn your own CD from the QT files you buy from the iTunes store right? And after they are on CD you can make MP3s of them and do what you will, no DRM associated with them.
So, beyond the rather adolescent desire to hack the encryption, what problem does this solve? There's just no reason. Once they're on CD it's as if you bought them at the store.
It's just ego.
Anyone else thinking "hmm, I might buy some iTMS music now that I can do exactly what I want with it"?
I know it just made iTMS a little more attractive to me...
Mind you, its possible to redirect the audio stream using any of a couple of Mac OS X utils- but that's the decoded audio, not the pristine encoded AAC. I wonder how long a similar hack will take on the OS X side of things...
Please help metamoderate.
It is not re-encoding. This is extracting the unencrypted AAC data as it passed through quicktime. It's lossless.
Not quite as nice as actually breaking the encryption, but that'll happen soon I'm sure.
I thought that Jon was innocent, that he didn't actually write DeCSS but had help distribute it?
I'm curious.. did he do this for a similar reason as the one he claims he created DeCSS for - namely to play back DVDs on Linux ?
:)
I can't seem to find it in any of the articles, nor in his blog.
If there is no similar reason, does that mean that the reason of DeCSS's existence should be reviewed ?
Was 'hollywood' right, and he really just wanted digital dumps of the movies, just as - seemingly - he just wants a non-AAC'd digital dump of the music here ?
Not inciting a discussion on whether people should be allowed to do this in the first place - that's a whole other discussion
This is not using the "analog hole", nor is it capturing PCM data destined for the sound card.
He is extracting the AAC data (before decompression) as it flows through quicktime. This is lossless, and this is new!
This is lossless de-crippling of the encrypted files. It means you can play the AAC files wherever you want (not just iPod/iTunes) without having to re-compress them (which is lossy if you want them back to the same size they originally were).
Just because it's cracked doesn't mean a damn thing. Think about it, all of those songs are already available on P2P networks and newsgroups already. Most of them with superior bitrates.
Just because someone else puts up an AAC of the file on P2P doesn't mean that it's going to cause people to download more illegally. If someone was going to steal the music, they'd just do it with MP3 or OGG, or whatever flavor is already out there.
Think about it, this really does nothing to hurt Apple's business model. The percentage of people that are going to somehow benefit from a ripped AAC file and decide not to buy it from Apple instead is so low that it's insignificant.
What this does mean though, is that I can now play my purchased music on my Linux workstation, and possibly get a portable player that's not an iPod that will play these. I'd say QTFairUse is an excellent name for it, because that's certainly what I'm going to use it for.
Plus, why would one buy music from Apple, only to give it away to total strangers for nothing. I wouldn't. They way I see it, I paid for it, and if you want it, go buy your own.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Just means you have to hack "hardware" rather than software/firmware. (digs for solder iron)
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
The _very_ nice thing about Apple is that this stuff doesn't matter too much. It would be simple to convert all those AAC's into something else (be it mp3, AIFF, or even a higher AAC and back down) to get rid of the DRM. It's called a fence, you can jump it or you can respect it. Unlike most schemes that require complicated check in and out Apple had the guts and financial sense to do something that will satisfy both sides. It will be interesting to see if the notorious Apple legal will go after this. From what I remember they didn't bust down on people that extended the iTunes music sharing beyond the LAN.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
By breaking the means the industry hopes to use to make their business viable you are only going to force them to cancel future projects which make music and other media easy for consumers to buy.
The RIAA has made music easier to buy but harder to use.
Any DRM at all makes the content less useful to a would-be purchaser than a pirated copy. We're doing them a favor by illustrating that all DRM can be circumvented. Once they accept this, they'll be able to conclude that selling non-DRMed content is the only way to go. And we'll all win because music will be easier to buy AND easier to use.
It simply can't GET any easier to pirate - what are they worried about? The cat's out of the bag folks.
Joy: Being able to listen to any of my songs the second it occurs to me
Sorrow: having to "authorize" myself to listen to music that I love
Solution: Burn a fucking CD and listen to that. No DRM.
Joy: sharing my favorite songs with my friends
Sorrow: Having to spend hrs giving friends tech support dealing with work arounds to stupid DRM measures that make them feel lost
Solution: Bring your laptop to their house, join their subnet. They can browse anything in your iTunes library. Of course they can't download and keep it forever, but if they did that then they'd never buy it, and your favorite artists would have to quit the business.
Joy: finding new music that I love
Sorrow: fearing getting busted for checking out someone's recomendation
Solution: There are many. Transworld music is installing listening booths at all of its stores allowing you to pick up and play any song you want to off any of your discs. There's also a 30 second preview on every song on iTunes (4 minutes for eBooks) and several services that let you stream an unlimited amount of any song you like. Then there's the complicated low tech method we've been using since the Jazz days: BORROW YOUR GODDAMN FRIENDS COPIES.
Joy: art, technology, freedom
Sorrow: greedy fuckers; the constant vigilance freedom requires
Solution: Lighten the fuck up. I'd like you to walk up to any artist after a show and explain to them why you feel you deserve to download their music without restrictions or limitations because you promise if you like it you'll pay them. Greed may drive Metallica, but it sure as shit doesn't drive the tens of thousands of independent artists whose music is also being stolen on the internet, who do not have the exposure to make up for lost sales, and who do not have the time, position or energy to fight the people spreading their art without so little as a link to their website. Not everything about controlling music is about money. One of my favorite boston artists, Edan, wrote a song called "Emcees Smoke Crack." It has spread all over KaZaa, and not one track even has Edan listed as the damn artist. So this cat has to work at Home Depot while people wonder when "MC Smoke Crack" is gonna come to their local club. The first thing you learn when you have to live full time as an artist is that if you don't get PAID, you don't LIVE as an artist.
Joy: Cracking the shit out of IP
Sorrow: It's come to this: having to justify it to the stupid Slashdot consumers
Solution: Intellectual Property is only a joke when you have never come up with your own. Try making something useful yourself and see how fucking sanctimonious you are about other people abusing it. Then maybe you'll quit stroking your peter over some utopia where nobody gets paid to create and you can just do whatever you want with it. I used to make kickass sandcastles at the beach, but people kept letting their kids kick them own the second I stepped away. What you're suggesting is a world full of crushed sandcastles.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
gotta check links before u mod, mods
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
(posted anyonymously for the usual reasons)
Another way to do this is with the Compressor program (by Apple) included with Final Cut Pro. Just drag the DRM'd AAC file into Compressor, choose AAC from the menu, and watch as it transcodes to unencrypted AAC. You can convert that to MP3 from iTunes if you want, or write up a little AppleScript to automate it. The only downside is that you lose the metadata tags (you could probably decode that format and write an application to convert them to IDv3 tags), but it works pretty well.
Note: I'm posting this not because of any hatred for Apple, but because I like to be able to listen to my music on my SliMP3 and this is the only way to do so besides burning and ripping from a CD.
People should make choices and be responsible for those choices. Computers should NOT make choices in peoples' places.
No, people, this is NOT a good thing! Can't people figure out when there's a good thing happening, that they should sit the hell down and let it be? Think about it. Apple's DRM was pretty easy to break, just write the songs to CD and rip them back, without DRM. But the RIAA will use this as an excuse to put more and more DRM, more and more legislation. They'll say, "Well, whatever the computer industry puts out, hackers break it, so we need more legislation." And the Senate, House, and Bush will sign anything into law! Come on people, this is a bad THING!
That's what everyone wants to hear, the option to have all one's music easily transfered to other devices in a safe universal format.
This is bullshit. He could at least make a reasonably cogent case for cracking DeCSS: to play legitmately purcased DVDs on linux. What's the ethical justification for this that requires Windows Quicktime, Windows iTunes and AAC files that are already tied to that particular machine (maybe among others)? There is none except to get something for nothing...eg, stealing. All this is going to do is fuck over the innocent, honest people.
This seems to be more or less a digital version of plugging an audio device playing DRM'ed media into a computer via audio-out/audio-in.
And just what the hell do you plan on doing with that AAC, anyways? Unless you're an iPod owner or something, the most likely answer is: "Uh, duh, convert to MP3 so I can use and share it?". AAC is still a very niche codec until it gets more widespread hardware and software support.
If that's not fair use, then I don't know what is.
I'm pretty sure that you don't know what fair use is.
Jon Johansen can consider what he is doing research. Once he publishes QTFairUse and you use it, which category of fair use are you claiming? Are you going to try to say that it is reporting? How about comment?
The legal concept of fair use is more than the consumer of a work saying "I'm using it, and I think I'm being fair."
Apple does EXACTLY WHAT EVERYONE SAID THEY WANTED and they still get fucked over.
This isn't about fair use any more. This is about "fuck over any company that uses price tags."
This entire argument has lost every last shred of whatever legitimacy it may have once had.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Jon Lech Johansen, better known as DVD Jon for his authorship of the DeCSS decryption software
"DVD Jon" didn't create decss, he just distributed it
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
You also don't seem to know what fair use is.
Fair use is anything that, in light of the four factors listed in 17 USC 107 (or via judicial tests that predate that codification) is fair.
The examples given in 107 are NOT blanket allowances. They're illustrative of the sorts of things that might classically be fair use. That's why it says 'for purposes such as' and not 'only for purposes of.'
Reproducing and distributing otherwise infringing copies on street corners may not be infringement if it's fair per the four factor test. And yet there have certainly been educational and news reporting infringements that were not fair uses.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
iTunes is a real good thing:
Cheap music
Artists get money
Decent use (burn, mp3 player, on the computer)
Lots of selection
100% legal, no questions asked.
Why does this guy intentionally try to ruin a good thing.
In summary: Download, export, convert it voila no DRM...
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Fuck You, You Damned Apple Apoligista!
http://www.nanocrew.net/software/QTFairUse.tar.gz
1) The program is perfected, so that you end up with a simple, easy-to-use way to remove DRM.
The people are happy, and basically everything from iTunes shows up on the free music channels almost instantly.
2) Apple is forced to sue him under this, and use the much-hated DMCA to do so, because otherwise the record labels will simply shut down the iTMS.
Everyone starts on a huge 'I hate Apple' rampage, blind to the fact that the only other course is for Apple to just close the iTMS.
3) Apple changes the DRM in the iTMS to something more secure. The jury is still quite out on whether it would be more obnoxiously intrusive or not, but if it wasn't, it would almost certainly end up being hacked very quickly as well. (If it was, it would probably just take a little longer.)
Everyone gets really mad at Apple for this, too, no matter where on the spectrum of intrusiveness it actually is.
It's great... Apple has absolutely no choice in the matter, so we can beat up on them *in advance*! Let the hate-fest begin!
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
No need for Final Cut Pro, you can do a similar thing with iMovie. To avoid being redundant, but at the expense of seeming narcissistic, I'll link to my earlier post.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
See what happens when you dont make a native release for the player for Linux first, you get OWN3D!.
Got Code?
Apple's iTMS provides possible the best DRM solution thus offered. I like it enough to have spent actual money on downloadable music (I detest media pirates).
Go piss around with WMP, or Ogg...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Software like this will always be cracked if you can hear it you can record it.
Learn lisp today!
Seriously. Remember when iTunes was cool, and we could connect to other machine via IP and listen to music on any machine in the world? And then some moron made a website to let anyone connect to any other computer? And then Apple took that feature away? Look forward to harsher DRM measures in the future thanks to this. thaen
for academic research purposes. The resulting file is indeed unprotected AAC, but Foobar2000 says it's mono. I don't think Apple has anything to worry about here, anyway--people who won't pay for music won't pay for it; those that will will still use iTMS. And if this workaround is made to work properly, they'll be able to enjoy what they bought DRM free. I don't see the harm.
running those shell commands will display a picture of goatse!
Using QTFairUse only let's you convert the contents of works that you already have legitimate access to. So, you really don't need an explanation for why you're using it. Maybe you want to create MP3 files to play in your car... you have every right to do that.
I can't use their damn stuff- I run Linux. Unless it's on ALL the mainstream OSes (and Linux is one of them these days), then it's not fair for everyone.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Please. Mod parent -1, Overrated or -1, Troll. He sounds like he knows something. But he really doesn't.
This makes me so happy, man. I mean, what is better than a free music society? DRM is bogus, even the man is aware of this fact, man. So really, this is the sweetest peice of news I have listened to, man.
All of Apple's offices, except sales and customer service, are closed the week of Nov 24-28. This extended Thanksgiving holiday was given as a "Thank You" to employees because many had to work weekends to finish Panther on time.
Needless to say, there likely isn't going to be an immediate response from Cupertino, because just about everyone at Apple is on vacation right now. I wonder if Jon knew this...
At least for me, it will. I was a bit wary about knowing that some day down the line my iTMS purchases would stop working. Just a few minutes ago I "decrypted" my first iTMS purchase. Worked like a charm after piping the .aac file through FAAD and mp4creator. If you don't mind me, I think I'll start iTunes and buy some more songs to set free...
I don't like music much, and can pretty comfortably do without any music at all. The only thing that matters for me is that whether I'll be able to buy a computer that is completely controlled by ME, not someone else. Except that, there is no reason for me to enter this discussion.
Hopefully this will lead to people being able to convert quicktime movies into much better formats, especially ones which dont involve having to install QuickTime.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I would be using the Home audio recording act.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
What keeps a cracked Xbox console running GNU/Linux, connected to the Internet via a firewall to a cable or DSL modem, from communicating with sites not under Microsoft's control?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Don't worry, if this thing (= TCPA) comes, they will have each and every loophole covered.
I've read the TCPA/Palladium proposals, and the owner of the machine can always turn the TPM/nexus on or off. Sure, applications that require the TPM won't run when the TPM is turned off, but there will always be a Free operating system and Free applications that don't require the TPM. Or do you claim that communication with the Internet of the future will require the TPM to be turned on?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The -only- thing that things like this do are to strengthen the RIAA's already weak position.
Way to go, people.
We preach on and on about having a service that offers music at a fair price (or at least gives it a go) and what do we do? We try to get around it. Obviously, P2P isn't good enough.
At least we're not hypocrites, right?
FFS.
I think the point was you don't get the (arguably negligible, certainly non-deterministic) analog degradation since a DRMed aac file will always un-DRM to the same digital aac stream.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Dear 13 year old child with a crappy home, no life, no friends, no dick and no girl. With all due respect, we here in the real world find your constant desire to try and get a rise out of us irritating and obnoxious. It was funny the first few times, but like a cheap whore after the first 80 times, it's gotten stale, crusty and disease laden. Please do us all a favor and do the following:
Take the joy stick out of your ass
Stop pretending you have any self worth. You don't
Stop pretending you're funny. You aren't.
Stop pretending you have a life. You don't.
Stop pretending life is worht living. It isn't.
Please kill yourself. Shards of glass, the corners of the ram chips lying arround your desk, a broken linux CD or a sharp spork can make effective cutting impliments. Just remember, cut down not across.
If you chose to hang yourself, I recomend rope, as it is the most efficient and traditional method. But being a rebelious anarchy loving kid who read something about communism from Marx, you probably want to do something anti system. In which case I recomend heavy duty extention cord.
If any of thse fail, I recomend taking one hundred 500mg sleeping pills, and trying to clean the inside of your toaster with a knife while it's plugged in.
Yours in Death,
The Real World
Dear 13 year old child with a crappy home, no life, no friends, no dick and no girl. With all due respect, we here in the real world find your constant desire to try and get a rise out of us irritating and obnoxious. It was funny the first few times, but like a cheap whore after the first 80 times, it's gotten stale, crusty and disease laden. Please do us all a favor and do the following:
Take the joy stick out of your ass
Stop pretending you have any self worth. You don't
Stop pretending you're funny. You aren't.
Stop pretending you have a life. You don't.
Stop pretending life is worht living. It isn't.
Please kill yourself. Shards of glass, the corners of the ram chips lying arround your desk, a broken linux CD or a sharp spork can make effective cutting impliments. Just remember, cut down not across.
If you chose to hang yourself, I recomend rope, as it is the most efficient and traditional method. But being a rebelious anarchy loving kid who read something about communism from Marx, you probably want to do something anti system. In which case I recomend heavy duty extention cord.
If any of thse fail, I recomend taking one hundred 500mg sleeping pills, and trying to clean the inside of your toaster with a knife while it's plugged in.
Yours in Death,
The Real World
For most the limitations of the iTMS tracks probably isn't an issue, for me it is and as such I choose not to buy music from it, instead to buy a CD and rip to unprotected AAC. We have more than 3 computers I would like to be able to play music on. An older iMac hooked up to the stereo which is the main in-home music box. A computer that is destined to reside in the trunk of my car hooked up to the car stereo. A PowerBook that I use commonly to play music at work and an older iBook that gets used to play the music from the iMac elsewhere in the house. I can't use all 4 for Apple DRM'd music. Why not? They are our computers and its our music and I should be able to play the music on any of them. Why only 3 allowed? If the number were 100 it would be just as effective at stopping mass distribution and such a number really wouldn't limit legal owners of the music.
As such I look forward to a completed version of this tool and its availability on the Mac (though I presumably could run the Windows version in VirtualPC). Not to get music from others (as has been noted it wouldn't offer anything you can't already get via other easier means) but to allow me to use music purchased on iTMS as I see fit and without audio quality loss. Indeed the availability of this tool would make me reconsider purchasing music from the iTMS - currently there's compelling enough reasons to no do so and so I don't.
--- What?
If you want to listen to iTMS purchased tracks on any platform, you have to waste time downloading them, and you have to waste time flipping burgers to afford them. So why can't you set up a script to burn a CD-RW and rip FLAC files from it and run it while you shower?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sure, I can remove the DRM now. But will I be able to in the future?
I'm guessing that the iTunes Music Store TOS answers this clearly.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I hope congress makes it a LAW, that computing devices can only be sold with DRM chips. Don't like it?! Too bad, move to Mexico.
In the United States, for Windows or Mac users:
The iTunes player lets the user convert iTMS purchased tracks from AAC+DRM to stereo 16-bit linear PCM. Just set up a script that burns 74 minutes worth of audio to CD-RW and then rips it to FLAC. From FLAC you can re-encode it to whatever you want. Yes, using two layers of lossy encoding (AAC followed by MP3) does add a bit more noise than using one layer, but when the one song you want costs $0.99 instead of $12.99 for the whole album, at least I find it worth it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
There are plenty of programs out there that will capture your computer's audio output.
They won't work with Windows Media Player, whose Secure Audio Path requires audio output drivers to 1. be signed by Microsoft WHQL and 2. turn off cleartext digital outputs. Read more
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sometime in the Windows Media Player 7 or 8 era I decided to start ripping my legally purchased (or licensed?) collection of CDs for listening while at my computer. I did not share these files with any one else nor did I listen to it in two places simultaneously. At the time the default media encoder produced rips with DRM.
I then made the poor choice of upgrading from Win2k to XP with no expectation that it would have any effect on the hours I spent ripping my collection to my computer for my use. Perhaps it is the price of stupidity, but my online collection was rendered immediately useless because WMP decided I was on a new computer and therefore had stolen my rips from myself.
I have been a very satisfied user of iTunes/iTMS and have spent considerable money purchasing from iTMS. Under iTunes Advanced menu there is an item "Deauthorize Computer...". I fear even selecting this item and unwittingly invalidating hundreds of USD in iTMS purchases. I also have no idea what will happen should I decide to upgrade my CPU, add a drive, or even change the IP address of my machine. Or, perish the thought, have to reload XP because I have the poor taste to run Outlook or IE. Suffice to say, all of my iTMS purchases have been burned to CD-R because I'm not quite that stupid.
So here is one legitimate user who wants to not run afoul of the RIAA who may end up with direct losses because I don't have control over my purchased product.
flask of ripe urine
pressed to dead bsd lips
bsd drink up
Because if you're intent on pirating commercially, you'll just buy the CD in the first place. What's $12 for a CD if you're intending on ripping off the thing and selling it illegally?
This is kind of a tempest in a teapot, really.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
An unfair deal is still an unfair deal even if you accept it. The logic of "people buy it therefore it's ok" is unfortunately the same logic people are using to say that DRM wrapped online music sales works. BBspot has some fun things to say about that. At the end of the day iTunes is still giving you less than you deserve, and there is absolutely no reason to be an apologist for the monumental amount of screwing that's going on here.
People are _obviously_ willing to pay (oh, say, about $.99) for good download speeds and high-quality encoding. Most people who use the Music Store don't care that it's "legal" or "right" or whatever. Apple just found the right price point for what they offer -- a better user experience than the free services like KaZaa, Gnutella, etc.
However... I have had some very annoying problems with the iTunes DRM recently. Got the main logic board replaced in my laptop (by Apple) and suddenly couldn't play my purchased music. Couldn't re-authorize because I'd already authorized three machines and now one was gone forever (didn't know in advance that they'd be replacing the logic board, or that I would lose my rights if they did). Had to email support and wait about 48 hours to get my music back by deauthorizing the other computer. And they warned me that "we don't normally do this".
Another time I wanted to email a song to a friend -- I thought he'd like it and maybe buy the album. Of course he couldn't play it. Nice.
More recently I purchased music and I was _never_ able to play it -- I'm told it's already authorized on three machines even though I've yet to play it once. Whatever. I guess I have to contact Apple support again.
I don't feel this is really Apple's fault -- they've done as well as you can with DRM, but the fact is that it just sucks. I now realize that I paid for an _inferior_ product to what I could have gotten for free. I would rather download a bit slower, get a lower bitrate, and be able to use my damn music like I can with any other medium!
Now, if they combined high-quality, fast dowloads, and free usage, then most people would STILL buy the the songs for $.99 and they would actually be happy with their purchase a year or two later when they've had to move it across machines or whatever other diallowed activieties that we normally do without thinking when using CD's or whatever. As it is, I think people will sour on this over time.
Okay -- I'm rambling now, but the point is that they'd be doing at least as well without the DRM, and customers would be happier longterm. That's how they should be competing with P2P -- not by putting out products that are superior in some ways and vastly inferior in others.
Stupid RIAA. I'm glad to pay for what I want if you offered it. As it is I think I'll go steal some RIAA music. Or buy some independent stuff.
Cheers all.
"J-live's first record was so heavily bootlegged that his record label wouldn't even release it"
Actually, he sucked so bad that it made people's ears bleed. That's why he was dropped.
Too bad he didn't stay dropped. Did I mention how bad he suckes?
This was was most reasonable reply I'd seen on this topic, and it gets modded as a -1 Troll ??
For pete's sake, can someone explain why he's wrong ? Or is the suggestion that people get up off their collective asses and make a teeny-tiny effort to play fair with other peoples music such a terrible thing ?
Gahhhh, it's like "if I can't get it for free, on demand, with no effort, delivered to my door, in the format of my choosing", then it's evil and must be stopped"
"But in this case, music purchased from iTMS can be burned to CD and played on home stereos and in cars."
So if what you're saying it true (and I don't use iTMS), then why does this hack even matter? I mean, you're saying that you can do this anyway.
Then if you're correct then Apple should provide this functionality in the first place, since its no different that burning it to a CD and re-ripping, if I understand you correctly.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"The RIAA is gonna scream bloody murder and foist more legislation on us, and I'm probably going to agree with them."
Agree with them just because you're being one of "nanny boo-boos" who say stuff like "Copying CD's is just like Communism!!!"
I often marvel at people like yourself who sit around and just trying to agree with authority because somehow it makes you feel better about yourself?
I mean, what the @#$ do you care if I buy an AAC and rip it into an MP3 without wasting 5 minutes putting it on a CD-RW.
You're a real puzzler you are. I'll bet you don't have many friends.
" Once they're on CD it's as if you bought them at the store."
Are you one of those idiots who claim 128kb AAC is equal to CD quality? Please don't even argue. You're so wrong...you don't understand exactly how wrong you are.
If you argue this, I'm sure your head will explode because you'll be so wrong the molecules in your brain will try to fly away from each other rather than be so wrong.
" Apple does EXACTLY WHAT EVERYONE SAID THEY WANTED and they still get fucked over."
Apple makes no money from the sale of AAC's; they've said so a million times. They sell AAC's to sell iPods.
So please spare us the whiny rhetoric.
You iPod and Itunes aren't magic music boxes; they're simply a service, the same as the guy who mows your grass or paints the lines on the road. Not magic, just a service.
"Cheap music"
That's not cheap. A typical CD is about 12-13 songs, so this is like paying $12-13 for a CD. Same as a CD except for 3 important things:
1) CD Cover art. Certainly worth a buck or two
2) No DRM. Certainly worth a buck or two
3) Much higher quality. Certainly worth a buck of three.
By my estimes, a CD costs you about $.50 a song. You pay a buck and thank apple.
Your financial wizardry amazes me. You must be hero of the stupid.
"Artists get money"
Less than if you bought the CD.
"Decent use (burn, mp3 player, on the computer)
Lots of selection"
Why the hell not? THey sold you 128kb lossy compression. You're taking it up the ass, and you're telling apple "thank you".
You must. MUST. Be retarded.
why would this method cause loss of quality?
The catholic church is in shambles, what with the pope protecting hundreds of michael-jackson-act-alikes. The priesthood is in dire straights. It is seen as the preferred occupation of pedophiles with the church's blessing.
Sickening.
I hope...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Has anyone compared hash strings of a protected file from two different users?
How 'bout files that have been "unprotected" using this method?
I am curious to know if apple is applying any type of digital watermark to songs before a user downloads them... if they are it could be very easy for RIAA type folks to find tracks on the net and come knocking on your doors.
Mod parent up...Mod parent up...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Three words: trans, cod, ing. Burning and ripping turns a 3 MB m4p into a 30 MB wav, pending further lossy compression.
Whadda dipshit
The service iTMS provides is specialized. It is without a doubt best-of-breed amongst it's competition. Your 'cute math' is irrelevant (not to mention that most albums on iTMS top out at $9.99).
The alternative is obviously exactly what you say -- go to the store/go to Amazon. Buy entire CD (including tracks you don't want). Convert CD to alternate format (ideally unprotected AAC for quality/efficiency). Factor in gas or shipping and your time required to convert your music, plus your having paid for music you don't want and you probably end up on the losing side of the equation.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
This is what I don't understand. This really isn't a DRM hack, and even if it was, would it really matter that much? All the songs on the itms are available online in mp3 form, and people who buy songs are buying them because they want to; so even if the DRM is cracked it won't hurt the sale of music.
Robert
Isn't the real issue that: the RIAA is still buying way more legislation than is needed to protect audio recordings, and congressmen are too easily bought? Worse, they aren't listening to what people want - and are allowing an unscrupulous, unethical industry group to sue minors for ridiculous amounts for minor infractions?
Regardless of if Apple's DRM scheme was cracked or not, the RIAA has WAY too much sway with government, and there is no check or balance on it. The fact they can arrange for any draconian law to be created to assist their ailing/aging business model doesn't seem a little... I don't know... Wrong?!?!?
Come on people. Whining that this DRM was cracked the RIAA will get more brutal legislation (a la DMCA) passed is a failure of government listening to money more than who they are supposed to represent. Congress is about representative democracy, not industry assistance.
And for that matter its not a spectator sport.
On a Mac Do This.... 1) Buy a male to male stereo jack 2) Mac_Line_out to Whatever_line_in 3) Record/Encode to whatever format 4) Enjoy ! 5) Share !
Roses are red, violets are blue, most poems rhyme, but this one doesn't...
Mention Hydrogen Audio, Mod up +3 not-total-idiot!
Good call, sir.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
By breaking the means the industry hopes to use to make their business viable you are only going to force them to cancel future projects which make music and other media easy for consumers to buy.
It is not possible for DRM to work. That's what researchers have been saying since day 1. If I can hear it, I can record it. These cracks aren't happening because people are unethical, they're happening because DRM is an inherently flawed idea. It's like asking people not to use pop-up blockers. Using an inherently broken technology in a way that is unpleasant to the end user is not ever going to stand the test of time. Even should police force be used it won't last forever - eventually the economic will of the consumer will be satisfied.
This is not unlike the lesson learned from the dot-coms. It has to be both technologically practical and an improved satisfaction of wants or it will not work. Having one and wishing really hard that the other was true is like trying to sell the electric cars from the 1980's.
The economic model behind music has got to change. Per-copy sales is not possible when copying has an arbitrarily close to zero cost. You can't charge for something that costs nothing.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
If your portable won't play it, bitch at the manufacturer. ... Jesus you people are whiney.
Of course we're whiney. It's what we're supposed to do. It is the natural state of an economic system for the consumers in that system to attempt to satisfy their wants. One of the wants of the music consumer is to lift DRM restrictions. Offering one "legitimate" path to that end does not mean it is the only path that the consumer will use. The concept of rational self interest is not going to go away. Just as corporations will continue to do whatever is profitable, whether it is ethical or not, so consumers will continue to do what satisfies their wants, whether it is "the chosen way" or not.
Is it whiney? Yes? No? It's irrelevant. It is absolutely inevitable that it will happen. Basing a business model on "if noone cracks this it'll work great" is no better than "once we've got all those eyeballs we'll find a way to monetize them" (the dot-com mantra).
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
This needs to be tested to be proven true, and it could be that the trade off in copyright power these publishers desire is simply not worth having more published work in exchange.
As RMS explains quite well, copyright was set up in the US to benefit the user (the reader, the listener, the viewer), not the publisher or the author. Copyright is a means to modify the behavior of the author and publisher to give the public more published works. But we have traded away too many valuable rights in exchange for nothing. It's time we stopped buying their scare tactics and conflation of illegality with unethical behavior (as you did by referring to copyright infringement as "steal[ing]") so we can more reasonably decide if we want a few more published works in exchange for losing freedoms we hold dear.
The issue before us does not revolve around giving publishers all the copyright power they desire, nor does it revolve around being afraid to awaken a sleeping giant (as your post would erroneously suggest). We need to decide how much our freedoms are worth and be ready to say no when publishers ask for more power than we're ready to give up.
Digital Citizen
longer hours then we have EVER done since we started recording that sort of thing!
So clearly we are not getting more efficient and producing goods, but less so. And with that in mind, without money we would be totally lost.
(Although I think a "liquid commodity" backed currency is passe: one based on the value of actual contracts is probably more suitable for our information-centric society)
Right now money is backed by a contract wherein bearers can retrieve bullion or some other liquid good from a reserve bank.
In the future, ANY contract should be viable for that backing.
The valuation of the backing (and the currency) would track whatever contract is tied to it (bond, services rendered, equity, land, commodiites, etc.)
Just one of many wild and zany ideas.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
The way it works is basically just a replay attack. In a given session the two iTunes programs (local, remote) figure out a session key, and from then on each file request includes a key for that file. tcpdump eavesdrops on these file requests and saves the keys. Then once you have them, you can re-use the keys until the local iTunes program tells the remote iTunes program that the session is terminated. That's why you have to leave iTunes open until you're done getting the files.
You can use any http program to actually get the files, as long as the program lets you add extra lines to the HTTP request header (that's where the file keys go). That's easy to do in wget.
The transfers are pretty zippy once you get them started - on a fast ethernet network like you'd find in a campus setting, each song downloads in under a second.
It was pretty easy to figure out what was going on, actually, just by looking at the tcpdump output. It's HTTP and they left it in printable ASCII.
With great power comes great fan noise.
I love it. Who else could believe MacroVision's sales pitches?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
How is this 'crack' any different from burning a DRM'd ACC file to an audio disk and then ripping it back to whatever format you want? This method has been available since iTMS began.
Karma Schmarma
I thought it was extremely easy to "break" the apple DRM.
Personally within 15 min. of downloading a song, I had an MP3 file, full quality, of the download.
Not that I intend to necessarily illegally share it, but the iTunes files don't play on my secondary mp3 player (IPOD of course, being my primary).
honestly we cant beat the RIAA, there is no way in hell unless california falls off the face of the earth (sorry to all those nice californians) , they are WAY too strong.
SO Apple plays nice, they give us fair use, but give them the controls they want, but ONLY controls that limit trading, really if you need your songs to be on three computers at the same time, you have problems, but you can burn them and put them on as man iPods as you want. It's your music, you just have to make sure it stays YOUR music.
So what do some of us do, PROVE that the whole lot of us are diviants and hack the freaking DRM, PROVING the RIAA right that they shoulkd have tighter control.
They win. They couldnt win if Apple proved a DRM model could work and still could give the users the rights they where garenteed to have. But this proves that people dont care, they are willing to hack things and now willfully break the law (since it IS illegal to hack DRM files acouding to the DCMA no matter how flawed the law is) letting the RIAA say "See we need more control," and getting it, instead of them saying "See we need more control," and being asked why cause there is a proven model that shows they dont need it.
WAKE UP EVERYONE, THE FREE NAPSTER RIDE IS OVER, If we want a feasable working internet media model that allows us to have films and music, and anything else, we have to make sacrafices.
It's just like free speech, we all want it but the minute someone says something we dont like we try to censor them, and we cant. IT DOSEN'T WORK BOTH WAYS.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
with digital audio editing programs. Long gone are the days that require million dollor studios to be able to create a polished piece of work.
Now, a talented producer/sound guy is still needed and still requires skills. But anyone with a natural sound for music and practice can be damned good.
Indeed. This is how the VCR's use for "time-shifting" was judged to be fair use in the Sony vs MPAA case, and the Rio MP3 player's use for "space-shifting" likewise in the Diamond vs RIAA case.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
No you wouldn't.
The AHRA isn't as useful as you might think, though it does have some intriguing possibilities. And anyway, it's a statutory exception (technically to who can be sued -- it's nonactionable infringement, but infringement all the same) and not quite identical to fair use, though sometimes both might protect someone.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The fact that some people believe that Apple's DRM is "fair", and some don't notwithstanding - what this hack does is to drive home the point to the fools who think it will work that some people consider it to be a 100% unacceptable limitation on their use rights.
We bought it - we paid for it. We're gonna god damn well do whatever the fuck we want with it. If you have a problem with that, then you need to look at WHY people are doing that which you don't appreciate.
Is your product overpriced? Not packaged appropriately? Doesn't have enough features? Something?
Well here's a TIP MPAA/RIAA - fucken fix the problem. Don't try suing your customers or passing assinine laws to limit their rights. Just fix the fucking problem and move on with life. We'll pay for your stuff if you give us a fair price - otherwise, we'll return the favor.
And for all those of you suckers who think $1.00/song is a fair price - it's not. It's what you've been paying all these years for an entire CD full of shit songs...
When the pricing is $0.30-$0.50 per song for anything over 6 months old, and $0.75 for a song younger than 6 months, without any protection or restrictions - I'll buy it. I want it as a 320Kbps MP3 or whatever format I want - but I'll buy it.
Shit, I probably won't even complain if the file gets deleted and I have to repurchase it... Who the hell would rag about a 30 cent song?
Who would be such a cheap bastard as to ask a friend for a 30 cent song just so they could avoid buying it?
Why would people buy hacked up versions from pirates for more $$$ than just buying the real deal?
The RIAA's argument is all about keeping their cash cow fat...
Any software DRM mechanism can be and will be circumvented. Thus sooner or later "the industry" will find out and probably bribe lawmakers to mandate hardware DRM (end to end) in all new computers, and new content will only play on such computers with hardware DRM, TCPA etcetera.
At some point of increasing draconian measures, I think the public at large, and therefore also politicians as long as they are still being elected, will have to see the inevitable consequence: the way the media industry works including the concepts of copyrights and distribution, whether you like them or not, just don't work anymore in this age. Unless you want to chance society into a hell of restrictions and lock large fractions of the population away.
In that sense this is a step in the right direction: it simply shows the truth: media content is increasingly easy to copy and distribute, effective protection schemes are hardly possible. Thus the current order of this industry, with rich, mighty distribution and production companies, can no longer be maintained. With a global audience, normal production rate and zero distribution costs, the price per copy (for the consumer) should be much much less than today and still provide enough financing for media content production.
The consequence is: less money for distribution (which is no problem) and also for production. The latter means: less products, especially movies are very expensive today. For music I don't see much changes happening. Movies: yes we will get much less new productions of them, with less expensive effects. So what? So much has already been produced, even with one 10th of todays new production (which might put more emphasis on quality script and play instead of spectacular effects) there is still more than enough to see. Those junkies that don't do much else in their spare time but watching movies and television might finally get a life again.
First, by the terms of service for the iTunes Music Store, you cannot do this. Attempting to circumvent the DRM renders your license to use iTunes null and void, and violates the terms of the Music Store, letting Apple cut you off. (Not that it matters to those who do this sort of thing.) Likewise, attempting to circumvent DRM violates the well-respected and highly loved DMCA, which could land you in jail.
:-) Nowadays, I don't. I don't agree with the RIAA, MPAA, and SPA, but I don't feel right violating copyright laws, either. I couldn't care less about my neighbors/friends/relatives/customers. If they feel like using an illegal copy of Windows, fine. (I'm a computer consultant, so it usually means more money for me fixing their computer.) But, I have ripped all my CDs to my computer, I have backup copies of all my software CDs (with the originals stored in a waterproof box in the basement,) and I often copy DVD-Videos to my hard drive so they are easier to watch later. So I like the ability to do what I want with my data, but I won't use those means to break any copyright laws. (Other than the DMCA, because I see the circumvention of DRM as a basic 'fair use' right, not as something that should be illegal.) One recent example is that I rented "Finding Nemo", but didn't get around to watching it before it was due. So I copied it to my computer, watched it the next day, then deleted it. That is considered fair use. I paid for the right to watch the movie for a limited time. I watched it, then 'returned' it (by both returning the DVD, and deleting the copy.) So I was within my fair use rights.
Second, I feel that I have purchased this music, Apple phrases it as me purchasing it (rather than 'renting' it,) so I should be able to do whatever I want with it. The same as I can do whatever I want with a CD. As long as it doesn't break copyright law. For example, what happens if, god forbid, Apple closes its doors five years from now. It's very conceivable that I could still have my current Mac in 5 years, with all my purchased music. What happens when, two months after the doors close, I get myself a nice new G7 system at fire-sale prices? I obviously wouldn't be able to authorize that computer. And the RIAA wouldn't let Apple 'unlock' all music upon closure of Apple. So they only way to get my music to work on this new computer would be to use un-DRMed copies. So I can see a perfectly legitimate use for this.
As a note on my ethics: Once upon a time, I downloaded music off the internet. I downloaded movies off the internet. (And pr0n. LOTS of pr0n...) I downloaded software off the internet. (I also used Windows, which, to me, was the worst of my transgressions.
In closing, I will probably download this utility (or a final, fully functional version,) and just keep it on a disc somewhere, for the 'just in case'. Since everything I want to do with my purchased music falls within the limits of what Apple's DRM lets me do, I have no reason to use it. But, as in my example, if I ever have a need to move my music to a new computer, and the ability to authorize computers has gone away, I would want the ability to get around it. (Look at what happened to those Divx users. Some people purchased the 'unlimited' versions, and they're worthless now that the Divx service has closed. Not very unlimited.)
P.S. Yes, this violates the iTMS terms of service. Period. The terms of service say that doing ANYTHING to circumvent DRM revokes your rights. Even burning to Audio CD, and re-ripping into MP3 (or AIFF, or AAC...) can be considered a 'circumvention', because you did something expressly to rid the music of DRM. So all of you trying to justify it by saying that it isn't technically removing DRM need to re-read the terms of service (and the DMCA, for that matter.) ANYTHING you do that ends up with a non-DRMed file is circumventing DRM.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
While it's a good example of "hacking" in the purest sense this app does little that isn't already available via quicktime API already. If I'm understanding the technology correctly (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) iTunes plays protected AAC files via the quicktime system. Quicktime pro already allows you to export files it plays into a variety of formats. I just duplicated the basic function of this program via qt_tools (http://www.omino.com/~poly/software/qt_tools/). My test file was Nina Simmone's "Sinner Man". I used qt_export --video 0 --audio=aiff Sinner_man.m4p test.aiff. I then used iTunes to re-encode back to AAC. As far as my ears can tell it's as close to the original as a person could want. However I still had to have my copy of quicktime authorized to playback the file and I still am using quite a few cycles to reconvert the thing into a unprotected AAC.
I think this demonstrates a perfect example of fair use and DRM technology. I can now listen to protected AAC's when I'm booted in linux. Does this type of circumventing enable me to pirate protected AAC's? Nope, not unless I can find a way to authorize files without paying for them. Does it allow me to playback files that I already own on other systems not supported by Quicktime? Yes. Am I a criminal? I doubt it, I think this is what apple is aiming for. Fair Use of your digital media without becoming a pirate. However the tools are here that would enable someone with enough motivation to start redistributing iTMS files in a unprotected form. Quite the catch-22 for someone wanting to distribute digital files across the internet. Once it becomes bits it's tough to keep it in the bottle so to speak.
My 2 cents anyway.
The way you describe it makes it sound as if you are losing at least one freedom you have with CDs--you can take a CD to any CD player and play it. CDs are portable. It sounds like you're saying these files are not portable even for the licensee.
Merely being legal is not enough to justify the public's loss of freedom. Lots of unsavory things are legal. As the FSF reminds us:
Digital Citizen
Woohoo. Well before 1983, IBM's RACF used to XOR passwords blank, after getmaining from protected memory and setting interrupt locks, after setting superman mode, to stop browsing of crown jewels (Other than GTF).Twenty years later, someone reinvents the snag the API temp buffers, aka rejigged disk allocation garbage collection. IBM does something clever to prevent this (hardware protected memory key bits, and attention to non-maskable interrupts).
Personally, I just go down to my used CD store, and put in a $2 bid of the album of my choice, even though 2 push button car radios give me a free solution.
With all the amout of bullshit, its easier to buy the physical CD, or rent it, too bad I dont even have a MAC.
By all means give it to MS to generate a better solution, but if they use privileged program path (MVS and OPENBSD has it), I hope IBM or CA sue their pants off.
Hint: Dumping memory under VM, all bets are off, which may be the reason why MS is buying VM. But with ICE mode in X86, there are issues..
Great. I bet this completely hoses the Thanksgiving vacations of a large number of Apple employees. I wonder how many people in legal, software engineering, QA, and the make-nice-with-the-record-companies departments just had their plans for the week yanked right out from under them.
Not to mention that this really damages a Good Thing.. even the most zealous anti-DRM person has to be able to understand that'll be easier to get the record industry to loosen their frantic grasp one finger at a time than to try to wrest their precious billions away from them and force drastic change. Yeah, bad for the big companies, big deal... but bad for the artists, bad for the Apple employees who worked their butts off to create this, bad for the end users when the record companies start calling it a failed experiment.
I have sympathy for those who have difficulty with Apple's DRM terms. I hit the 3-computer cap myself... 2 machines at work, 1 laptop at home, 1 desktop at home, my girlfriend's tower... However, I have NO sympathy for people who bitch about it like Apple's out to ruin them. That clause about Apple reserving the right to change the terms whenever they want? If a huge petition is delivered to Apple politely clamoring for that limit to be raised to 4 or even 5 computers, who's to say they wouldn't do it, or at least try to convince the record companies? People who complain about it not being international? If they missed it, I suggest they check into the news that Apple is in heavy talks to get iTMS launched for international customers. If they saw that news and ignored it, then they should STFU.
The iTMS isn't Apple out to rip off customers.. Apple has publicly admitted it's not a profit generator. It's there as an innovation, a jedi hand wave to get the record companies to realize there is a better way, to start them willingly down the path to change. I know a lot of people who spent 80+ hour weeks getting the iTMS launched, and their biggest fear was that someone would break the FairPlay system and bring it all crashing down.. while the impact to sales is hard to predict, how can these paranoid record companies who have til yet regarded online music download services as their big enemy (even if they're just a scapegoat for their own mistakes) learn to embrace this new technology that can be good for everyone?
Trying to force revolution upon the record companies will just make them lash out, act irrationally, and fight all that much harder. It's better to get them to decide that what consumers want really is the right path. They have to make that decision.. then they think it's their idea, and they're much happier to go along with it!
My opinion all boils down to one Japanese proverb about three feudal warlords:
What if the bird will not sing?
Nobunaga answers, "Kill it!"
Hideyoshi answers, "Make it want to sing."
Ieyasu answers, "Wait."
Which of these is going to be the most effective? I guess your answer has a lot to do with your personality and the techniques you use to attain your goals.. but in feudal Japan, I think it's fair to say that Nobunaga's power was dramatic but short lived, Ieyasu's was complete but he had to wait quite a long time.. in fact, until everyone else had disappeared... Hideyoshi's story was the most impressive as he rose from a farmer's son employed as a sandal-bearer to absolute ruler of Japan.
(OT: If that story intrigues anyone, check out the book "Taiko" by Eiji Yoshikawa -- he also wrote one about Musashi, the swordsman famous for his strategy and two-katana techniques)
This one...
.doc file, every e-mail, every music file, every movie, every book.
.doc files? Just watch.
Few of the original Dow 30 companies remain in business.
One day, Microsoft and Apple, yes even they, will vanish from the face of the Earth.
And so will all your DRM license keys. Poof. Please buy your music again, thank you for your patronage.
If the script keeps running the way WIPO, the US, and Microsoft want it to, things will get very bleak very soon.
In a few centuries these next few decades will be know as the second dark age. Soon, when the power's that be complete their various evil plots, EVERYING that passes through a computer will be subject to DRM controls. And, of course, EVERYTHING will be managed by computer. Every
No? Well how the heck IS Microsoft going to lock-out Linux if it can't DRM e-mail and your
Then the various license servers will simply go offline and a few decades of humanity will simply vanish. Never happened.
What a glorious future our "representatives" have layed out for humanity. Time to hang a few of 'em for Treason. IMHO.
LOOK, IT IS JUST THIS SIMPLE. "COPYRIGHT" LAW AND THE "NO ELECTRONIC THIEFT" ACTS PROVIDED MORE PROTECTION THAN ANYBODY NEEDS TO PROTECT THEIR COPYRIGHT INTERESTS. ALL COPYRIGHT INTERESTS. SHARE FILES ON THE INTERNET, GO TO JAIL. SHARE FILES ON THE INTERNET, GET HIT WITH VERY, VERY, LARGE FINES.
The Internet IS TRACEABLE. RIAA going after "end-users" is exactly what they should have been doing all along. A healthy dose of that, and people will get the message. Firmly and quickly.
DRM is flat out, treasonous, crime against humanity, evil. It continues the move towards the "you know NOTHING, you own NOTHING, and we CONTROL exectly what you may rent and how you WILL use it." world. They're already "licensing" books and machinery for God's sake. Some college books are already "rented by the year". Hell, in the US a bulk of your own "Law" is firmly under corporate copyrights.
the anti-God movement (the removal of the Ten Commandments from public places)
That just proves the problem. That example is only "anti-God" if you make the error of assuming a particular set of religious beliefs. To view it as a conflict between "religion" and "atheism" is to make the error of assuming that "religion" equates to Christianity+Judism+Islam. Just because the Ten Commandments and "one nation under God" are compatible with those three particular religions does not make it compatible with religion in general. There are countless other religions that do not believe the Ten Commandments come from God.
The first amendment forbids the government from promoting any one religious belief over any other religious belief. That is not "anti-religious", it also happens to forbid the government from promoting the belief that there is no God.
Requiring to goverment to remain SILENT on religious beliefs is only "anti-religous" if you are trying to hijack the government to promote your own personal religious agenda. You will only find yourself in conflict with "the anti-God movement" when you wish to hijack the government for religious ends. Practice and promote your religion as publicly as you like, you just can't use the government to do so.
Congress is constitutionally forbidden from CHANGING the pledge of allegiance to add a religious refference. The addition of "under God" in 1954 was an unconstitutional act, thus null and void. That refference conflicts with a variety of religious beliefs. Obviously it conflicts with the atheist belief that there is no God, but it also conflicts with any polytheisting religion such as Native American religions. It also conflicts with any religion that has a different view of God. If I understand the Buddhist view correctly they see it as completely non-sensical to reffer to "one nation under God" like that.
You cannot rely on it being compatible with "most" religions. You can't simply ignore/dismiss Native Americans and any other religion you find inconvenient.
Would you tolerate it if government run schools imposed a polytheistic-pledge on your children? If not then you're nothing but a hypocrite abusing the government to grant YOUR favorite religious views special prefference.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
i heard a tale of a computer built without circuitry, or at least without the standard silicon/transistor wiring of the time(possibly late 80s/early 90s?)..that was built to take a direct hit with an EMP. given it would be fairly expensive, big, clunky, mechanical, it can be done. and considerring how many people out there know about electronics, know the paths that have to be taken, if people really clamped down on the high end computing scene, how long would it be before a low-end erupted? i want to think that it would be possible for a startup company to in that kind of climate succeed. of course then there's the laws....but hey! they aren't in canada yet, and if this sort of operation were based there, hell even made into a crown, things could be different...
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
is going to push DRM to the point of more or less absolute control. this guy is part of the resistance against that.
the point with this layer of applications is to get people in the world used to DRM. "hey, drm isn't so bad, itunes,windows and musicmatch use it,it protects us from viruses, how can that be bad?"
then they come up with hardware locked drm. then the drm-happy laws start to be created and enforced in an increasing cycle of state-sponsorred terror, fear, and state-level-self-destruction.
if you don't see where they[the *aa] are going with this, you should look harder. the next step may be creating a method of music distrobution that makes most media censorship look like child-play. the listeners-liscences are only the beginning, after all.
at THIS point, the process looks not to be totally lost. after all, if this system can be broken, others can. we have not lost all hope yet.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
if you don't see that the RIAA is going to impose the draconian measure whether someone cracks it or not, then i'm not really sure what to say to you.
and for the record, they stopped showing protest on television news long before i stopped watching television. the revolution will not be televised, after all.
and if it means anything, i can be located at http://thedark.moonside.org / 45 bobolink bay, regina SK.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
is going to be "we have all these people ripping mp3's from cd". not some obscure hack on quicktime easily patched. FEAR OF THE RIAA AND SUBMISSION TO IT IS NOT GOING TO MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE, OK?!
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
No. The Sony vs. Universal case which came up with the space shifting argument didn't say that home taping was fair use. It just said that Sony wasn't to blame if and when it wasn't. The court saw that there were ranges of uses, between taping a soap opera while one was at work, to large libraries of archived shows. They also saw that there were some content producers who didn't mind taping (the producers of sporting events, for example) and some that did.
If Universal wanted to make a politically unpopular and financially disastrous move, they could have started suing individual VCR users in order to better determine where the fair use line is drawn.
Audio Hijack is a utility to reroute the audio stream from ANY program (even screensavers) to a quicktime file with almost no effort. I have been able to do what Jon has done for months and with no more effort than double clicking an selecting iTunes as the program to intercept audio from. I really don't see what the big deal is with this, though. I still buy songs from iTMS and have no need to remove the DRM. I don't find it restrictive.
This 'crack' won't affect Apple's relation with the RIAA, nor the service, nor even the software, in any way. Why? iTunes lets you burn CDs, and CDs can be ripped. This crack only gives people slightly better quality and saves them a CD-RW.
These AAC files are *exactly* the same, no matter who makes them. Technically, you could do the same with audio CDs, but hardly anyone does, who's trading FLAC or uncompressed wav? A tiny minority. The core drawback of P2P networks is that there are so many formats, quality levels, corrupted files, misnamed files, fake files, missing/bad/incomplete id3 tag and junk.
Instead, imagine that there was a list created, of valid AAC checksums. Shouldn't take an organized warez community long to find valid checksums of every track on iTMS. Then, release a P2P client that'll use this list to give you exactly what you get from iTMS, verified downloads. No more checking, sorting, wrong/tampered songs, nothing. Just fire&forget, and when it's done listen&enjoy.
Or hell, even a post-download utility (which would then work on all P2P networks / mirc / ftp / IM / tool of choice). Maybe even so that you can set it to monitor your download directory, and set rules. E.g. move good files one place, unknown files a different place, delete bad files.
I'm not going to go into the moral aspects of it, but technically, there's no doubt that something like this enables developments far beyond what is possible today.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It was really mullet wierd, I hope you are putting that up as a joke.
Price isn't necessarily determined by costs, it's determined by what the market will bear. If the market will only bear 0 price music, then the system has broken down, and the opportunity cost of spending most of your time as an artist will become much steeper. We would dry up the primary pool of capital available that enables artistry as a profession instead of a hobby.
This is not, in my opinion, in the interests of society, it's a tragedy of the (creative) commons.
On the face of it, there needs to be recognition that all intellectual works are services, not products. This recognition could imply free copies as the norm, not the exception. But then we have a problem: the master copy costs $X to make and such costs (plus profit, which is really just a future cost) must be covered to create an economic system.
The current system does this inequitably, but in an arguably much simpler manner than any potential alternatives: universal licensing, subscriptions, or perhaps, a capital-market model where you give the artist money after the fact to keep them making their art (whether software, music, etc.).
I haven't heard of other viable alternatives from this crowd.
-Stu
If you've been reading /.for any length of time, then you know that P2P distribution of music, legally and otherwise, is having a largely positive impact on music sales as a whole. Because the music you actually WANT to listen to is so much more accessible, you spend more time listening to music, and your demand for quality music increases, causing you at some point to start opening your wallet more and start buying more music.
The whole issue with the RIAA, though, is control.The scenario I described above is a fairly complex marketing strategy that involves giving away a lot of music in order to increase sales overall. The RIAA is VERY uncomfortable with that. They are used to getting a few sheckles out of every music transaction, and don't want to adapt their business model.
Have to say, though, that the RIAA created this market--with the very radio stations that play their music. They have created the expectation in our minds that music ought to be free for the casual listener, even though there really was a transaction involved (the radio stations paid the licensing fees). The public is simply behaving as they have been trained to do, though times and technology have changed. They are still listening to music for free for casual use (via downloads now), and investing in the artists they really care about.
However, the RIAA will most definitely freak out, as the public drags them kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
I've got a program that will take an AAC file and convert it to and mp3 file. And I was doing this 1 year ago. Do you think I'll just settle for AAC... no way! I wanted the file to play back on all my mpeg players... not just my IPOD. I own a neo-35,
an old RIO PMP-300 (got me started into this) and my Linux
boxes running xmms.
What record companies need to realize is they can make money by selling the *image* not the song itself. After all, this is more or less what happens already. Just give the CD some extra fancy packaging and market owning it as a status symbol and you can continue to bilk the masses of of their money for years to come!
Owning something like the iPod or similar, that has status. As do a fancy stereo set, and of course your taste in music. But the physical disks? Not more than as a means to an end for presenting your taste in music I think. Which of course means that you do need some CDs of your favorite artists, but a wall full of them tells nothing - which of these do you actually like?
It used to be a status symbol, yes. But the fact that it is available on P2P changes its value as status symbol all the same. Because for the most part, I think people think "Well doh, I could get all that music for free. If I had that much money, I could think of a zillion better things to spend them on!"
As for bottled water, that depends on where you live. Even though it might not be unhealthy to drink it, some places the tap water is definately less delicate than a bottle of crystal-clear water, either in color, aroma or taste. Besides, it's a very "visible" luxury. Unlike the discs which simply sit there, in particular if you have a fancy system with CD changer/jukebox/hdd based or something like that. If I was looking for status, I'd have a reasonable display of favorite music, then fill the rest of the wall with whatever art is popular this week or some such thing.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Apple's DRM is fair and people who buy songs from iTunes already have the opportunity of using something like KaZaA but have chosen not to.
I'd love to see some data on whether that is actually true, or if they downloaded a shitload off KaZaA and bought the songs and CDs they liked the best, in order to support those artists.
Now many consider some variation of that to be fair, but it's still reversing the normal process of doing business though. You can't go into a store and take something, then pay "as much as it is worth to me" sooner or later. And it's not the buyers choice to make it so.
I'm not saying all iTMS users are like that, but I suspect that for quite a few, that's their own personal justification as "giving back" nullifying any guilt they feel over downloading a shitload for free. Everybody has their own code of ethics to answer to, regardless of external forces (like the law).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Mod parent down: Troll.
I'm pretty sure it's actually called the 'homosexual liason *division*'.
ALL DRM is bad.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
But if you can burn it to a cd, why don't you just copy it off the cd afterwards?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'd like to take a moment to explain what this "analog degradation" really is.
:D
When an analog signal is converted to a digital signal (adc), multiple snapshots of the sound are taken. The frequency of which this occurs is called the "sample rate". Normal Audio CDs are sampled at 44.1 thousand times per seccond (44.1khz).
Now, consider this. In order to record any given frequency, at least two samples must be made of the waveform. This is easy to visualize. Picture a perfect sine wave. In order to read the period between two crests (tops of the waveform), you must have two crests. Not just one.
So, therefore, the high frequency responce of an audio cd sampled at 44.1khz is 22.05khz. Its around 19k to 22k where human hearing tends to drop off, but the effects of these higher frequencies (such as the harmonic content they generate) can still be noticed (this is why studios are moving to 192khz).
So how does all this relate to signal degradation? Well, when sound is converted to digital, the first thing that has to happen, is the high frequency audio must be removed, so that the adc (analog to digital converter) can handle the sound, and not be overloaded with HF audio. This process is handled with a Low-Pass analog filter. (it allows the low frequencies to pass, and attenuates the high frequencies).
Of course, this removal of the high frequencies is not some simple:
if %freq > 22050 then (do not convert)
Rather, it is a complex logarythmic slope, slowly attenuating from around 16khz, and ending with total attenuation at 22.05khz.
The problem is, when you convert an analog signal to a digital format, and then convert it back to analog (ie, playing a cd), then you take this playback and record it digitally again, you've doubled the slope of the low pass filter.
Presto, high frequency loss.
Other forms of degradation include loss of dynamic range, noise, and the comb-filter effects of two converters running over the same material (and generating osscilations).
--an audio engineer seeking a job
Plus, why would one buy music from Apple, only to give it away to total strangers for nothing. I wouldn't. They way I see it, I paid for it, and if you want it, go buy your own.
Of course you didn't buy it. You paid money to be allowed to listen to it under certain circumstances.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
And anyway, the issue regarding Sony's liability ultimately required there to be substantial noninfringing uses.
To quote the Court:
The court gets into more detail in part IV B of the opinion, but nothing really quoteworthy jumped out at me.
Authorized time shifting was also considered, however, in IV A. But the opinion doesn't wholly rest on that.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
It's obvious that if you look around, you find many examples of artificially high prices for goods or services that are maintained through social contracts. My favourite example is religion.
Now, most religions present the idea of a supreme being, usually some variety of Sky God, to which people can owe allegience in return for unspecified favours and considerations. Most hold that a personal relationship with this Sky God is possible. Yet most religions features a stratified hierarchy, with membership dues and fees tacked on.
In fact, many institutional religions have codified the financial obligations of their believers into law or custom and many people are extremely willing to keep paying money for something that, logically, they could obtain for free.
Throughout history, faced with falling membership and diminishing fees, many established or state religions have been forced to move from comfortable, unspoken legitimacy to bold, in your face regulations and legal manoeuvring to force people to pay their dues, on pain of legal sanction, torture, or death.
Religion is one social practice that is both created and consumed, and whose entry fees are maintained above zero through sanction, custom, and "tradition". Music is another.
Despite several centuries of especial religious market development, and the development of many hundreds and thousands of individualistic cults and "new age" spiritual movements, most developed nations are still characterized by large populations that willingly pay above-zero fees to organizations in order to reach some accommodation with the Sky God. It's not inconceivable that the music business will also evolve in this fashion, with large factions breaking off into zero-price consumption cultures, but also large factions remaining engaged in above-zero-price consumption practices, constrained by legal and moral sanction.
Da Blog
I'd hardly call the iPod an idiot player. It's better than anything else on the market...
How is it "better"? Apple people often trot out this reflexive phrase but I rarely see much to back it up.
Da Blog
Keep in mind that the specifics of FairPlay (Apple's DRM scheme) are actually integrated into QuickTime, not iTunes. You can play a protected AAC file on any Mac, in any QuickTime-enabled audio playing application. Which means any practically any audio-playing Mac app. Most Mac apps just call QuickTime to handle the decoding as it is the Rosetta stone of formats anyways.
So this protection is not really noticeable. I know any DRM is a pain in the ass, but if you used this scheme (have you?), you really gotta stick your neck out and do some gymnastics with the file before you'd notice anything was different at all.
In the end the scheme has two goals, one major and one minor. The major goal is to prevent iTunes AACs from spreading all over Kazaa and rendering Apple's store moot. So you have the '3 concurrent machines' limitation. The minor one is to prevent you from mass-producing physical CDs of one album, like you would for real (saleable) piracy. So there's a limit of 10 burns per playlist; after which you must change the playlist order, even if its only one song. Then you get another 10.
And of course you can copy the files to your heart's content, and burn them to CD.
DRM is bad, no doubts there. But this is like DRM Lite, or Diet DRM. A low fence at best, and they want it that way. Similar to transferring songs from the iPod to a Mac.. they're just in an invisible folder.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
i've seen that computer, actually, although i didn't realize it was in any way un-natural for a computer of the time... and i didn't see the lake(wtf) either. is the lake still there???
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
iTunes can rip and convert to unrestricted AAC files (.M4A), which are playable anywhere. There are many available on P2P networks; I prefer them because they have higher quality than MP3 for a given bitrate.
iTunes can also play .M4P files, which are AAC in a protected wrapper. It's these which have DRM, and which you buy from the iTunes Music Store. This is the protection we're talking about cracking. (The P2P networks also have the occasional file in this format, which is a bit pointless.)
AAC is a good format, with better quality than MP3 and no worse licensing issues, and it's a shame that its been linked so strongly with DRM in people's minds. (Widespread Ogg Vorbis support would be even better, of course...)
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I find it to be a really odd coincidence that even though FairPlay has been out on the Mac for about seven months, a crack was never released for the Mac. Yet when FairPlay was brought over to the Windows side, the crack came fairly quickly. Hmmm... what to deduce here...
If senility was a race, I would win.
I'm posting this AC for obvious reasons:
Two apps are needed:
Soundconverter and Quicktime Pro
1) Use Sounconverter to change the m4p to aac.
2) Use Quicktime Pro to change the aac to aif.
3) Use Soundconverter to change to mp3.
I'm probably going to pay for this somehow...
*sigh* Stupid corporate laywers...
I'm a demanding media consumer. I like a handheld that does recording, digital output, video/audio, and FM. The iPod just lacks to omany high-end features for me to consider as "best in class".
Da Blog
So that means... if one's media is clearly labelled as being for 'research and criticism' purposes, and made available as such, then the RIAA/MPAA can't touch it? OK they can't anyway, 'cos I'm in Europe, but, you get what I mean. Neat.
any DRM just goes to inconvenience regular users, and doesn't stop piraters at all
Do you lock the door of your house when you leave? Or when you go to sleep at night? A funny thing about locks is that they're really not all that secure. Most can be picked without too much trouble, or broken. And given even the most advanced lock, any idiot with a Sawzall, a glass cutter, or a rock can still get into most any house.
So, why do most of us continue to lock our doors?
It's because a lock makes it inconvenient for someone to cross the threshold without your permission. A lock is a physical manifestation of the notion that "the stuff inside is my stuff, and you shouldn't enter unless I invite you in." A lock creates a barrier that's as much psychological as it is physical, and because most of us respect that barrier we feel relatively safe in our own homes.
DRM may indeed inconvenience regular users. But the fact is that regular users were for quite a long time swapping music files on the Internet with zero remorse simply because they had no idea that it was wrong, or because it was so cheap and easy to do that they found some rationalization for it. These would be the "convenience pirates" in your terms. DRM is _meant_ to inconvenience these people just a bit, to make sharing copyrighted stuff difficult enough that you really have to think about what you're doing. When it's cheaper and easier for the average Joe to go out and buy a CD for $15 or download an album for $10 than it is to download it for $0, then DRM has succeeded.
Yeah, sure, there are differences between the lock on your door and DRM. For one thing, you put the lock on your door, whereas the RIAA and the computer industry came up with DRM. DRM on "your" music seems as objectionable as having to get permission from, say, Wal-Mart to enter your own home, at least to some people. So I ask you: when was the last time you opened up your electric or gas meter? All it takes is a wire cutter...
So you turned your AACs into MP3s but bitch about the iPod because it won't play OggVorbis like your Neuros does? Do you even use OggVorbis, apparently not, you just want to be l33t and have a player that says it does. Real cute.
In any case, this is the first public attempt at breaking Apple's Digital Rights Management format.
Unless, of course, you count burning the track to CD and then ripping it to whatever format you like. Which, by the by, is much easier than using this so-called "crack" and is perfectly legal under Apple's EULA.
--
Adding a label to something doesn't mean that you're not infringing. You can't burn 10,000 copies of a DVD, print "For research purposes only" on them, and then sell them. The courts won't care that you thought you found a loophole.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
It's no wonder the RIAA is filing suits left and right. I really would be fine with them suing every single person who has a song available on P2P networks. I never really thought much about it, until I read most of this thread. In almost every single attack on itunes (which is what it became about a third of the way into it), posters compared iTunes to Kazaa or other P2P networks.
They kept saying things like "This is less functionality then files I can get freely over Kazaa."
Guess what? Those files aren't free! they are illegal. You may think they should be legal, but no court, no REASONABLE person, no government is going to tell you that you can download copyrighted material for free with no restrictions whatsoever.
Wake up. Stop whining that iTunes DRM sucks because you can get the same thing for free without DRM. Just keep downloading your mp3s and wait for a letter from the RIAA.
Ryan Stultz
You've brought up several point and several different players, confirming my point that not one player matches the iPod as a whole.
Each product has positives and negatives.There are many more fine and sub-par points associated with each product offering. We could mention Creative's excellent EQs and DACs, Karma's cool crossfading and pitchshifting, Archos' low price points and expandability, the Lyra's video and recording, the DellDJ's battery life and low cost. Und so weiter.
What I take away from this is an iPod is very similar to other handhelds, being a mix of some very well implemented aspects, and some very poor in relation to others. I don't think it's as simple as a "single" point. I also don't think you can say "best" for any of them. They are all obviously very early generation products.
The first HD-based player, the Archos, was quite poor with questionable quality control. Benefitting from a higher price point and several years of development, Apple's implementation of the PP520x design was quite well done, and they obviously paid for a higher QC. Current generation players have added more features with lower price points than Apple's. But until I can get a handheld media player that does video, recording, bluetooth, 15 hour battery, and 3G streaming, I will consider them all lacking.
Da Blog
I'm fairly certain that Where have all the flowers gone? was written by Pete Seeger.
I didn't say it meant that in that way...this 'insightful' post stinks of troll but anyway... That would clearly not be fair use...obviously selling the copies is radically different from possessing or making them available for similar fair use. I can't see why a p2p service for - say - music journalists would not amount to fair use under this definition. The works would be being circulated for critical evaluation. How this could be interpreted I'm not sure - IANAL. For example, having a 'top ten' on your homepage would imply that you had conducted a critical (if subjective aesthetic) analysis of a number of works, and that your posession of copyright works used in the compilation of such a list might reasonably be regarded as fair use for critical purposes. This also blows a big hole in the proposed criminalisation of the publishing of 'pre-release' material: such material would have clear, legitimate use for critics and others reporting on the industry. Personally I work in a related field and consider my use of such material to be fair insofar as I regard the use to fall under the category of 'research' - I'm not earning money from the works through resale, but conducting my own business, in which they constitute useful information - of which the acquisition constitues research. And I'd be happy to provide my own content to those artists or others in my field for similar purposes.
Personally, I use P2P as a way of trying out something before I buy it. I download a song, and listen to it. If I get the sense that I might like the rest of the CD, I might download some more. I might buy the CD.
I usually try to stay away from DRM simply because once I pay for it, it's mine. I cannot sell my DRM'ed AAC files once I pay for them. Plus, if I get a hard drive crash (like I did over a week ago) then it's all gone.
Here's a perfect example: I like Rage Against The Machine. I hear of Audioslave. I get a copy burned from a friend, but want to access the online content. So I buy the CD myself. I'm curious about Soundgarden (never heard them before), but don't want to invest in a CD that might be all crap. So I get "Superunknown" burned from a friend, and like it. I have since bought several more Soundgarden CD's, as well as Temple Of the Dog. I am also a bit interested in Pearl Jam.
The RIAA needs to realize that since I had this freedom, they made a lot of extra money from me that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
As far as software is concerned, I don't believe something like Office should cost so much. So many people use MS Office that it gets ridiculous if you want to be able to make a slide show and type up a paper. And don't get me started on Adobe's prices.
I go legal when I can, and when it counts. I paid for Synergy and DragThing because not only did I feel they were worth what the developers were asking, but I know that almost all of the money will go towards further deveopment of quality products.
This is a non-issue. What happens if you lose the a CD? It's the same thing, it's all gone unless you've made backups. So make backups... You're allowed and encouraged to backup your iTMS music.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
Rip it to a CD, reimport it in whatever format you like. This is not new, nor is it hard.
Before you did that, they should probably take a look at the four factors that cpt kangarooski took me to task for omitting.
Fair Use: Overview and Meaning for Higher Education has an interesting analysis of court cases where fair use was argued, and whether it prevailed or not.
One particular example that might be similar to your case is American Geophysical Union v. Texaco Inc., where a Texeco scientist was photocopying articles from Journals we subscribed to. Since the research was done to to strengthen Texaco's balance sheet, the purpose wasn't absolutely non-profit. Since an entire article was photocopied, it fell against the substantiality factor. The end result is that the court didn't consider it fair use.
OH MY! I just opened a MS Word document and saved it as a plain text file!!! Does that mean I have cracked the .doc format!?
MPEG-4, Layer 1 has a DRM function included. Unprotected files carry the .m4a label, protected files carry the .m4p label. This is standardized and publicized. Apple is selling .m4p files that look for for a confirmation of authorization based on the machine's serial(?) number and the database on Apple's server. The iPod, since it can only sync to one machine at a time, doesn't have to worry - if the file is authorized for the computer, it must be authorized for the iPod.
Theoretically, another manufacturer could build capability into their player for .m4p files.
However, they would need to work with iTunes, since only iTunes can access the iTMS to confirm the rights on a file. It's doubtful Apple would allow this, since, as they've stated, they make no money on the store - just on iPod sales.
But, nonetheless, this isn't proprietary DRM. It's just a proprietary database of authorized machines. The technology is open, though.
-T
The REAL fix is for the news media to pick up on the real story and for the public to reject the system. There was an uproar that killed the Pentium3 CPU serial numbers, this is far nastier. The problem is that they are going to spend a fortune on disinformation and propaganda campaign claiming that it is a good thing.
Ultimately these DRM things are just going to piss consumers off. Remember all the limitations built into Divx, the competitor to DVD. It died because it was complicated and annoying and consumers didn't want to put up with it.
Basically to the consumer, something that is hindered by DRM cannot have the appearance of being hindered. For example, with Itunes, I can play it on my computer, I can play it on my ipod and I can burn it to CD. But if I try to play it on something other than an IPod or a PC, I hit the DRM wall, and it loses it's appeal. I thought Itunes was wonderful until I tried to figure out how to get the files to play on Linux and realized it was impossible. I've not bought a thing from there since.
The funny thing is that if there was a way to unencrypt the Itunes files, I'd buy a lot more music through Itunes. Until I can play that music anywhere I want to, I'd rather buy the CD and rip it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
If you select this, it just means that _this_ comptuer will no longer play your files. Until _re_authorized.
New hard drives, OSes/whatnot... I deauthorize first, upgrade, then reauthorize. Just in case.
My backups don't need to be authorized - they're just static storage. But essentially what the 'lock' on the music is is your name ( or iTunes ID, whatever). When you authorize a computer, it calls Apple to see how many computers you have authorized. Support is also rumored to be helpful about deauthorizing defunct computers and other things like that.
-> Don't worry, be happy.
If you're rooting for the crack of what's arguably the coolest legal music download system on earth, you're obviously not a musician, or have any respect for art whatsoever. Without any kind of relative perspective on what it means to create a piece of art, you're caving into consumerism in it's most idiotic form. You have no clue how hard it is to eke out a song, have the courage to release it to the world, then promote yourself tirelessly just to make ends meet. At some point, you have to stop looking at a mountain as a thing to blow up and just accept it as a beautiful part of our landscape.
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
So I'm brand new to iTunes, but here's what I tried: :-) ), then made a copy of the song file from the Finder. That is, I just copied the "song".m4p file to another directory. Then I opened the copy of the file w/ SoundStudio (supplied w/ my iMac) and did an Export to AIFF format. /. community? :-)
downloaded a song (paid the full 99 cents for it
At this point of course I can import the AIFF into iTunes and have a nice clean "song".m4a file. I'll grant I haven't tried to get a super high-quality music file and compare the sound quality of the final file to the original.
So can someone help me out here? Have I
a) given up a lot of sound quality?
b) broken the DRM?
c) revealed my naivety to the entire
Thanks for your help.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Even if DVD Jon had used QTFairUse on songs he'd purchased, he'd still be in violation of the U.S.'s DMCA. Ponder this too _ Jon's original DeCSS could have easily been incorporated into one more layer of programming that would have hidden his un-CSS tactic, thereby creating a true Linux-based DVD software player. Jon elected to publish the underlying code, which proves he was only out to exploit the ability to make perfect serial copies of DVDs., not simply view them on his Linux box. And he wanted others to do the same. Moreover, his iTunes hack is for Windows. I thought Jon was a Linux guy. Like I said, I think his stuff is cool, but he should be a little more honest and say "I'm doing this because I can and because I feel like it!" His methods simply make him a talented liar.