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New Tool Cracks Apple's FairPlay DRM
goombah99 writes "PlayFair is an integrated utility that removes the DRM from AAC music files protected by Apple's FairPlay encryption. Information is limited, but the source code is on SourceForge.net and it appears to actually remove the encryption itself and not simply hijack the QuickTime audio stream as earlier methods did. The cracking operation can only be done on songs the user has already has valid licenses for and requires either an iPod or a windows computer for key recovery. If you choose to redistribute these songs you will be violating the contract you bought them under: better hope they aren't watermarked or you might end up paying for releasing one in the wild. To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard."
1) My computer, my data, my choice. DRM snake oil providers can deal with it. The future won't tolerate the crap these copywrite perverters are trying to enforce, may as well wake up now before it's too late.
2) Downloading music does not affect sales. DRM is only there to appease the record industry, still scared shitless that artists can have direct contact with their fans who still provide them with income. This cuts them out as the middleman. Like the landlord of times before us, they will be replaced or burnt to the ground. Again, deal with it.
3) The previous two paragraphs are both 'revolutionary' premises. Vandals these coders are not.
Wouldn't it be wonderfull once the WMA standard becomes available everywhere? All online music stores will use it because it will be so secure. On-demand video companies will spring up from this new found industry standard. Portable players and home stereo systems will all support it. Every media file on your computer will fall under one standard.
And then a code monky from Argentina will be codeing at 3am and have a Mountain Dew inspired breakthrough, and WMA will be broken wide open forever.
Software companies continue to forget the days of dongles, code wheeles, and manual page/paragraph/word lookups. All it will do is annoy real consumers.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
That's not much of a crack now, is it?
The problem with incredibly clever people is inevitably they come up with something you don't want. Who's to say they weren't WMA or even (shudder) RIAA proponents, bent on showing the public can't be trusted and DMCA is the right approach?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
but it's not as if WMA can't also be cracked.
ALL technological barriers can be subverted. It just takes the proper motivation, be it economic, political or otherwise.
I'll stick with purchasing tracks on iTMS. I love my iPod, iTunes and the quality and economical service Apple provides.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
This thing proves brags that the "information wants to be free" concept will doom absolutely any music protection scheme, because somebody's bound to figure out how the thing works. They're right, and FairPlay has just bit the dust as a secure format.
Of course, you have to credit Apple for trying to build what they have, and maybe they'll be able to weather this storm because afterall, DVDs are still standing despite the existance of DeCSS. Maybe this will blow over and iTMS can stay in business... but this certainly isn't going to help.
I already have a removal tool for WMA. Just waiting for it to become a standard. ;)
The fairplay system allowed for FAIRPLAY, it is seen as the best DRM scheme online and yet somebody has to crack it? What for other than to get bragging rights and make AAC look inferior to WMA with its security protocols?
Jonathanjk.com
Why is SourceForge allowing this kind of project on their site? This is purely a copyright-protection defeating program, and what's more, it's defeating one of the most liberal copyright-protection schemes in existance.
I'd hope SourceForge will be smart enough to delete this program rather than risk losing the site over it...
Micrsoft DRM *won't* be cracked?
If *anything* is crack fodder after this...
But seriously, the first thing to crack is what people actually use. So, good job crackers.
Anyway, how is unlocking something you've paid for being a vandal?
To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard.
If DRM is offensive to you, than FairPlay is no better than WMA.
If you don't particularly mind DRM, then what's your complaint about WMA? I think it is the iTunes contract you like, and not FairPlay itself.
Anyone who didn't see this coming.. i don't know what you were thinking.
Apple chose the "cheap bike lock" model. Instead of trying to absolutely lock down their digital music distribution, they put an [i]impairment[/i] to fully free use of the music, but one which they knew would eventually be broken. This is a rational thing; if you KNOW that someone, if they REALLY wanted to, would be able to break your encryption, what's the point of trying to make the encryption really strong?
The trick is, you wait for the inevitable crack program, then attempt to prevent people from distributing it.
Of course the interesting thing is, now Apple's going to go after the people who made this tool, and hundreds of Slashdotters will most likely deride it as an unconsiable use of the DMCA, then announce they are boycotting Apple and dumping the iTMS for, say, Napter2... which uses WMA, whose DRM is even worse...
I agree that redistributing the results would be both unethical and illegal. But last I hear prior restraint was still frowned on by the courts.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
It's a good thing.
Contrary to the knee-jerk reaction (and incidentally, also contrary to the blurb), I think that this tool is a blessing. Since it only works on songs that you have a valid license for (ie stuff you bought), it removes the burn-to-cd step from the "buy from ITMS, burn to CD, re-rip to MP3" process for those of us who don't have an iPod. I've bought quite a bit of music from the store, and I relish the opportunity to use it on my Lyra. This, I think, was the developers' intention with this tool-- not infringement. This is the only use I will have for this tool. Others may use it improperly or illegally, but that does not mean I should be denied access to the tool.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Why can't I do whatever I choose with the music I pay for?
Because when you pay for it, you agree to a set of restrictions on what you can do with it. Don't like those restrictions? Buy it somewhere else.
You probably shouldn't click this.
Apple bought VeriDisc. They didn't license FairPlay; they own it.
Having this available is like a selling point for ITMS. I've been rather resistant about buying songs there because they place restrictions about what I can do with my own data on my own machine. (and no, I'm not talking about selling them).
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The cracking operation can only be done on songs the user has already has valid licenses for and requires either an iPod or a windows computer for key recovery.
Is this article a cleverly disguised troll?
If anything the creator(s) of PlayFair are doing the responsible thing, and not allowing the user to perform a so-called cracking operation on a song they haven't licensed/paid for.
I don't think Apple has anything at all to fear from people distributing their AACs and cutting into the iTMS profits. If people wanted to hunt down and download music files for free they would be doing that in the first place, instead of going to the iTMS; people use the iTMS out of concience or convenience already.
No, I think what Apple has to fear is that now that fairplay's been cracked, the RIAA will freak out, go "YOU TOLD US TEHY WOULDNT BE ABLE TO COPY TEH FILES", and pull apple's music licenses.
I can now go iTunes using my Windows XP box that doesn't even have speakers, buy music tracks, run them through this DRM remover, and then play them back on my Linux machines at home and at work?
If this actually turns out to be the case, I'll be sending Apple (iTunes) about $20-50/month for the forseeable future.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard
By the intro blurb, I could not tell who said this.. no matter.
Programming a utility which circumvents Apple's DRM in Fairplay - or whatever it actually accomplishes - does well to show the weakness of that implementation, and is therefore valuable in two ways --
by proving false that any "security" is provided, and
this will get Apple to improve its implementation, and demonstrate if it really cares enough to do so.
Unfortunately, I won't hold my breath waiting for Apple to invoke the DMCA here against any "criminals" who use it; that's bound to happen soon enough.
If Apple doesn't want WMA to become the standard, let Apple get its act together with a demonstrably good implementation of the DRM idea, one which can't be cracked.
These programmers are no more vandals than Dmitri Skylarov, and Apple should realize that they're doing them a favor - for FREE.
The difference is Microsoft really does want to control what you see and hear and how you see and hear it. Apple released a DRM scheme that was trying to be as fair to both parties as legally possible. The RIAA (and their controlled labels) would have never cooperated with their ITMS if they had offered completely 'open' songs.
Now that someone has broken their 'fair' DRM it is another example the RIAA will use to try and further tighten their control over any kind of music distribution. If MS claims that their WMA offers the most superior protection against sharing then which do you think RIAA wll mandate?
From Merriam-Webster:
One entry found for vandal.
Main Entry: vandal
Pronunciation: 'van-d&l
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin Vandalii (plural), of Germanic origin
2 : one who willfully or ignorantly destroys, damages, or defaces property belonging to another or to the public
Since I bought the music, it does not belong to the public. If I choose to remove the DRM that keeps me from doing what I want with my private property, that's not vandalism. Worst case: I just voided my song's warranty
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
I don't understand. I'm as pro peer-to-peer sharing as the next slashdot reader. Since I discovered the joys of kazaa (and Poisoned since switching to my Mac) I've discovered music that i never would have heard otherwise, and this has led me to spend far more in CDs than I would have/can afford. But I also see that iTunes music store is great, it means that those who actually want to pay for music aren't restricted to doing so by buying CDs, when I pay for music I do so because I want the artist to earn from their work. If you wanted to there isn't a single song on iTunes you couldn't get over a p2p network. All this will do is turn the record companies against the iTMS and damage a great service. And seriously, it's not like the FairPlay liscence is all that restrictive, making ten copies of a downloaded album? I think that's fair!
The cracking operation can only be done on songs the user has already has valid licenses for and requires either an iPod or a windows computer for key recovery.
Let's emphasize this part. You still have to go through the trouble of downloading it, compiling it, and using it on your own songs. I don't see many people doing this just to share them over a P2P network.
There would be a problem if this was something that could decrypt other's songs. If you do a search there are people sharing m4p files on filesharing networks (mainly because they just share their music library) and so the ability to then download those files and decrypt them would be more serious. As it stands with this program, I have to go through that for my own files, which I wouldn't go through the trouble of doing unless FairPlay got in my way, which it doesn't.
Even then, however, I suspect it would not be a major concern. Apple expected this kind of thing and has a philosophy that most people will pay for their service regardless of if they can get it free elsewhere--simply because they will pay for quality and service.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
This program wasn't released. It escaped into the wild and was quickly recaptured.
Try following the download link... SourceForge has apparently decided to pull the program. All you'll get is a 404 Error from whatever mirror you select.
This program is going to be quite the hot patato. It's DeCSS all over again... No USA web provider is going to be willing to host it for very long since it's going to be clearly on the wrong side of the DMCA.
Well, what are we waiting for? Let's diff two cracked AAC's of the same iTune bought by different people to see if there's any encoding!
But is that a bad thing?
What if sales of music in this format increase, because people are more likely to buy songs they can use as they please instead of buying songs that have annoying DRM restrictions on them?
The bad assumption here is that by removing DRM, people won't want to buy a product, because they'll just copy it instead of paying for it. The problem with that assumption is it ignores the fact that copying itself has a cost, even if it's not a financial one: You both have to have a copy of what you want to make a copy of, and you then have to actually distribute that copy to whoever actually wants it.
Or you could just go to a central store of digital copies, pay your paltry 99 cents, and get your own copy. For most people, 99 cents is worth the convenience of having whatever they want on demand.
Before you start thinking this won't work, look at DVD sales nowadays. VHS tapes were priced to cost many, many times more than the price of a rental. Rentals were attractive. DVD's are priced at about $20-$30 each. Result? Even though people could fairly easy copy DVDs if they REALLY wanted to, it's just "easier" to walk into Best Buy and plop down the $20 - so much so that many many more people buy DVD's than used to buy VHS tapes.
For most people, trying to find and download a copy of something off the internet just isn't worth the $20 to buy the copy at Best Buy, or the $20/month to have Netflix mail it to you.
Very little of the cost/value of content is the content itself - most of it is the distribution. Efficient distribution can distribute content at prices low enough to be competitive with comparatively inefficient illegal distribution while still creating enough revenue to pay content providers.
paintball
Well, I'm used to the slashdot hypocrisy.
- CSS cracked. All hail DeCSS! Those dirty corporate bastards can suck on this! Now I can do "fair use" with all those movies I rent from blockbuster!
- Apple's DRM cracked. "To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard."
Bah. The standard of what? The standard of what your overpriced iPod plays? Well that's always going to be AAC only, because Jobs said so, is it not?
Morons. Lets forget that MP3 already IS the standard, and has been so for nigh on a decade without Steve Job's official seal of approval.
Argue if you must. You know it's true. There are dozens of mp3 players. Everything plays mp3s these days, my DVD player, my car stereo, my phone.. What plays AAC? The iPod. One line of devices from one manufacturer under delusions of "we control the art world" grandeur.
Analogy: mp3 = elf, the binary standard linux uses by default. AAC = XBox Executable, a proprietary binary format that only runs on one company's line of devices (the xbox).
Fuck AAC, WMA, RA and every other proprietary MP3 clone.
Bah, of course if it was WMA cracked, would you be complaining that AAC might "become the standard?"
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
by ExtremeTech. Sorry.
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
I am tired of this argument; if the Music Companies were selling the right to listen to the music then I could exchange my old scratched up CDs for new ones for a buck or less. The fact that this requires 18$ alone is reason enough to shaft them at every opportunity. They have screwed with their markets and their consumers for too long, and the market is sticking it to them at every possible opportunity. Music Companies are going to sit on their catalogs and screw their artists and customers until they are forced by the market to change. This is an instrument of change. People need to remember that we get to make and change the laws; ones cast in stone went out with Hammurabi.
andy
These guys didn't do anything special. The libraries they used have been out and available in a simple command-line form for quite awhile. They apparently just made it more accessible to the public. The libs are available at http://www.audiocoding.com/. I've played with the command-line version before and it works fine.
FairPlay DRM keeps me from buying music from iTMS. I already have three computers. I'm not going to lose my rights to play music that I've purchased just because I decided to format a hard drive. This program can only be a good thing and I look forward to a mac version.
My Blog Sucks.
Although Sourceforge have pulled the .tar.gz mirror, you can still login into the CVS and get it:
/ playfair login
/ playfair checkout playfair
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot
Your existing songs won't become useless, you just won't be able to buy any new ones.
You can't buy any new ones because your new billing address will be in Canada. But this won't prevent you from playing your existing protected AAC files, or even from authorizing/deauthorizing your existing computers.
You can still get the previous version, which was released a scant 5 days ago. It's nothing special, just a clever way to get at the private keys that breaks the PKE scheme.
I mean, all "hacks" on DRM of this nature (single authority source, encrypted carrier, hardware or firmware enforcement) will be exactly the same technique. The question is how do you get at the unencrypted scheme or your session keys... this is an example of how to do that under Fairplay w/iPods.
Point being, at some stage you have to store a decryption key somewhere, and all you need to is intercept it or extract it. It checks your iTunes for it's user key, or generates the one the iPod would (eventually) use. Apparently using this and MD5 hashing of information from each protected song, you get a session key which can decrypted the DRMS atom (AES if you were wondering... figures). And that's it.
I wouldn't really call it hacking... it's reverse engineering and re-implementation of Veridisc's algorithm.
Point is, I was waiting for someone to finally hunker down and pick it apart. Now I know... so if I ever run into a situation where I need the unprotected stream, I can get it, but you're not going to see me giving these unprotected streams to my friends... I paid for them! I just need to increase my value.
Now I can use the AAC streams in my car (got a laptop rigged up... OGGs, MP3s, and now iTunes... heee heee!)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
This only works if you already have a key, so you aren't stealing anything, it just makes it possible to get better use out of music you paid for. Such as putting it on your slimserver etc. I don't think that the availability of such a tool is going to cause people to go hunting for protected aac files to crack, and if you are going share them, you could just rip them as mp3 (yes i know lesser quality yada yada). I think this tool is useful for people that do buy iTunes an i for one will probably buy more now that i can get better use out of them.
Think of it as the same thing as cracking a game you already bought so that you don't have to put the CD in the drive every time you want to play it.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Yes i can, yes i can, yes i CAAAAAAN!
(apologies to Irving Berlin)
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Interesting link though;)
I would argue that OggVorbis is also a standard, if not for market acceptance than because the format is well documented: anyone can make an OggVorbis ripper or player. WMA and FairPlay, like DOC files are not standards, but products. You couldn't create a product that creates or plays these files, as you don't have access to data defining the files. Hence, by definition, neither can be considered "standards."
The ______ Agenda
> "You agree that you will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any other person to, circumvent
> or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service or used to administer the Usage Rules"
Hmm. Since iTunes already allows the user to burn a CD, effectively removing the DRM, how then is this software not following the rules? I already have the keys to the music file. Therefore I have the right to an unencumbered copy.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard.
That's your own damn opinion. No need to damage an otherwise good story submission with it, Slashdot already has comments for just that purpose. Next time you'd like to tell me what you think of a story you're submitting save it for when the story is actually posted and make a comment about it.
Slashdot should be editing these comments out of the story submission but the editors are just as guilty. It makes me long for a kuro5hin that's more geeky and slightly less arrogant.
Id much rather people had the freedom to write software like this than we all sit around and play along with DRM because its the law. To me DRM represents one of those stupid javascripts people employ on websites to stop you 'right-clicking', now imagine if by-passing that was illigal!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
> If Apple had any sense, then they will have watermarked the AAC files in some way to identify the owner of the file
/. what the result is.
Some sort of watermark based on a hash of the DRM key perhaps?
Fine:
Joe has "Invisible Touch" and runs fairplay on it. he takes the resulting DRM-free AAC file and runs md5sum. He then posts on
Bill also has "Invisible Touch", and follows the same process that Joe did. He discovers one of two things:
The file hashes are identical, thus removing fear of retribution by fanatical enforcement agency personel.
The file hashes are different: So Bill posts his, in the odd chance that maybe it's just a fluke, and waits for other people to do the same.
Well, I don't have iTunes, so I can't join in the fun. Anybody want to try this out?
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Yeah, you view the authors as vandals, but you'll try to help get them a mention on Slashdot. That will surely discourage them from trying any such vandalism in the future!
:P
Good thinking, Mr. Morality.
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
I've been circumventing the security since the iTunes music store came out. All you need is a CD burner. Burn your purchased music to audio CD then rip that CD back into itunes as MP3s without any security. This news changes nothing.
You have people who hate all DRM and who love Apple. So now people are actually arguing in favor of DRM just because they love their Apple computers so much. Don't be so blind! Let's imagine if Micrsoft had the same license as Apple with this DRM. Everyone would be cheering for this program. I know people don't like it when they are shown to be hypocrites, and I will probably be modded to oblivion, but if DRM is evil, then it is just as evil when Apple does it as it is when anyone else does.
(from dictionary.com)
Vandal (van'dl)
1. vandal One who willfully or maliciously defaces or destroys public or private property.
2. A member of a Germanic people that overran Gaul, Spain, and northern Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. and sacked Rome in 455.
As these people obviously have not maliciously defaced or destroyed public or private property, I can only assume, then, that the repeated references to them as "vandals" means that the FBI has identified the coders as coming from an obscure Germanic sect, whose culture was believed lost.
Which leads to a conundrum. If we don't arrest these people, then we are validating the viewpoint that the DMCA is far overreaching. If we do arrest these people, then we are destroying the remnants of a lost civilization important to our shared cultural heritage.
Declare a law overly broad, or destroy a valuable culture? What is Ashcroft to do?
The ______ Agenda
That is such a stupid claim, my car dealer said AAC was better, there!
Why don't you refer to a pro audio site?
You know, nothing is worst than a computer site to judge audio, mostly because its the same people thinking that their klipsh pro crap sounds good, no ear no judgement.
I'm an audio pro and I can tell you any compression suck, lossy that is, but as far as they go AAC does sound better than WMA. And I judge that using a very professionnal monitoring system which I sincerly doubt those guys have (its not only the speakers its the whole setup and most importantly the way its been put togheter and oriented).
To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard."
Ummm, only until some crazy person cracks WMA. If it took them what - a year (?) to crack Fairplay, how long will WMA take?
Another year or so?
It's not a question of IF, it's simply a matter of when and how.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Songs bought and downloaded from iTMS are watermarked with your account information. Checking out the source for the song with a simple text editor I was able to clearly see my name and email address used for purchasing from the store. I don't know yet if these are stripped when playfair strips DRM, but it's worth verifying before you start playing pirate again.
Besides, CD quality is still better audio.
==========
support the arts!
www.smadness.com
*sigh* One thing that I've noticed in the business world is that more often than not, perception is reality. In other words, how something is perceived is more important than how it actually is. (For example, how many of you have bosses who don't want to use Linux because it's known as the "hacker's OS", and as such see it as being dangerous because it's used by hackers/crackers?)
The reason I bring this up is because this tool, however benevolent the reasons for creating it are, may end up causing more problems than it solves. Apple went to a lot of trouble to create a DRM scheme that was most acceptable to both users and record companies. You know FairPlay-protected AAC files are easily transferred to another media already (burn to CD). I know it. Not much fuss was made about it.
Now we have a tool that gets rid of that intermediate step. Is the end result the same as what we used before? Pretty much. Except now, the RIAA has something to point to and scream, "See those hackers! They'll even break liberal encoding to steal music! This is why we need tougher DRM!" It doesn't matter whether this was REALLY the case... all they have to do is PERCEIVE it as such a threat, and to them, it becomes truth. Granted, this may or may not be the case, but like I said... perception is reality. How many people outside of the tech community are going to get to see this as anything but a piracy tool?
I really hope it doesn't come to this. I really do. Like a lot of people here, I understand this tool was probably created with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, we also need to remember what they say the road to Hell is paved with...
Just my $.02...
To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard.
Vandals? Really? Wow, because the first thing that came to my mind is: wow, I can unencrypt MY files and put them on my MythTV box, or trascode them to use in my cars mp3 player or send them through my Slimplayer. People are getting a little weird about DRM. Vandals is probably the most ridiculous thing I've hear yet. Itunes is great, but if we are going to continue to have fair use we are going to have to stop buying in to all the hype and realize that using a product we bought isn't criminal. I'm a fucking consumer, not a pirate.
Quack, quack.
...sure, I'm all for fair use--for me. My definition doesn't include me and a couple million of my closest friends.
All the Kazaa-using pirate assholes and those cracking Fairplay are doing is making my life harder and as time goes on, interfering more and more with what can be considered fair use.
You all need to consider what is cause and what is effect here. Was there DRM before Napster? Nope. So this is all a reaction to your sleazoid thievery and it just royally pisses me off.
As DRM goes, Fairplay is by far the best of a bad lot. Its compromises I can live with. What are you assholes going to make Apple come up with next?
DONT USE IT! there are p2p apps for people like you .seriously, this is just spoiling it for the rest of us that like itunes and dont have issues with it. No one is forcing you to use itunes. if you are going to pirate music use Kazaa or something like that.
I see no benefit form this other than to hurt itunes. If you dont like the licence, boycott it dont break it for everyone else. This is akin to idiots who dislike starbucks and go around destroying things since, if they dont like it, no one else shoudl be able to use it.
I like itunes, i have no problems with it, dont mess it up for me. just leave it alone if you dont liek the terms. Hey if enough people dislike it, maybe they will change things (though enough people like it that you are in the minority)
The jerk that wrote this is a childish intolerant moron.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Yes, well, I'm sure the aristocracy that had been exploiting the populace for centuries thought the same when the poor masses rebelled. Or maybe not, because they used the term 'revolutionary' as if it meant 'criminal'. In any way, it's all in the eye of the beholder, it would seem. But we can safely say that it's a good thing their rights were trampled on and disgarded and abolished, or most of us would still be serfs.
The IFPI/RIAA is fighting a lost cause. And I think they know it.
First off all, I have difficulties with their acclaimed 'stealing' of music. As far as I know, stealing implies that the one that has been stolen has been derived of something. When you take a copy, you do not take the original away, thus they have not 'lost' anything. They might claim that they loose money when ppl d/l music, but even that is far from certain. Not only is it not shown statistically to have had that effect (they didn't even show a correlation thusfar - see aussie music-news - let alone a causality).
Furthermore, in an individual case, they would have to show they actually lost revenue. Which is far from said, because I sure know some guys who d/l music, but would NEVER have bought that music if they were unable to d/l it. So, how did the RIAA/IFPI loose revenue, exactly? And if they didn't lose anything, how can the term 'stealing' apply?
It would still be copyright-infringement, ofcourse, but that's another matter. I think maybe it's time we went beyond our current system of copyrights and walk into the era of cyberspace. With the industrial revolution, patents and copyrights knew a high flight, maybe it's time to let it leave and try something new? Maybe something in the lines of this: fairshare.
And don't worry, contrary to what the RIAA claims, musicians will not starve to death, and music-making will not stop. We had music long before we had copyrights, and we will have music long after copyrights have vanished from the scene.
And lastly, it's something that *can not* be stopped. P2P progs and their development act as organisms that follow the darwinian rules of survival. When Napster was 'killed' by the RIAA, immediately others (like kazaa) took over, being more resistent to attacks from the RIAA&co. Whenever kazaa will be shut down, others again will take over. When endusers are targeted, systems that protect the user will become dominant (like FreeNet).
It really is a lost cause. But then again, they are not truelly battling for the survival of musicians (as I said; they will survive, just as they used to do), it's for their OWN survival they are fighting. There is no way in hell they are going to keep the giant profits that they have been gathering for the last decades.
But ultimately, they will have to do what P2P systems are already doing: adapt to the new circumstances (and forget about the former levels of profit), or whither and die.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
They're Jutes, at best. Or possibly Ostrogoths.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Interesting. Good point. So why was this allowed in reporting the story?
This belongs in the comment section, to be moderated fairly, like my little opinion and other people's comments.
I suggest you read Slashdot
It is just as illegal. Actually, more so. Downloading copyrighted music is simple a copyright infringment. (at the moment) This means it falls under civil law.
However, creating a tool like this circumvents a copyright protection scheme. This is a criminal act punishable by up to 5 years in prison or $500,000, under the DMCA of 1998. (section 1201)
As an aside you mention if Apple had it's way...Even at the risk of appearing as an Apple apologist...Apple didn't want DRM at all. They struck a deal with the RIAA. Essentially the RIAA said, NO DRM, NO MUSIC. Apple said, okay...we'll put in a little DRM. I wish I could find the quote from Steve Jobs but he essentially said, "DRM is stupid, users want control of their files and rightly so, DRM will kill the market."
The Easynews mirror (what I normally use) didn't have it. It might not have synced over yet. UNC had it. I just wrote a Gentoo ebuild (cribbed it from another ebuild, really) for it, and it grabbed it from the Belnet mirror.
Speaking of the ebuild, here it is:
# Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Technologies, Inc.
z "
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: $
# Short one-line description of this package.
DESCRIPTION="Playfair enables fair use of iTunes Music Store downloads."
HOMEPAGE="http://playfair.sourceforge.net/"
SRC_URI="mirror://sourceforge/playfair/${P}.tar.g
LICENSE="GPL-2"
SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="x86"
IUSE=""
DEPEND=""
S=${WORKDIR}/${P}
src_compile() {
econf || die
emake || die "emake failed"
}
src_install() {
einstall || die
}
Dump it in /usr/local/portage/media-sound/playfair, make sure PORTDIR_OVERLAY is set in /etc/make.conf, and issue emerge --fetchonly playfair && (cd /usr/local/portage/media-sound/playfair; ebuild playfair-0.2.ebuild digest) && emerge playfair to install.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Somewhere down the line record companies started getting the idea they had a right to a living and stopped earning it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Tried it on a single purchased track from iTunes. Compiled playfair on my linux box, transferred the .m4p file over, put its drm key into ~/.drms, and playfair converted it in seconds.
.m4a) perfectly thru Winamp5.
I then moved the file over to my laptop which has never seen iTunes or an iPod, and was able to play the file (renamed to
So far, one good data point!
They have given people back the freedom to use the music thay have purchased as they see fit. This is *FAIR USE* it is the music industry that are vandals and thives, implementing a concerted campaign to steal our rights to use the products we purchase while pretending that they are being harmed by unrelated online theft. Do you really thing your cracked DRM'd copy matters a damn when anyone can rip the CD? Give me a break, copyability is not the issue at all. The evidence does not support the industries position and the facts make them look positively ridiculous. *ANYONE* can go rip any tune today from any CDROM, one uncracked mp3 later and you've got the equavalent of what they're so scared of. We have rights that are being undermined and the industry's protections including those enshrined in law are extremely artificial and strengthening with every law passed and court case prosecuted.
It is not vandalism to protect consumers against unreasonable proprietary restrictions, particularly those that tie us to vendor specific platforms or even force multiple purchases of the same art. These developers are heroes and the activities of those corporations they fight against should be branded criminal but unfortunately are not. If congress did their job to uphold our constitution and rights instead of fostering corrupt lackeys like Orrin Hatch then this would not be a problem and user's rights would be physically guaranteed. Instead we have idiots like the senator from Disney continually trying to sell us all down the river for a few campaign dollars. When one individual stands up to help the situation fools like you call them a vandals, you should show more respect to people fighting and coding for freedoms and your rights to the information you have purchased.
Must read for all of us libertarians and others:
. html
is part 4 (with links to the other 3 parts)
William Stone III explodes the Myth of Intellectual Property in a series of articles entitled
Law Versus Reality
http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/tle265-20040404-09
Part 1
quote from the article:
I've argued that information shares none of property's unique characteristics, therefore information cannot be treated as identical to property.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
I don't know exactly how buying music from iTMS works, so I am going to make my comments slightly general.
When you buy something, you accept that as bought, it might have restrictions. For example, if I buy a used Honda, I accept that it cannot fly. However, I do not have to agree to the restriction "This vehicle will not fly." If I wanted to modify it to turn it into some sort of flying machine, then I am free to do so.
When you liscense something, you agree to restrictions. If I liscense a used Honda, the lisecne might prohibit me from modifying it or turning it into a flying machine.
When you buy things at retail, they are actually yours to do with. Of course, you're not allowed to do anything illegal (like creating coppies of a CD and distributing it to people, because that is a breach of copyright), but you're not agreeing to anything more. This is the right of first sale. You buy it. It is yours. Do what you want with it.
When you buy things online, though, I am not sure things are that simple. I would think that you can agree to additional restrictions. For example, Apple could say that you are liscensing both the files and the keys to decode them and that you are not allowed to modify the files. Running PlayFair would then be prohibited by the lisecnse under which you are using the files under.
So to answer the grandparent poster's question, why can't you do whatever you choose with the music you pay for? Because you might not have actually bought the files. If you only liscensed them, there may may be additional restrictions. There is a difference between paying for and buying, and the files might not be yours in a legal sense to do with what you please.
Of course, there might be other issues like "is a contract that you click through but do not sign actually enforceable," but I think this is enough to understand why you might not be able to do some things with the music you paid for.
So, in summary, accepting how things are is not the same as agreeing to keep them that way, and paying for something does not have to mean buying it. I hope this helps.
The DMCA is not there to "enforce the contract when you purchase a DVD". Contracts are already covered under Tort law. (And among other things, Tort law does not allow you to impose additional conditions on a purchase after consideration has been given.)
The DMCA outlaws publishing decryption techniques so that copyright holders can effectively demand a second payment from consumers (a "license fee" that you have to pay as part of buying an approved player of that material), and as an end run around fair use laws (including region encoding lockout - preventing people from viewing material they have legally purchased).
So, despite its name, the DMCA expressly has NOTHING TO DO WITH COPYRIGHT. It does nothing that normal copyright laws didn't do. It doesn't stop real commercial pirates (like those found all over Asia), nor does it protect people from taking the final material decoded and republishing it. (Despite the lack of reconstruction filters, a single A-to-D/D-to-A on a decent consumer player does far less damage to a video or audio stream than the original codec in terms of blockiness and frequency response; it's multiple iterations that cause noticable degradation.)
The answer, in my opinion, is to repeal the DMCA. And simultaneously to link serious anti-Pirate measures in China to their ability to import to the U.S. to get them to crack down on the flagrant abuses happening there. Our copyright conglomerates are crying crocodile tears over this stuff, but the Hong Kong entertainment industry has been decimated because of companies openly making and distributing knock-off copies.
We do need to get serious about real piracy. But peer-to-peer is no more piracy than taping songs off the radio.
A crack would imply it breaks the encryption scheme. However, seeing as it only works on music someone has legally purchased, it's clear to me that this relies on having access to the decryption keys. So it sounds as if they simply reverse engineered the decryption protocol. Not an easy task by any means, but it's not as interesting as something like DeCSS which involved determining both the decryption keys and decryption algorithm.
Stealing = taking something with the intention of permenantly depriving its owner of possession
Copyright violation = making an unauthorised COPY of something
YOU CANNOT STEAL SOMETHING BY MAKING A COPY.
Read Pynchon.
Your first three paragraphs are quite true, but have no bearing at all on what I was saying. I was saying that the claim those companies make that 'It is just the same as stealing from a shop' (actual quote) is false.
It does not matter what kind of contract they have with the musicians, nor if they are owners, nor if I or anyone else agreed to the licence. The *statement* is false. If I go to a shop, see some vase, let's say, and I copy that vase at home, can the shop or the owner accuse me of stealing his vase? No. (at least not icn the jurisdiction I live). I *could* be breaking copyright or some patents, yes, but I would not be charged with stealing it from the shop.
The RIAA claims one could, if one does exactly the same, but instead of a vase, with one of their CDs. THAT is what is absurd, and what I was arguing.
The problem with your line of reasoning, is that it starts from the established point of copyrights that we have developped into today, and do not try to see outside the framework that is now almost considered a natural right. but it isn't, and, in fact, it never was. It's very clear (whatever the Supreme Court says about it) that the founding fathers meant it to be a right of limited scope and duration, to *stimulate* new and innovative works, and then bring it to the public good.
This, clearly, has been perverted and corrupted in a system that has virtual no limitations anymore, and which main goal is the squeeze as much money and profit out of it by and for the middle-man; corporations that have huge profits but hardly create anything innovative themselves, and, in fact, try their best to stiffle innovation when they feel threatened.
You think 'asking to reform' will do actually amount to anything, since it would mean they practically vanish from the scene? Me thinks not. I think the chance of that happening is as big as it was if the serfs would have 'asked' the aristocracy if they would please give up their powerbase.
This line of reasoning shows an apparent lack of sense for reality.
Unjust laws are most often overruled by breaking them en masse, and what's more, I do not think that that is an immoral act on itself, on the contrary. Far from me to entice anyone in doing something illegal, but I still can say what I think (unless Free speech has been abolished too?), and I think that the law, as it was original conceived and intended was just, but what it is and has become today is unjust and immoral, and should not be used to make ppl guilty, let alone criminalised, when they are disregarding those perverted laws.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Since when did Slashdot decide that someone who renders DRM useless is a vandal? Especially when it requires the user to have a legitimate right to use the DRM protected data!
What is going on is very simple: we have a new round of businespeople trying to understand the data and software business. I'll shorten the lesson up for them as I lived though the last two rounds of "copy protection":
PROTECTING DIGITAL DATA FROM DUPLICATION IS A FOOL'S PURSUIT. Stating that is is IMPOSSIBLE TO BREAK THIS PROTECTION is very shortsighted and will come home to roost when someone with the ability has a need to de-DRM data.
We went through this whole iteration of stupidity in the mid-80s. Ultimately, copy protection failed. Every couple of months someone would come out with a new and unbreakable copy protection scheme - which is a lot like what is going on in the DRM world now. If you even go look at the newspapers of the day, you'll find articles advocating changing laws to make cracking copy protection extra-double secret illegal.
Fortunately, the business people will figure it out: copy protection, drm and so on is incredibly unprofitable because it does not have value to the buyer. In fact, it reduces the value of the purchased product substantially.
-- $G
I'm in the process of converting my >100 songs as an insurance policy. Suppose Apple's music store, ten years down the road, goes belly up? If I've authorized 3 computers and one dies, I'm screwed. I doubt the RIAA will give Apple or its users carte blanche rights to use the songs without any limits.
This is also great for people like me with audiobooks that take up lots of space. I've always wanted to convert them to a lower bitrate but FairPlay doesn't let me.
DeCSS only violated DMCA due to a subtlety, having to do with the "without authorization" wording of DMCA. All CSS-protected DVDs have their copyrights held by a very small group of companies, who are able to be unified in their stand that they do not grant authorization.
Movies are relatively expensive to make, which is why the group is so small.
Music is a whole other business. There are thousands and thousands of copyright holders. Only a few hundred are even RIAA members.
Does iTMS' selection only include RIAA members? Maybe, but [speculation begins here] I would guess not, because that would make their music selection so small that they would just be another smalltime player, like mp3.com was. The music supply is just too fractured and balkanized for one one group to really dominate.
And if it's not a small unified group, then there's a very good chance that quite a few of the copyright holders do (or are will to) grant authorization to bypass the technological measure that limits access to the copyrighted work.
If that is the case, then it becomes very hard to argue that a Fairplay-removing tool is primarily intended to remove the protection without authorization. Much harder than it was in the DeCSS case, anyway.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
First, regarding fair use. Fair use is not a right. Fair use is not an entitlement. Allow me to quote US Title 17, section 107:
Read that again. And again. And over and over until you finally understand that what it says is that fair use is not an infrinement of copytight. It doesn't give you the unalienable right to timeshift. It doesn't grant you unlimited power to convert things into whatever format you want. All it says is that those things (and things later ruled to be protected, such as timeshifting) are not illegal. If the content provider uses some technological measure to prevent you from doing any of those things, that's perfectly legal. They just can't sue you or have you arrested for doing them.Now, maybe fair use should be a protected right, but it isn't. And pretending it is doesn't help.
You also said:
Well, those DVDs are protected by copyright law, too. But they're also protected by stupid DMCA-sanctioned technological measures. If you felt like creating some super DMCA protected GPL-DRM that went through and added GPL notices to every file in a project as soon as the linker saw your file, go for it. Just don't expect anybody to actually use it. Unfortunately, it's a bit late to use start touting DMCA protections as a reason to not buy DVDs.
Okay, so FairPlay:
And this is supposed to be bad how, exactly?
iTunes customers will still have to pay; filesharing will be unaffected; and iTunes users will have more options in how they play their songs. Apple won't like it, since to them iTunes is only a way to sell their overpriced little toys ... But it won't have any appreciable impact on iTunes sales, methinks.
The problem with DRM'ing music (aside from the fact that DRM-as-content-protection is a ricockulous business plan with no engineering merit whatsoever) is that record companies sell oodles of unwatermarked, non-DRM'ed CD's. Files don't wind up on Kazaa because some clever 13-year-old h4x0r3d your encryption; they wind up their because a chimpanzee could rip files off a CD.
What if the next version of WMA encryption were as secure as AES?
Umm.... Currently AES comes in 192 and 256 bit flavors and supports higher. But remember, they have to be sufficiently week such that a computer or (DVD-type) player can decode them on the fly. (That's the reason DVD's only have 40 bit encryption.) Given that they will have to have a single master key for everything. (DVD's have many master keys, knocking the 40bit down to something a few bits less. 36 maybe?) It would be possible for a group to simply brute force the key. Given that Distributed.net Has been doing this with RC5 implementations on many computers (i know how long it would take them in comparison, but computing power will catch up.) They could crack the master key in a couple years. Less if more people got involved, or if they made special hardware for it. Therefor, if they used that and enough people helped out, they could make it infeasable to use any encryption at all. Hell, it would probably take them a week at most to find every single DVD master key by brute force.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
The ability to remove the DRM from songs downloaded at iTunes can only help AAC become more dominant (although may not help Apple sell iPods). Why?
1. More players can play non-DRM music than DRM music: Customers who didn't want to trade in their older player for an iPod can now become iTunes customers.
2. Non-DRM music lasts longer: You can only transfer DRM music to 3 different computers, so by the time you upgrade your computer 3 times (3 - 6 years for most of us), you no longer can listen to music you legally paid for on your computer. Customers are more likely to buy music if they get to KEEP it!
Why does the music industry treat its customers like Criminals? The record labels should be Praising God that you are getting the music legally instead of downloading it for free. Putting DRM on music does absolutely nothing but discourage consumers from purchasing it, if DRM were to disappear there would be a legal downloading heyday and the Record Executives would make billions extra per year... hell, the artists might get a few bucks too.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. The thing is that a lot of your points center around a party acting in bad faith. As you have pointed out, contracts made in bad faith are voidable. But assuming the contract is written in good faith, like the Apple contract or whatever, then you cannot claim ignorance of the terms of the contract as a defense unless you are mentally incapable of entering into a contract. Like I stated before, the problem with click-through licenses is not that the users do not read them, it is modification of a contract without consideration. But even this doesn't always stand up... Mortenson v. Timberline Software Corporation, et al
Hmmm... I have downloaded it and mounted my ipod until /mnt/IPOD and then tried to run it on a .m4p file. The resulting file was not able to be played by faad or itunes. Anyone else had any luck?
> To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard.
Good job, genius; you've now proved to the entire Slashdot readership that you're a moron. Might want to limit the editorialization in future submissions.
If the Apple AAC DRM being cracked pushes people towards WMV, then that's fine. I give it six months to a year from the time when someone with sales figures worth mentioning (i.e. demand for product) actually starts using WMV with DRM until it's cracked. There's simply more impetus to crack iTunes's DRM right now because nobody gives a rat's ass about the guys selling WMV.
As for the implications of the story itself, frankly, this is *more* likely to make me shop at the iTunes store. I can't play DRMed files (in ANY format) on my hard-drive-based car MP3 player and I'm not going to spend money for a downloadable file that I have to burn to CD and re-rip just to use. I rarely want just singles anyway, so at that point, what's the goddamn point buying a downloadable version? Give me something I can strip the restrictions off of and slap onto the hard drive under my seat, and we might talk. If six, seven, maybe more years of MP3 haven't killed the music industry, this sure as hell isn't going to.
I guess I'm preaching to the choir here, so I'll address this to the record companies: the real answer is for you to see the writing on the wall and do something INNOVATIVE for a change to keep yourselves operating. You can keep whining to your paid-for politicians and getting more restrictive laws passed, but the consumer backlash will kill your business long before the laws could turn the tide.
The file-sharing genie is out of the bottle and no amount of legal measures will ever get it back in. Embrace it by using it as a marketing tool like you do radio, music videos, etc. or you're basically going to whine yourselves into irrelevance.
</soapbox>
I've downloaded about 275 songs from iTunes Music store. But I've come to the decision that I will no longer download music for one reason. And its not because of DRM. I can actually live with Apple's DRM. I don't notice it.
I will stop downloading because I no longer want to own music that is in a format other than its original format. Let me be the one to decide what to encode my music to make the files smaller. Not Apple or Microsoft. If you let me purchase my music in WAV or even FLAC, I'll continue to support your store, but if you insist on keeping all downloads in AAC or WMA formats, I will no longer be a customer.
And if CD's go away, I guess I just won't buy music anymore.
Step One: Buy music from iTunes store. Step Two: Burn said music to CD. Step Three: Import CD into library. Outcome: Standard mp3 encoded non-drm files. Easy to do, no messing with other programs, and undeniably legal.
Karma: Can there be a void?
.. -. - . .-. .-. --- -...
Wrong. You can use your purchased songs on any number of iPods and three computers (Mac or Windows) at any given time. You can de-authorize any computer in order to get back a license. In your scenario, you can easily play those tunes, legally, on all of your gear.
Learn a bit more before you go bitching...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
If your install is like mine, iTunes put it in:
C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USERNAME\Application Data\drms
Copy the contents of that directory into ~/.drms and you should be good to go.
VideoLan can already decode/play back M4P iTunes-purchased files. It stores the system's key in the \Documents and Settings\\Application Data\drms\ folder -- you can copy that folder to other computers that aren't authorized via iTunes, and still play the M4P's with VideoLan. And since VideoLan supports streaming, you can set it to output the raw AAC into a new MP4 container. The only downside is that it's realtime, and that you have to do each file one at a time. But I wrote a Visual Basic app to loop through a directory recursively and call VideoLAN to convert each M4P file.
Hopefully someone takes this new code and makes a windows version, that can do process large amounts of files at a time...
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
To me the authors are vandals not revolutionaries, and may have ensured WMA becomes the standard.
Well, and if Apple produces a DRM system with gaping holes, then from the point of view of the music industry, that's exactly what should happen. Or do you think people aren't also hard at work cracking WMA?
If Apple wants to be a provider of DRM, then they better do it right or they don't do it at all.
All this discussion of the concept of PlayFair - have any of you tried it? So far every track I have tried it on causes iTunes to crash when I attempt to add it to my iTunes library. Hopefully this is a temporary problem, and I have heard of others having some success, but at the most it's very unfinished. Not there yet.
--- What?
I'm the there's little doubt the framers of the constitution sought to protect property rights
Actually I think you will find it quite facinating enlightening to read the writings of Jefferson and Madison about copyright and patents. Here's somethign Jefferson wrote about inventions, but it applies equally to writings:
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody." - Thomas Jefferson
The actual foundation of US law is that all works are initially in the public domain. No one has any inherent right to to stop anyone else from copying. It is the public's rights to do anything and everything that is broadly protected by the 9th and 10th amendments. All rights, including the right to copy, are reserved to the people except to the extent explicitly enumerated in the constitution.
Copyrights and patents are a form of monopoly. A monopoly imposed not by natural right, but imposed by force of the government. A monopoly enforced at gunpoint.
One of the primary causes of the US revolution was numerous opressive monopolies imposed by England. Really nasty monopolies. The framers of the constitution were violently opposed to monopolies. And I mean that literally, they went out and KILLED people over it, chuckle.
But they also recognized that patents and copyrights can serve a useful purpose. They can provide people an incentive to create more and invent more, and to get those creations and inventions to the public. They concluded that monopolies were evil, but that a strictly limited form of monopoly could serve the public good. They therefore wrote Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 of the constitution:
The Congress shall have power...
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
It is not a property right. For one thing property rights never expire. Copyrights and patents are constitutionally required to expire because their actual purpose is to benefit the public by getting more works and inventions into the public domain. All such works originate in the public domain. Congress has the power secure "copy rights" from the public where they initially lie and temporarily turn them over to copyright holders and inventors. Only a limited selection of rights are taken away from the public, and only for the purpose of benefiting the public, and only for a limited time.
The idea of "intellectual property" and that copyrights and patents exist for the benefit of the author/inventor turns the foundation of our legal system on it's head. It's all ass-backwards.
It's a
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.