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PlayFair Pulled Due to DMCA Request
doubleacr writes "MacSlash is reporting that PlayFair has been removed from SourceForge.net. Didn't see that one coming." We posted about PlayFair on Monday. SourceForge.net received a DMCA complaint from Apple on Thursday, claiming PlayFair is in violation of the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA, section 1201(a)(2). As per SourceForge.net policy, the project has been disabled. Should the project managers file a counterclaim, the project could be restored. SourceForge.net is owned by OSDN, the parent company of Slashdot.
The project has been moved here:
http://sarovar.org/projects/playfair/
Though nothing has yet been posted to it, the author posted on MacSlash that the C&D order from Apple will be posted - and will be continued as long as there is no violation of Indian law.
Sarovar is hosted on a Compaq box running Debian woody and GForge.
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I haven't gotten a DMCA takedown notice in the last week or so, so here is a torrent for everyone to enjoy:
t
http://www.isthatdamngood.com/playfair-0.2.torren
Enjoy!
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
As soon as I read the earlier /. story about PlayFair, I went straight to SourceForge and downloaded a copy. It now sits at home in a (sadly) ever expanding directory named "samizdat", along with things like deCSS stuff, the Grey Album, and various other bits from Illegal Art. Some of those things are still available, but I have such little faith in the DCMA that I think private copies are warranted.
It's not about piracy.
All one has to do to "unprotect" the files is have a player that unlocks them and a high-fidelity digitizer (you know, something like an Audigy card or pod...) to record it with. The loss is not going to be noticeable (i.e. even AAC inserts worse loss than this process does in the first place...) and as long as you use AAC or something that doesn't distort the results appreciably worse, you win.
All this program does is make it easy for a legitimate user to shift it into other formats for their own use. They don't want you to do that. They want you to pay for the CD, the AAC/MP3, and any other format you want to use. In all honesty, they want you to pay for each time you listen to it, but they've not figured out how to do that without drawing too much attention to their damn greed.
If anyone needs a break, it's me- I'm tired of hearing about piracy when it's not about friggin' piracy. Get it in your head about that. They lose FAR more to real IP pirates in Asia where they crank it out by the tons in spite of the protections these jokers keep adding. Why in the hell don't they go shut those SOB's down first? It's because the "public" is an easier target and provides for nice, nifty laws bought with their money that give them all the advantages and the consumers nothing in return.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Hate to break it to you, but by buying the songs, you (or whoever bought them) agreed to the following restrictions (which I cut and paste from the iTunes Music Store Terms of Service).
b. Use of Products. You acknowledge that Products contain security technology that limits your usage of Products to the following Usage Rules, and you agree to use Products in compliance with such Usage Rules.
Usage Rules.
Your use of the Products is conditioned upon your prior acceptance of the terms of this Agreement.
You shall be authorized to use the Products only for personal, noncommercial use.
You shall be authorized to use the Products on three Apple-authorized computers at any time.
You shall be entitled to export, burn or copy Products solely for personal, noncommercial use.
Any burning or exporting capabilities are solely an accommodation to you and shall not constitute a grant or waiver (or other limitation or implication) of any rights of the copyright owners in any content, sound recording, underlying musical composition, or artwork embodied in any Product.
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.
The delivery of Products does not transfer to you any commercial or promotional use rights in the Products.
The DRM limits what devices/applications you can play the song with. For example, the only way to listen to a song purchased through iTunes on Linux was to burn it to a CD and listen to it, or rip it from the CD ( losing quality ) and copy it into Linux. I did my part when I payed for the song, I should be able to play it wherever *I* want. I understand the rules, but the record company got their money from me, so in my personal opinion, I should be able to listen to it where I like. That's why I like Playfair.
Who the hell modded this informative? It's incorrect.
Apple controls the technological measure that controls access to copyrighted material. When the technology is circumvented, it is the owner of the technology that has the right to (ab)use the DMCA, not the owner of the copyrighted material behind the protection. The copyright owners get to sue when their material is illegally distributed. That has not happened (to anyone's knowledge) in this case.
- not be accepted in the marketplace--information moves too fast for even today's sheep-like consumers to be fooled that easily
- be cracked anyway
The industry is still making billions of dollars a year selling Red Book CDs with no DRM. But they want to move towards a pay per play model with DRM. And I'm the prick?Apple created a piece of software that doesn't allow people to play the music their paid for on the devices of their choice.
You know how hard it is to format-shift those DRM equipped AAC files in iTunes?
Congrats, you now have a standard audio CD. No DRM, plays in any machine that will play a CD. Feel free to rip it to MP3, OGG or anything else.
All PlayFair saves is $0.25 on a blank CD and about 5 minutes. If that's a serious problem for you, perhaps you should buy something else.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Having read "This Business of Music" Revised and expanded 8th edition By Krasilovski and Shemel, I feel I am qualified to set the record straight on copyright law. As the Law stands, (or stood at the time of the book's publising) all people involved in the creation of a work, be it a book, speech, Musical score, or recording, or Video content such as TV and Film, have equal rights as anyone else invloved in the production. In the case of the band I am with, I have equal rights to the copyright and any royalties, even though I am not a "Musician" (I am the Recording engineer, and I insure that levels are good, and without my contribution the recordings would sound lousy.) If, on the other hand, I was working at a professional studio, all clients (Bands and individual artists) would sign a contrack that establishes the studio as a contractor on a "Work for Hire" basis, and therefore, by default hold no power over the copyright, except anything explicitly spelled out in the contract. A common clause of this nature gives all employees of the studio who work directly for the band, (All the people in the control room) the right to use excerpts of the band's songs as a Demo Reel, or in promoting the studio as a whole. the point of the above was that "Record Labels" make musicians who are "Signed" give up full copyright control over their existing body of work, to the "Label" Lastly, Failure to take action against a known infringer is tantamount, according to the letter of the law, to willfully allowing the work to fall into the public domain. The ultimate point is this: The Judicial system needs to work out who holds the trump card. The Users: In other words "Fair Use is the trump that overrides all else" The DMCA: DMCA makes it illegal to break the DRM, and that is the end of it. Apple: The iTMS EULA is the trump and everything, even fair use must be carried out in accordance with the EULA and its DRM protections
Additional mirror: http://evilpen.net/playfair.tgz
[voice type="whiny"] i want a take down notice too, c'mon, please? [/voice]
Got plenty of upstream left...
Here's a list of hardware AAC players. There's a lot more of them that you think.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
A large part of what you're paying for when you buy songs from the iTMS is the payoff Apple has to give to the music industry just so they'll allow Apple to use such lax DRM.
I think that with any music I purchase online, I should be able to make multiple copies on multiple computers, my iPod, and so on. In a perfect world I'd be able to do that right now.
But realistically, what I'm paying for when I buy songs from the iTMS is convenience. I can find songs I want, listen to clips of songs I haven't heard, and satisfy my craving for some long-forgotten song in a matter of moments. I don't have to get in my car, drive to the store, and buy a full album just to hear the one song I actually want.
So the iTMS is giving me a totally new option. I'm paying for the convenience of a new shopping experience. Because I'm able to buy music in a fashion that suits my individual preferences (I've probably purchased more music from the iTMS in the last six months than I did at music stores in the last six years), I'm willing to make a compromise with Apple: You make it ludicrously easy for me to obtain, organize and manage my music, and I'll forgo full fair use in favor of limited DRM.
People who say that digital music shouldn't have DRM are right. But I'd argue that in this case, the medium truly is the message. Apple has come up with the first truly viable means of legally purchasing music online. When I started using the iTMS it radically changed my music purchasing and listening habits. So I ask myself, how is Apple screwing me?
In particular, how is Apple screwing me when I agreed to the terms of the contract, which are based on the fact that online distribution is quite different than physical distribution of music?
People talk about the music industry being unwilling to change, but at the same time they want more benefits from digital music without being willing to compromise in the slightest.
It sounds like a triumph of ideology over practicality to me.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
But to be fair to OSDN and Sourceforge, the Slashdot blurb linked to the wrong section of the Sourceforge policy. See instead this section on termination. Essentially, if they are required by law to disable an account or remove content, they will. I agree that they could have pushed back on a simple C&D letter and waited to get sued, but they didn't, and I don't think that's unreasonable given the way the DMCA works in the US.
I don't believe the DMCA is a good, just or constitutional law, and I believe that we are all justified in doing our fair share of civil disobedience against it. But the legal risk to a company here is pretty substantial, not like the mythical risk of standing up to the SCO bullies and their bullshit case - there is a real likelihood that FairPlay does violate the DMCA as it's worded even though the clearest purpose of it is to ensure continued rights to use of legally purchased material.
It's not semantics, it's very much a matter of use.
The reason shrinkwrap licenses like EULA's don't hold is because they are contracts provided after the purchase of the item in question. So you have no chance to back out of the contract before you pay money.
Since you have to agree to the iTunes Music Store terms before you pay money, the contract is quite binding.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
only a small handful of linux nerds had even heard of the thing,
False. DVD-Jon's warez palz had built a Windows-based GUI ripper program long before the Linux community was aware of the software.
The Windows Rip & Pirate community was up and running and distributing thousands of movies over P2P before Linux even got DVD filesystem support, much less a working player.
Who says it's illegal? I'm pretty sure that congress said that, back in October of 1998. Singing:
"(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof"
No, it hasn't yet been proven in court that PlayFair violates this, nor would it have to for linking to PlayFair to be illegal. I think it's obvious PlayFair is both A and B. The link is offering to the public the ability to download Playfair, which is both A and B. If it walks like a crime and talks like a crime, it's probably not okay to abet it. And that's my point.
Hey freaks: now you're ju