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Monday Releases Cause Crashes
The two big releases yesterday, Apple's Security Update and the DRM-canceling PlayFair, are causing problems. The Security Update appears to break cvs over pserver under some conditions (hangs for a long time, then quits with a malloc error), and ryanw writes, "according to the SF.net forum for playfair, the 'iTMS DRM stripping tool' destroys your purchased songs: the resulting files crash iTunes, the iPod, and QuickTime." Those who follow the rules -- wait a few days to install Apple's updates, and make backups of your iTMS files -- will be unaffected.
...to install version 0.2 of some guy's software
The way PlayFair snags a decryption key doesn't always work, but it tries to decrypt the song anyway. If it finds a bad key and uses it, of course the files are going to come out as garbage! If you swap headers of an m4a file and an m4p file, QuickTime, iTunes and the iPod all crash while reading it also. It does not, as the post suggests, even touch your purchased songs. All decryption is made on a copy. Just more fear mongering.
I have, however, had no trouble decrypting my songs under Mac OS X. They work perfectly.
I really need to learn to wait a few days before installing things.
;)
But the coal mines of software updating need canaries like you.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Brilliant move combining those two entirely seperate stories into one article.
/.ers are going to assume that the stories are related somehow, and that the Apple Security Update somehow sabotaged playfair. Sheesh.
You just know some ignorant tinfoil-hat wearing
It really does work. The crashing is caused by it not acquiring the key and decrypting it incorrectly with no error checking. This is what you have to do(the only way I know how, because I don't know how to compile it on windows).
./configure, make, make install(if you're root).
./playfair whatever.m4p new.m4p.
Download it on *nix and do
On windows, download VLC. Run it and open your encrypted m4p file.
Now, in c:\documents and settings\username(whatever you're logged in as)\application data\drms, you have the key file. Copy that key file to your ~/.drms dir(create it) on the *nix box.
Then on the *nix box run
WHAM! It now works. It grabs the key from your ~/.drms and decrypts it to new.m4p. It works! I've tried it. This is great. Now I can actually buy music(Until apple "fixes" this).
If someone could compile this on windows it would cut down this process to 2 steps: 1. Run VLC with the file. 2. Run playfair.exe in.mp4 out.m4p
Thanks,
Chris Benard
Firstly, this tool never touches the original so unless you deleted the original before testing the new one, you are fine. For Example: /usr/local/bin/playfair
Secondly, the tool works fine most of the time. At least the mac version, but likely the pc one too. For me, its spits out 3/4 properly drm'd songs then spits out the rest garabage that crash iTunes/Quicktime. Try it yourself people, all you need is a mac with an ipod hooked up to it or just a windows pc.
Dont do school. Stay in milk. Drink your drugs.
I'd mod you down but I'd rather share my thoughts instead.
Download music isn't a right, it's a privilege. Where do you get this sense of all-encompassing sense of entitlement?
What you're doing is rationalizing your process for circumventing this privilege of downloading music. You *choose not to support* or use the system Apple makes available for the product that you want to use, and somehow you think your intentional non-compliance justifies the right to 'fair use' how you see fit.
Just because something exists doesn't mean you have limitless access, control or influence with it. Cope.
You don't want loss imposed by transcoding between DRMAAC->CD Audio->mp3 (ogg,whatever). So then don't transcode; use the system that was designed for the format. Or, buy the CD or single that you're interested in and have a hard copy that bypasses all this DRM. Or better yet, don't buy anything - not for idealist Anti-DRM reasons, but because you realize that what you want to purchase isn't available for what you intend to do!
Swapping CDs is a pain? I see where the sense of limitless entitlement comes from.
Apple can do what they want. You can do what you want as well. But when it comes to who sets the rules for DRM AACs, it's Apple. If you don't like the rules they've set, there's no law that forces you have to buy/use a specific product that has rules you have fundamental disagreement with. Seek a legal alterative that works how you want it to work, or learn to cope with doing without.
1. People keep talking about "Fair use." It's a moot point. Fair use is what you can do with intellectual property that you posess (note I did not say "own") WHERE THERE IS NO OTHER GOVERNING AGREEMENT. When you started up iTunes, you clicked through a license that spells out what you may do with the songs you purchase. That is the difference between the iTMS and a CD - CDs don't have shrinkwrap licenses.
If you are in the United States, giving PlayFair to someone else or posting it on a web site probably violates the DMCA: It is not authorized by the rights holder, and it defeats an effective means of copy control.
Using PlayFair to decode your purchases to use on machines that don't have iTunes (such as Linux machines) probably is legal under the reverse engineering for compatibility sections of the DMCA, but that law is very full of contradictions and has not been fully tested in the courts.
I have a suggestion for the PlayFair authors: As you decrypt each song, put the account information in a hidden or comment section of the output file. Anyone using PlayFair to simply use their purchased content themselves would not be hurt by this, and it would provide an additional deterent against putting decoded content up on $P2P_NETWORK_DU_JOUR. It would bolster your eventual defense in court that you were not making a tool for piracy.
I am being denied my fair use rights. There's really no debating it.
Technically, it is debatable. You can set iTunes on a single machine to share its music, including purchased, with any Macs on the same network. The main reason Apple allows authorization on multiple machines is for fair use when traveling or at an office, and your main server wouldn't be available.
Whether or not this is convenient for you is a personal matter, but the technology already exists to share your music with any computer you could carry CDs back and forth to, without having to authorize/de-authorize.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.