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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.
By trying to sue something off the Internet, you only ensure its wider propagation and interest among people who otherwise wouldn't have cared. I'll be sharing a tarball on eMule immediately. Come and sue everybody, Apple.
Apple created a piece of software that doesn't allow people to play the music their paid for on the devices of their choice.
What this program is is not circumvention... It's fair use.
It's that time again... Seems like people would eventually get the point that programs are free speech. I can't wait to see the poems and prime numbers that get produced for this (remniscent of DeCSS).
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
First, iTunes Music Store is by far the most successful online music store. Good prices, great selection (sounds like a damn commercial doesn't it?).
I'm very pleased with it. I get ALL my purchased music from it.
This "playfair" project is just going to have the recording industry folks who reluctantly agreed to go in with Apple and distribute their music get scared and pissed off. They're going to pull their music and/or the prices are going to go up in fear of piracy.
It can not only hurt Apple, but also hurt online music sales as a whole.
Its nice to see the people bitching about the $20 CD's ruining the $10 online albums.
Its not good enough until its free right? GIVE ME A BREAK!
Get paid to code OSS
Indeed. I'm also counting the days until this shares a similar fate.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Why must people insist on going around the system!??!?! .99 cents and burning it anyway they want!?!??!
.99 cents is SOOOO cheap!!!
Why can't people be content in buying music at
This isn't a "Unconditional Surrender" here...There has to be some rules....
I just can't understand this,
It's not like your paying $50 bucks for a game!!!
Somewhere down the line something has to break....
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
I can only conclude that OSDN are either lazy, scared of Apple, or have interests in Apple. None of these are good things.
Unfortunately, I am not a lawyer, nor do I have the disposable income to pay for one.
However, this looks to me like a(nother) possible test case of the DMCA.
What makes this case attractive is that, to my understanding, PlayFair works WITHIN the accepted norms of society for copyright law (if you don't have a key from iTunes showing you bought the song, it won't convert the audio).
It is a law that is OUTSIDE the accepted norms of society that is causing the problem here.
I googled EFF.org for "playfair" and didn't have any returns of relevance.
Is the EFF involved in this case, or are they even aware of it?
- Neil Wehneman
P.S. I've mentioned this in previous posts, but I'll mention it again here because it's relevant.
Dr. Larry Lessig, who argued "our side" in Eldred v. Ashcroft, has put up his new book Free Culture under a Creative Commons license. Noncommercial redistribution with attribution is freely allowed.
Download the PDF or buy it and support Creative Commons in the process.
My legal education, in nifty podcast format
Give me a break, you speak as if they have a reasonable alternative. If Apple doesn't go after these people, you know that the recording industry is going to throw a conniption fit.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Apple didn't 'play fair' in '84, if they had, the world might be running on Macintosh today. Jobs always tries to cut out any 3rd parties. The first thing he did when he returned as 'interim' CEO was to buy up all the really good 3rd party Macintosh computer makers like Power Computing and Motorola. The entire point of iTunes, the entire reason they are suffering the losses they are, is that every customer that purchases even one song from them must have either Apple licensed software or hardware to 'play fair' with the DRM.
...not quite. When you bought your music from the iTMS, you already knew that you would only be allowed to play it within iTunes or on your iPod.
That's it.
If you want to play it on a different device, there are many other sources for your music, including buying a CD and ripping it into whatever format your heart desires.
Whether you agree that "information should be free" or not is irrelevant. By purchasing your music from iTMS, you agreed to Apple's restrictions.
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
I honestly don't know, but I would imagine that Apple is concerned about this not because they want to make sure everything stays locked up for the sake of being locked up, but probably because they don't want the RIAA to yank their licenses and cause all of the iTMS to come crashing down.
Sure, you can make all the standard black helicopter and tinfoil hat jokes, but I really don't see how Apple would care about this, save the ramifications for keeping an amicable relationship with the RIAA pigopolists.
While the DMCA is a horrible piece of legislation, a business would not be doing their shareholders a favor if they didn't use it to protect their business. This is a standard move, everyone saw it coming; and to say that it is a dumb mistake is a bit myopic.
To do nothing would be a bigger mistake for Apple, for entirely different reasons.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
i think it's more of a symbolic move. apple/jobs probably knows better than to think c&d will remove this program from existence.
but at least taking a public stance against it, they can appease the record labels...
This is purely a business move by apple. They're DRM is pretty light. Everyone has known that you can burn a cd then rip it back. Even easier you can record anything going to the speaker as an mp3 using some freely available software.
Jobs is quoted as saying the his PHds said you can't make a DRM that stops piracy completely.
However apple needs music to resell. To allow software the strips the DRM would likely irk those big music companies that sell apple the songs it needs to sell. And with other DRMed formats apple probably needed DRM to open the store in the first place.
Thus begins the stampede of technological innovation to environments where freedom is celebrated, rather than crushed.
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
Consider this.
Apple's 128kbps AAC's quality is very good, about the same as a 192kbps mp3. You can burn AAC to CD - that's allowed by the iTunes DRM scheme with no problems.
The AAC -> CD data conversion has no quality loss associated with it. The data, on the CD, is sonically identical to how you bought it from Apple.
If people rip commercial CDs to OGG (or any other format) without complaining about quality loss, I don't see how it's anything but hypocrisy to say that converting from AAC -> CD -> OGG/whatever is some kind of huge hindrance to their fair use. There's only one loss of quality, which is tiny, in that chain of events, and it happens EVERYWHERE else you convert CD data to a compressed music format.
Where is this mysterious and show-stopping quality loss happening?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Huh? The policy linked to speaks of copyright violation. Was the code stolen? If not, I fail to see the reasoning.
It simply allowed fair use- it couldn't be used to unlock songs you didn't already own, right?
What about programs which are almost exclusively used for illegal activity, ie, copyright infringement? Like, say, emule? Or BitTorrent? Or any of dozens of gnutella clones? None of which require you to own a copy of anything?
One can argue that all these p2p clients CAN be used for perfectly legal purposes. The same argument applies to PlayFair, if not more so because it required ownership in the first place.
Please help metamoderate.
I'd like to think that Apple is doing this reluctantly, but they've used the threat of litigation against individuals and small organizations too many times in the past to give them the benefit of the doubt. They're like a smaller version of Microsoft--just as evil, but with style and with better PR.
Apple is mearly defending there copy protection mechinism(sp), most likly a requirment in the sea of contracts that Apple has with the RIAA and its affiliats, though I do not agree with using the C&D with the DMCA instead of a normal C&D. You must remember that Apples DRM is is the most liberal out there, allowing you to burn multiple CD's (which can still be ripped into MP3's) and transfer AAC Files to a back up and restore.
I don't see this as any type of strong arm tactic by Apple to "put the little guy down" just protecting an updated bussiness model. Without ITMS no more iPod sales, which means no more street muggings (maybe this is a good dthing after all)
Ahh.. The mind what a wonderful trap!
"Now that Apple has publicly sided against freedom"
Since when is Apple protecting their and others' copywrited works that they DID NOT RELEASE AS FREE (as in speech) SOFTWARE siding against freedom?
Maybe you can explain that, as I don't understand.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I can't wait to read all the apologist crap that's about to be posted here. Let the McFanboy fest begin.
Being free (as in beer or as in speech) doesn't exclude you from being prosecuted if breaking the law. Don't like DMCA? Go lobby your congressman.
If Apple didn't go and prosecute and strong-arm the "little guys" that illegaly (see above) damage its business, it would be a stupid move and be perceived in future lawsuits as "having no interest in protecting its trademarks, etc.".
Apple is only protecting its interests, damaged by people that are acting against the law... how exactly is that "behaving like Microsoft"? I would call that "behaving smartly".
<sarcasm> If some "little guy" mugs you in the street or strips your house bare, it should be your duty to report to the police, however futile. Poverty in the world? Go lobby your congressman. </sarcasm>
Looks like you might be able to still donate to this project here. Could help them cover some court fees?
I would never use this because of that fact. I bought my music at iTunes because the agreement is reasonable to me. I have burnt my songs to CD to play in my vehicle, and I have copies on my laptop and iPod. I'm satisfied, that my needs were met. If this is unreasonble to you, don't buy it. The people who use this software are trying to change the agreement after the fact, to suit them. Personally I think the price is about $0.49 too high, but the DRM restrictions are in no way unreasonable to me. If I thought otherwise, my money would go elesewhere.
This "crack" would not have cost Apple one cent (okay 99) in lost downloads.
So someone could distribute high quality AAC files stripped of DRM. So what? There are already plenty of high-quality mp3, ogg and various other audio format rips of cds on p2p. There are also tons of fakes, radio rips, decoys, trojans, and just plain crappy rips floating on these networks as well. There is nothing stopping anyone from taking a fake or crappy mp3 rip and re-encoding it as aac and distributing it via p2p.
The people that shop at itunes are not going to stop because there are now some additional aac files available on p2p. People that shop iTunes do so because of the user experience. You know you will get a fast, high quality download from iTunes. You can't be sure with P2P until you've downed the file and listened to the whole thing.
On the other hand, increasing the price of downloads and/or forced bundling will cause iTunes sales to drop.
This is a really interesting comment. You're drawing a comparison between the people who wrote the GPL and the people who wrote the iTMS contract, which is not something I've seen before.
But it makes sense. Whether you're drawing a contract to protect intellectual property or protect *distribution* of intellectual property, in either case you are deliberately writing a contract that protects some actions and prohibits other actions.
The GPL was developed based on the notion that software is essentially a form of speech, and so should be free. In order to protect this freedom, the GPL dictates that modifications to GPLed software must also be made under the GPL.
The iTMS contract was developed based on the notion that in order for digital music to prosper, there must be limits on how widely a given purchased download can be distributed, so that the music's copyright holders can make a return on their investment. Without the profit motive for the copyright holders, the music won't be put on the iTMS, and Apple won't be making money.
In both cases, restrictions are placed in the license to further the end goal. Attempts to circumvent the license by definition negate the end goal. If the GPL were repeatedly circumvented, the *implementation* of Free Software would be crippled as well. The same is true of the iTMS.
You can't expect that if you change the rules of the game so you can enjoy benefits beyond those you agreed to at the time of purchase, Apple is somehow going to continue to provide the very tools that you hacked. This is quite similar to what would happen if Microsoft took all of the GNU tools, changed them slightly, and released their own Free Windows OS. Everyone on Slashdot would be crying bloody murder, because the value of GPLed software would be denigrated by Microsoft's circumventing of the GPL contract.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Physical barriers also stand in the way of lossless tracks. Simply put... downloading everything as a .wav file would mean multi-hour downloads even on broadband. Even the first digital file captured contails some loss from the analog audio that was available at the studio.
So lossless is a myth. You've gotta pick the point that's "good enough for most consumers' ears" somewhere.
Besides, its not only the RIAA members who want DRM on their tracks. You don't see any of the indie labels on iTMS demanding that Apple use non-DRMed AACs for them.
Well, Apple (along with others), have granted you your request... tracks off an album you can legally purchase and download without spending $10+ on a CD. But what do some thieves do anyway? They go ahead and download it for free anyway, going around the protections made by the owners and original distributors of the content.
Perhaps you don't remember, it was posted all of yesterday, but one of the provisions of PlayFair was that to unlock the DRM restrictions, you needed... gasp... a valid purchase receipt/registration/what have you.
In other words, I couldn't grab a random file and apply PlayFair to it... I could ONLY use it with files that *I* had purchased.
This is not thievery... it is merely removing the "burn to CD, rip to DRM-unencumbered OGG Vorbis/MP3/insert favorite file type here" step from the process of going from a DRM-encumbered file from Apple to a DRM-unencumbered file in the format of my choosing.
This is not thievery because it requires that I have PAID FOR THE MUSIC IN THE FIRST PLACE. This is simply a tool to allow shifting of a file from one format to another of my choice... a right which, in the US, is a right courts have said is derived from Fair Use Rights which are in turn the First Amendment of the Constitution. I have every right - at least in the US - to do this without being called a "thief."
--AC
Should the project managers file a counterclaim, the project could be restored.
Uhh, I doubt it. This is about the most clear-cut case of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions applying you could get. The only way this could be declared unworkable is if the DMCA was struck down. Given, striking down the DMCA is only a matter of time, and it needs to happen. But if you're trying to find an optimal case on which to challenge the DMCA, this certainly isn't it.
The EFF failed to challenge their lower-court losses over DeCSS because they believed they would not have a higher court's sympathy when defending a group named "2600.com", and they needed to wait for a more opportune small case that could be used to set precedent. I'm not so sure this was a good idea. But in any case, this would be even worse.
With DeCSS, there was at least overwhelming public sympathy, and the intent of the opposition was clear; you were fighting the DVD consortium and MPAA directly, and they were clearly moneygrubbing oligopolists trying to price-fix between countries and take rights consumers had had for years (like copying vhs tapes) and remove them through a law they personally bought. Whereas Apple has created something new, and is giving their users at least a modicum of ability to exercise fair use. The application of the DMCA is still unjust, and DRM is still an idiotic concept, but framing Apple as a villan in this would be really difficult, especially when far more clear abuses of the DMCA are still going on.
I do wonder, though, why the EFF seems totally disinterested in challenging the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. It seemed like DVDxCopy made a great test case, and the bullshit with the lexmark print drivers made an even better one. Have they just given up?
(P.S.: If I am not mistaken, isn't this the first time Apple has ever invoked the DMCA? There was that one time that someone was doing something wierd involving allowing iDVD to work on a different OS version, and Apple asked them to stop, and they did and went and complained to the press and made some cryptic comments about the DMCA, yet from what was seen of apple legal's correspondence with them there didn't actually appear to be any DMCA invocation. Hm.. oh well.)
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
4645fa4753a3fb50521fa8750e9932a2
And we are to believe you're not Saint Aardvark posting a compromised checksum because . . . ? Paranoia is fun! :-)
I've written my Congressman on the appealation of the DMCA, I've gone to open forum talks and brought the subject up, so don't talk to me about bellyaching.
I've done my part in promoting fair use in as much as I can. I'm anti DMCA, just as a good SlashThinker should be.
Using the software that Apple provides means you agree to the terms that usage provides. Don't like it, don't use it, but SURE AS HELL don't ruin it for people who agree with it and accept it in it's current form because you can't play it on every device you own.
Find an alternative, but don't ruin what I find is the fairest, most reasonable DRM to exist on the market.
There is a GPL comparison found later in this discussion which I love completely, and will reiterate here.
What would be said by the OSS community if someone decided they were going to use GPL'd software outside of it's license "because they didn't agree with it," but still wanted the benefit of using it. You'd all be up in arms. I'd be up in arms.
I think I've made my point.
Can you ping me now? Gooood! | Manhappenin.Net - Things to do
They are not illegal if you live outside the US.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The MPAA tries to use the DMCA to suppress source code as free speech, spawns a million Slashdot stories and a T-shirt, and the concept of the "digital crowbar" is born. They're suppressing fair use! We can't excerpt or time-shift!
Apple tries to use the DMCA to suppress source code as free speech, a million Slashdot users get in line to support their right to do it because hey, "They're Apple!!".
Maybe Jack Valenti was right after all - it's all about who you know.
Now get in line and drink the cool-aid.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
So, can anyone tell me why it is that it's "fair use" for "us" to disregard a companies copyrights but it's not okay for a company to disregard our copyrights?
Did I miss a memo or what?
Or are we all just a bunch of hypocrites?
Ah, the "Land of the Free".
And the one thing that tops it? International WIPO treaties, like the recently posted 'Broadcast Flag' story.
To the greedy fat cats of the world: Fuck you.
To the Americans: Fuck you for letting the fat cats run the place, from top to bottom. Funny how the 'less democratic' nations of the free world aren't the ones drafting the most draconian laws.
In a hundred years, assuming we're still here, textbooks will speak of how the Media and Money were the ultimate downfall of democracy. Democracy isn't supposed to be true freedom, nor truly representative of the 'will of the people'. To think the rest of the world looked at the US Constitution with envy and emulated it, only to see it ignored by corruption and ignorance.
The parent has a good point. Apple should have looked at the example set by deCSS.
/. article alone. And more are coming. And no doubt that work on PlayFair will continue, with much-increased enthusiasm once it is hosted somewhere outside US borders.
Before the MPAA started harassing "DVD-Jon" and DMCA-ing everyone who so much as mentioned the name deCSS in public; only a small handful of linux nerds had even heard of the thing, much less built and compiled it into media players for their own machines. No big deal. It was just a toy for extreme hobbyists.
After the MPAA tried to take deCSS out, every self-righteous geek on the 'net made sure to get a copy. And many of them made it their mission to spread it further, and more mirrors than I could guess popped up. Somewhere *I* still have a copy of deCSS embedded into a webpage banner in some way that I don't even remember how to extract it.
So what was PlayFair before Apple DMCA'd sourceforge? Another cute toy that was only of any use to someone who had already BOUGHT the song from ITMS in the first place. It's not like anybody hacked a backdoor into ITMS itself and made the entire library free to the 'net. Now, there are half a dozen mirrors in this
It reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote.... about how while humans are unique in being the only species capable of learning from the mistakes of others, we are remarkably disinclined to actually do so.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
2. I think $0.99 is a fair price, too. I just (a) philosophically disagree with DRM and (b) want to be able to play the songs that I have legally purchased outside of iTunes / Quicktime.
It's in their terms of service, and is a contract/license that is fully enforceable - while click throughs are arguable, payment definitely constitutes agreement. By this logic, he doesn't really care about the GPL or any agreement that isn't convenient to his personal whims.
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.
No, posting a link to something that Apple thinks might be illegal in the USA but proably just allows fair use is +2 informative. Big difference there.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Now, as you can see, Apple has gone out of their way to make it possible to convert from protected iTMS files in QuickTime-using programs to whatever other format (if you're licensed to play them, of course). About a dozen lines of code, and I haven't even start obfuscating it. In fact, if you install the Ogg Vorbis component for QuickTime, you can even replace the kQTFileTypeWave with 'OggS', and have a quick M4P->Ogg setup. You are, in fact licensed to do this. You can also use this ability to put M4P files in iMovie projects, or for iPhoto slideshows, or whatever. The CVS version of SlimServer, the software for the SlimMP3 and SqueezeBox even has support for playing M4P files. Legally. Functionally. Now, someone decided that this wasn't enough. Why? The only likely explanation is that they wanted to be able to trade with other people. Any other use (fair format shifting) is considerably more easily accomplished with already extant tools.
I wonder if corporate america is ever going to figure out that you can't (ever, ever, period) remove something from the Internet....
You make the same mistake most non-Americans make in assuming that everyone in America thinks with a like mind. This is very much not so; our fascist president just doesn't like to let anyone hear opposing opinions. The "fat cats" rig the elections; the media doesn't like to report on stories of election fraud, which is actually pretty rampant in America, because it undermines our belief in democracy.
Oh, and of all the people the American government fucks over, none does it fuck over more than its own people. I gotta pay taxes so they can line the pockets of corporations like Halliburton and Lockheed while not getting decent government services that most other industrialized nations have such as health care and breathable air. Any single European women out there who wanna get hitched?
But, if Apple (and this applies to Adobe too) was truly interested in "protecting" what is theirs, they'd implement their ideas in a more unbreakable fashion.
Oh, come on! If you understand why the DMCA is so bad, you certainly realize that nothing can be made "unbreakable", and further, that the harder you try to lock something down, the more you invite (and even force) people to try to break it.
Indeed, Apple seemed to have realized this in their DRM implementation, imposing such lax restrictions that fewer people need or want to circumvent it. I doubt it would have taken this long for a tool like this come out if FairPlay were more restrictive. (Barring, for this discussion, the proof-of-concept implementations like DVD Jon's and VLC's undocumented support, neither of which produced a usable file alone.)
I was on the verge of buying my first Mac because of OSX, but you know, it's hard to financially support a company that does this kind of shit.
I suppose you also don't pay taxes to the government that created the DMCA in the first place?
When the DMCA gets repealed, what are you going to do Apple? Hire thugs instead to find software authors, and deal with it that way??
That's rediculous. However fucked up it may be, the DMCA is law, and Apple's has a legal right to do what it's doing. To suggest that their willingness to do something legal (though deplorable to some) means that they'd be equally likely to do something illegal, like hire violent thugs, is misleading hyperbole.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
If you object to a contract, don't agree to it. Period. This isn't an agreement you're forced into if you want food, water, or your life. It's a service with specific terms for a product you can get elsewhere if you disagree with the terms.
Between adoption and surrogate mothers a contract involving 'firstborn son' isn't as flippant as you might think. Moral arguments generally complicate the legal issues in the 'I want my baby back' cases, but they aren't generally thrown out simply on the grounds that they can't contract their children away. While it's almost obvious a contract can't legally require an illegal act, there's no reason it can't include something you'd philosophically find offensive.
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.
Burning and reripping is time-consuming and wasteful; the right software can eliminate the waste and some of the time, but even that is flirting with the DMCA. Also, iTMS files represent a minimum acceptable level of quality to some people; settling for 128 Kbps AAC doesn't imply a total lack of standards.
Hey, I simply said Fuck You America, for letting it get the way it is. I never assumed you all think of a like-mind, thought I suppose the 'will of the people' line I threw in could could cause confusion. Should have put 'will of the ignorant majority.'
And that's what it's all about, the ignorant majority, watching CNN and Fox News, consuming like good little automotons.
I said 'Fuck you Americans' because at some point, enough people just rolled over and let this whole thing go down. Your two parties are corrupt, owned by the same fat cats. Your media perpetuates the concept of 'throwing a vote away' on a third party. Outright fraud (see: disenfranchising, gerrymandering) is overlooked enirely.
Of course, being a 'radical' only means you're marginalized or outright ignored. You aren't allowed to say both parties suck, or that the whole system sucks, because then noone hears anything you say, just blindly believes you're some kind of anarchist. Hell, even political activism is frowned upon these days (see: 'Tree hugging hippie bullshit' or the general lack of respect that anyone has for any form of protestors, especially when a small number of radicals ruin the message with rioting/looting)
Bah. I've said this all before. I'm preaching to the choir. Jerking it with the rest of you. Boo-fuckin-urns.
Such as where? If there was alternate service, you may have a point. Is there?
Um... a CD, perhaps? We're talking about obtaining music to listen to and use as he sees fit. All iTunes offers are DRM-tied AAC files, which obviously isn't what he wanted. He wanted the price, but not the terms, which is a breach of contract* by any definition.
* Yes, I'm still making the leap that authorizing payment implies agreement with the Terms of Service and therefore a contractual agreement. It's the same legally as when you buy something off the 'Final Sale - no return' rack. Or buying anything at Best Buy agrees to their Return restrictions that are printed on the wall. Maybe even more so, since you could reasonably claim you didn't see them if you have bad vision and the sales person mentioned them.
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.
However fucked up it may be, the DMCA is law, and Apple's has a legal right to do what it's doing.
I would like to point out that not only does Apple have a legal right to do this, but as the parent of the parent inferred but did not state explicitly, they have a legal responsibility to the shareholders to do this! The executives of the company can be held legally and financially responsible for not acting in the shareholder's interest if they do not do everything possible to protect their businesses interests.
It's not Apple that's screwed up, it's the (legal|economic) system. Start writing your Congresspeople and helping the campaigns of those who would improve the system.
Free yourself. Everything else will follow.
If you object to a contract, don't agree to it. Period.
Why not? If I buy a CD that clearly says on the outside "By buying this, you agree not to make any copies, even a backup" - I have no problem buying it and making a backup. If they find out and want to take me to court, I believe they'll find that my actions are well within the confines of fair use. Now I both have the item I wanted, and I have successfully evaded their the terms of their "contract".
In other words, if you don't agree to the terms of the contract, there are plenty of other ways to register your disagreement without denying yourself the use of the product/service.
In any case, there is *still* a difference between disagreeing legally and philosophically. I may agree that the 99 cents is worth the terms they've offered, but still disagree that those terms "make the world a better place", and work to undermine their usefulness. These aren't mutually exclusive.
Not only that - the terms may not be legal in all areas of the world, in which case it's quite legal to agree to the terms and simply ignore them.
Last post!
When will people learn that just because something is against the law it doesn't mean that it's wrong, or that the LAW is right?
/rant
The DMCA and DRM are ALREADY violations of other laws. You have the RIGHT to copy the content you buy onto another medium. It's not a philosophical point by any stretch of the imagination. You simply may not DISTRIBUTE it.
Playfair (get the name right, some of you...) simply allows you to backup the content you have already PAID for. This is your RIGHT.
Stop listening to Lars Ulrich. He's a shithead, and here's why:
1. Metallica got famous by precisely what they are bitching about. No radio play, no major promotion. How else were people going to hear it? That's very simple: those who had heard them and liked it made copies and gave them to their friends. Lars & co. seem to be forgetting their roots.
2. No musician works for the money. You do it because you love to do it. If you get paid, great, but that's secondary. Don't pull this 'that's their job' crap, they like the money because it means they don't have to get a job.
I've been a musician since I was 13. I'm 30 now. I've got 17 years worth of this under my belt. Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.
This whole situation started with Mr. Ulrich finding out you could get a song for free from Napster. Before that, no one knew or worried about the RIAA, the DMCA or DRM.
Thanks, Lars. Thanks, asshole. Remember why I tossed my Metallica CDs, remember why I turn the station when their crap comes on, and remember that I'm just one more fan you don't have anymore.
Because of people like him, now programmers looking to exercise their *rights* must go OUTSIDE of the US to do so!!
So, then, I personally find the GPL offensive, and believe that it actively makes the world a worse place. What do you recommend that I do to undermine it?
> In other words, if you don't agree to the terms of the contract, there are plenty of other ways to register your disagreement
> without denying yourself the use of the product/service.
That is to say, 'I am the ultimate arbiter of what is fair and right, as long as I'm pretty sure I won't get caught at it.'
> Not only that - the terms may not be legal in all areas of the world, in which case it's quite legal to agree to the terms and
> simply ignore them.
I am assuming that you mean it's quite legal to agree to the terms and ignore them IF you are in a place where they aren't legal. However, even this is not the case, as anyone with a smattering of knowledge of international contract law could tell you. Otherwise you'd never end up with contracts between two countries at all.
Oops. Time for me to leave for the day. Sorry, more enlightenment tomorrow.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
The OSS thing was a reference to some of your other hopelessly ivory tower posts.
What the fuck are you talking about? Yes, I do indeed support OSS, and contribute to OSS projects, but I am certainly not an OSS zealot by any means.
Meh, whatever. You just really came off as an asshole, so I responded in kind.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden