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BusinessWeek on Opening Apple's iTunes DRM
hype7 writes "BusinessWeek is running a very interesting story on Apple's foray into music, with a different bent to everyone else's. BW suggests that, instead of opening the iPod up to the world, Apple should instead license its DRM - 'Fairplay' - to anyone who wants to start up a music store. The upside is obvious: it would mean that Apple's music format, AAC, would become ubiquitous; Apple could quite feasibly make money on licensing fees (say 1 cent per song sold); and, it would just happen to stick it to Microsoft and the Windows Media Format. As the iTunes Music Store isn't running at a profit (or forecast to make a big one), having the Music Store clones eat into Apple's existing market share wouldn't be a problem; all these stores would be doing is building a bigger potential market for the iPod."
For the nth time, AAC is not "Apple's DRM technology." It is part of the MPEG-4 specifications. More info here.. To quote:
AAC was developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony, and Nokia--companies that have also been involved in the development of audio codecs such as MP3 and AC3 (also known as Dolby Digital). The AAC codec in QuickTime 6 builds upon new, state-of-the art signal processing technology from Dolby Laboratories and brings true variable bit rate (VBR) audio encoding to QuickTime.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
On the other hand, Microsoft's WMA is proprietary no matter how you slice it.
It doesnt say that AAC is Apples DRM.. it says that Apples DRM is called 'Fairplay' and licensing that to others would increase usage of the AAC FORMAT.
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
That's not Apple's decision to make, since they aren't the owners of AAC. And they're apparently smart enough at least to know that, unlike, say, you.
You're a little defensive about your manliness there buddy, I don't have to choose a certain electronics device to reassure myself that people will think I'm straight.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Having clones to Apple hardware is one thing and I can understand Steve killing that idea but this is so totally different. Steve readily admits that iTMS is not a breadwinner. But Steve is a just a bit too protective still to license FairPlay.
...but they already did license the hardware for the iPod to HP. Seems like it would be a lot easier to license out the DRM tech than the precious iPod.
Maybe partying will help...
An online store that wants to sell to iPod users merely has to provide the music in MP3 or unprotected AAC, since the iPod will accept both of those as well as Fairplay-protected AAC. You'd probably have to provide your own client to buy the music, and then use the scripting interface for iTunes to load it onto the iPod.
AAC is not "open source" You still have to pay to license it.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Just so you all know, Winamp, being the awesomely versatile player it is, CAN play AAC songs with Fairplay DRM attached, with this convenient plug-in. Of course, there are many limitations still, but that's proprietary DRM for you.
You can chart and discuss the plug-in's progress here. The older, "officially released" version of the plug-in with brief descriptions and reviews is here.
BTW, Winamp 5.03 is already out, in case you weren't informed.
If you send an email to iTunes Support, and ask them nicely, they will de-authorize all the computers on your account automatically. Just tell them you no longer have the computers you authorized and cannot de-authorize them the normal way.
Worked for me.
But Steve is a just a bit too protective still to license FairPlay.
There is precedent for Apple successfully licensing something of this nature: Firewire.
umm.. under a patent is not the same thing as proprietary under copyright.
a patent purchase allows you to see the underlying parts, and even allows you to mess with the stuff (though it this case it really is not an issue)
a copyright purchase only gives you the ability to USE the technology with out seeing the parts.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
All hail FatWallet:
Here are some legal (in Russia!) MP3 download sites - most flat fee:
allofmp3.com
This site is locally legit and songs can be downloaded for as little as $0.01 per MB. That's around 3 cents per song.
DELit
Unusual emphasis on hard rock and metal acts (east European and Russian youth apparently worship metal acts)
3MP3.ru
$4.55 per month for unlimited downloads.
And you are not stuck with the typical iTMS low-quality 128Kbit file. Most of the Russian sites let you choose your quality and give you the option to do "online encoding" where you can select the settings you want. When the pop up screen shows up you can hit switch to advanced mode toward the bottm and you get the following options:
You can choose between the LAME or BLADE codec and 128, 160, 192, 256, and 320 kbps for each (constant bitrate). Or you can choose LAME variable bitrate at 128, 160, 192, or 256.
If you enjoy these services, 3MP3 should be your first stop to see if you can find what you are looking for at the lowest price. Then I'd move to allofmp3, followed by clubmp3.ru, and then DELit.
Cue the "In SOVIET RUSSIA" trolls now...
Da Blog
Otherwise he never would have said this:
I like microcars
Um, no. AAC is a lossy format. If you burn it to CD, then rip it and re-AAC it, you get something not quite as good as the original.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Nope. How about you let me handle this:
Note1: as you can see, Alex Salkelver at Business Week clearly didn't do his homework before writing that article.
Note2: the folks at Veridisc are astonishingly incompetent at e-business: they own neither veridisc.com (unrenewed, squatted, not work-safe) nor fairplay.com (unowned, parked)
All the rest of the comment aside, since I don't feel like getting into an OS jihad -- every OS has its strong and weak points, and will have people who argue against it solely on emotional reasons -- you nonetheless make a mistake which has been made very often lately.
:)
/not/ propriety. It stands for 'Advanced Audio Coding,' and is part of the MPEG-4 specification. It is an open standard, with an ISO document and everything; it's basically the successor to MP3, from the MPEG working group. AAC is no more 'associated with Quicktime' simply because Quicktime can play it than MP3 is 'associated with Nullsoft' simply because WinAmp plays MP3. (For that matter, Quicktime plays MP3s, and WinAmp can play AAC.)
/not/ an open standard, but it /is/ licensed from somewhere else, part of a suite called Fairplay and Veridisc, which about 5 minutes of poking around on the web informed me could be licensed from Circle Group Internet, Veridisc's parent company. It looks like Fairplay is designed to wrap /any/ digital audio -- be it AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, whatever -- and as if anyone who wants can license it.
You ask 'where are open standards when you need them?' The answer is, right where you're pointing.
AAC is
Now, admittedly, the DRM which Apple uses is
The reason some folks (including me) happen to like Apple is that they've been very supportive of open standards. Their nifty 'Rendezvous' discovery protocol is simply an implementation of the open 'zeroconf' protocol. Their iChat video and audio chat are based all on completely open standards which anyone can implement if they wish (though it does use AIM for the initial negotiation, alas). Etc.
--Rachel
I just wanted to add that Apple did more than implement ZeroConf in Rendevous. They played a major part in developing Zeroconf.
I've also written to the CEO of Veridisc, Gregory Halpern, with some questions about Fairplay. I'll post to slashdot if I get a reply.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.