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Playfair Relocates to India
Lord Grey writes "Imagine my surprise to see playfair 0.5.0 appear on Freshmeat's project list. Remember, the project was pulled after Apple filed a Cease-and-Desist order just a few days ago. playfair's new web site talks a bit about the move, as well as sporting the latest release of the controversial utility."
Even our "Information Wants to be Free" activists are being outsourced to India!
This was the 2nd reader post from the original story of PlayFair being pulled. Why is this news?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
We'd you moderate as Troll -1, but Slashdot duties moderation were outsourced to India yesterday. The moderation pace will pick up again as soon as our staff English learns. Thank you. Please to come again.
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=103485&c id=8817454
No GNU has been Hurd during the making of this comment.
http://freenet.sf.net
This is one of the reasons to use Freenet. Projects should be moved there instead of just off shore to countries with less draconian (yet) laws.
Freenet won't allow realtime CVS checkins, but it'd be impossible to remove the software from it using legal means.
it's in my head
For once I don't agree with something like this and it's Playfair. Apple works with open source and even uses it in it operating system. They use the DRM to appease the recording companies. They were able and did negotiate the best possible license to download the music. They charge what they are charged per song ($.99). Granted they are no super nice guy and are still in for the profit, but they try and I have yet to find a time where I would need to strip out the DRM unless to share with the masses.
It's like picking a friends pocket.
Evolution or ID?
This was exactly the wrong thing to do.
Rather than working with Apple to try to resolve their differences, whomever is responsible for this little hack (the person or persons responsible refuse to attach their name to their work or their collateral) decided to just slip through what many perceive as a loophole in the law.
This does nothing to legitimize the hack or the idea behind it. Rather, it does just the opposite: it makes it clear to all interested parties that the person or persons behind this are more interested in finding ways to subvert the system than working within it to improve it.
Apple's support for "fair use" is obvious. They specifically added features to iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto that allow you to use purchased or ripped music in your own media projects, even if the tracks you want to use are protected by FairPlay.
Doing this kind of end-run around Apple, instead of working with them to come to a resolution, completely de-legitimizes the whole effort for me, and I'm sure for many others.
If you want to assume the moral high ground--"I don't believe the majority of the people who use my program will use it so that they can share their files on Kazaa."--then you'd damn well better stick to it, instead of cutting and running for the sewer at the first sign of trouble.
Dumb, dumb.
I write in my journal
I think this is a pretty good example of how silly laws like the DMCA only restrict commerce in their own country. If India shuts this project down, how many other places could this be hosted? Many.
How does that song from the Disney ride go again? Oh ya, "Its a small world after all..."
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Umm .. if people are using Fairplay to remove the DRM from their iTMS bought songs then guess which format they'll end up with: AAC.
Now imagine if those said people start distributing those AAC across the P2P networks. Guess which player is commonly associated with reading AAC files: iTunes.
Which may in turn drive those people to use iTMS for those songs they can't get off the networks. Now these people have all these AAC files, which device is commonly associated with AAC support: iPod.
So it seems like either way Apple wins ?
Funtage Factor: Purple
This comment discusses some of the issues of sending work to another country: It is successful? Is it successful over 20 years? Those who outsource to another country should not assume that the laws of another country are the same as the home country, as the PlayFair author demonstrates.
I agree with the PlayFair author: "I want to be able to play the music I buy wherever I want to play it without quality loss, since I PAID FOR that quality."
Treating everyone as dishonest because some people are dishonest is abusive.
Nevertheless, moving PlayFair to another country to escape the domination of the rich, government-corrupting interests in this country shows one of the issues of outsourcing.
For years people have been justifying the "illegal" copying of music with arguments such as "the cd is overpriced", "I don't want to pay $17 for one or two songs", etc. Now Apple comes out with a service that addresses many of these issues. They allow you to purchase just the songs you want for a decent cost. They have a flexible DRM policy (without which they wouldn't even be able to offer the service to begin with). Now guys like this come along and still insist on continuing the copying tradition. The excuses now get even thinner. Basically they have no moral leg to stand on.
Worst part is that this just adds fuel to the RIAA fire. They view all sharers as a bunch of crooks, and why not? Basically people are saying "We don't give a crap about copyright laws and your rights to have control over your content, oh, but do something against OUR policies (i.e. GPL) and we'll be first in line crying about "when are you going to release the source!! why are you taking advantage of the hard work of others for your own purposes".
I would hardly call Apple suing these guys a frivolous lawsuit. Unfortunately, because people lack moral character these days, Fairplay is a necessary evil. Apple doesn't want to use Fairplay, hell, they provide one of the most lenient DRM schemes. But the fact remains that Apple NEEDS Fairplay in order to continue to distribute music. Do you think the record labels would allow Apple to sell music through iTunes without DRM? Do you think the record labels may reconsider Apple's ability to sell music online as a result of Playfair? Apple essentially has to do something about PlayFair or risk losing the iTunes music store.
Besides, Apple already provides an acceptable (By most users and the record labels) method of removing the DRM... burn it to a CD. If you're vain enough to complain about the degradation in sound that results from ripping and re-encoding, you shouldn't be buying anything other than CDs, DVD-Audio, and SACDs.
Read Jobs interviews on this. Jobs predicted and expected this. From the way he talks about it I think that he believes that eventually the recording industry will be shown that it is useless to keep pursuing this "protection" of the music through technology. He has made it clear that he doesn't think it is going to succeed.
To be clear, he believes that iTunes, and stores like it. Will primarily succeed because they provide a better experience than P2P for a reasonable cost. The DRM is something that's in there only to appease the RIAA.
Remember, DRM is keeping control of a product after it is sold. It's like signing a contract that the seller can change at any time in a way that is bad for you and "good" for the seller.
See Zealots Attack for an excellent explanation about why PlayFair should be allowed, from the man who wrote the library PlayFair uses:
Zealots attack
I've been getting some emails from angry Mac zealots. Many of them start out similar to this: None of them explain how this is different and why GNU/Linux users should not be allowed to play legally bought music. Instead they go on to rave about how great iTMS is and that the imposed DRM is a good compromise. If they hadn't been completely clueless about copyright law, they'd know that Fair Use is the compromise. Some of them claim that this will lead to the RIAA imposing stricter DRM. Did they suddenly realize that it's the RIAA, and not Apple, which determines the rules for the iTMS DRM? When they complain about Microsoft's DRM used by other music stores, why do they think that it's Microsoft, and not the RIAA, which determines the DRM rules?
They have failed to understand that by buying into DRM they have given the seller complete control over the product after it's been sold. The RIAA can at any time change the DRM rules, and considering their history it's likely that they will when the majority of consumers have embraced DRM and non-DRM products have been phased out. Some DVDs today include commercials which can't be skipped using "sanctioned" players. If the RIAA forces Apple to include commercials, what excuses will the Mac zealots come up with? "It's a good compromise"?
Here's how one of the emails, from a guy in the UK who's working on his Ph.D, ends: Funny stuff. I just hope I have enough room in
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
I live in India and AFAIK apple has zero investment here (no call centers, never seen a Apple retailer here). Near zero percentage of Indians use Macs too.
Moreover, the sarovar website is hosted by Asianet, which is a leftleaning TV channel in a state with a history of communist governments (BTW communist is not a bad word here). So not only are they cool with the idea of community ownership of information they are also not to be messed with easily since they can very well publicise it.
Not saying that India has never censored information (pakistani news/TV is the most commonly banned), but its not very common either.
Just a quick question...
Has any group of people done any research into whether there is any watermarking or identification contained within the cleaned AAC files... ?
IE, two or more users buy the same song, use PlayFair to strip and clean the AAC, and then compare the resulting AAC files... is there any differences ?
I'll continue to purchase music from iTMS. I'll continue to use PlayFair. I'll continue to pay for my music and get the use out of it that I am entitled to.
For the last time, you are NOT entitled to play music purchased from iTMS anywhere or anyhow you want . If you don't like it, don't purchase your music there. But this is a clear violation of iTMS's terms of service and use. So if you use *Apple's* system then *they* get to set the rules. Don't like it? Fine. Buy music elsewhere where you like the rules, but don't go into their store and complain and break their rules!
If it is fair use for my ripped music, it should be fair use for my protected music as well. I don't understand the distinction.
So just because you don't understand it you're going to violate the terms of an agreement that you made when using their service? Good to know you're an honest and trustworthy individual. If you really cared about making a statement you wouldn't have agreed to the terms in the beginning. You're trying to have you cake and eat it too. Make up your mind.
The only law I'm breaking is the DMCA, and my karma (the karma that Jobs refers to) will be just fine, because the DMCA is a bad law that I'm convinced will eventually be struck down. To say that I have fair use of my music, but that I can't use the tools to get that fair use is to say that I don't have fair use at all.
You have no clue about civil disobedience. Moreover, it's individuals like yourself and most of the rest of slashdot apparently who are giving a bad name to those who are trying to change the laws.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
No, you would be buying records if you were a true audiophile
You *CRACK* tell *POP TSSS* them! Nothing "snap* beats *snap snap* the perfect pure *POP* sound of an LP.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Now Apple comes out with a service that addresses many of these issues.
Apple charges $1 per track for a lossily-compressed file.
That would be $11 for a typical Britney Spears CD, according to a quick look at a Britney Spears discography.
When the RIAA was bitterly complaining about piracy justified by "expense of CD", they put out a cost breakdown -- here's one of the news articles mentioning it.
Let's take a look at this:
Retail Markup is $6.23. Apple says that they're breaking even on iTune audio sales, and only making money on the iPod. Their server hardware and the software backend is a constant cost, and already sunk. Bandwidth is a couple of cents a gig -- let's be generous and say 20 cents/GB. Let's say each AAC is five megs -- that'd be 55 megs. That's about a penny in retail markup to cover those costs that Apple says they're only breaking even on. So far, the price should decrease by $6.22.
Company overhead, distribution and shipping is effectively nil, aside from constant-cost B2B negtiation. The price should decrease by another $3.34, in total $9.56.
Marketing and promotion costs. These should stay the same. Personally, I think that radio (and netradio) stations should be free to play whatever they want, sans royalties, since it's effectively nothing but marketing. But we'll leave the cost, $2.15, in place.
The artist and songwriter recieve $1.99. No decrease.
The signing act and producing record get $1.08. No decrease.
Co-op advertising and discounts to retailers don't really apply in the online world -- a banner ad on Apple's site when buying your music is of negligable bandwidth cost to Apple compared to the bandwidth cost of the audio file -- $.85 decrease.
Pressing album and printing booklet -- doesn't exist in the online world. $.75 decrease.
Profit to label -- $.59, stays the same.
Okay, let's do the math: $.59 + $1.08 + $1.99 + $2.15 + $.01 = 5.82. The price for that Britney Spears CD that used to cost $16 and Apple is selling for $11 should be $5.82 in the online world.
There are numerous other benefits to labels to online music purchases, including the fact that CD audio is lossless and Apple is selling lossy data that is likely to eventually be behind the times in compression algorithm, meaning resales sooner. Cheaper online purchases mean more sales -- and my numbers (unless, of course, the RIAA is lying about their costs and hiding additional profit in per-unit distribution costs or similar) mean that the RIAA makes *more* money in such a scenerio. Returns don't exist -- CDs can be defective, but a bunch of bits is the same bunch of bits when anyone obtains it. Unique per-copy watermarking is easy to do, and watermarking seems to make the RIAA absoutely giggle in delight, so they should like online sales.
Want lossless FLAC quality? It should require about five times the bandwidth -- it should be about four cents more in cost to Apple, or $5.86, for that Britney Spears album.
Now, a couple of assumptions here should probably change, to be realistic. First, the RIAA should probably expect to be making less per-unit, since there's simply less money involved. Second, most retailers aren't going to be happy with just breaking even, and probably are going to want more money (plus, I ignored constant costs, and big business is usually incapable of setting up any computer systems without flushing masses of money down the toilet -- even if data transfer costs should be the dominant expense for a company that makes money by selling data in an automated fashion). That album in lossless FLAC still shouldn't be costing more than $6, which is *half* what Apple charges and provides much better quality.
May we never see th
UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT: /--to the Internet?- --<-<No.. . |
A SLASHDOT FLOWCHART EXCLUSIVE
Start:
Did a corporation use Was the encryption--Y-->Did someone break
encryption to prevent-Y->in question the encryption and
their customers from pathetically weak? post source code
fairly using purchases? |
N-------N---<------<----N----<--+----<
| \ Y
N<------N----<---Did the corporation Did this new<--+
| use the DMCA in a<--Y-software enable
| Was the<--Y--failed attempt to fair use?
| corporation suppress the source
| Apple(tm)(R)? code as free speech?
| | |
| Yes +No-->Oh my God those assholes! It's time we put this source
|_ | code on a T-shirt! Time to contribute to the author's
\ / legal defense fund! Time to call our senator and tell
No big deal! him to repeal the evil, flawed DMCA! Time
Time to play "Quake!!!" to practice "civil disobedience!". Time
to write "distributed peer to peer"
corporate-subversion software! Time to call for a radical reform
of copyright laws! Time to decry Palladium(tm)(R) design and
distribution as a grand scheme to put us under the lock and key
of DRM! Time to raid DVD-Jon's jail cell with Dimitri as lead
commando! Time to hack Hillary Rosen's web site and deface statues
of Jack Valenti! Quick buy another 2600 T-Shirt!
By the way, wouldn't it be great if Devo was 99c a song?
God I still remember the HACKER MANIFESTO!!!!
This is the last place I expected to see such a widespread misunderstanding of the implications of what this program does.
It does the same DRM removal that iTunes does for you already.
In iTunes, you can burn tracks to CD. Then, you can rip them as unprotected tracks. There's a slight quality hit, but it's still equivalent to the original for purposes of copyright law. All PlayFair does for you above iTunes is save you a CD-RW, a few minutes, and the quality hit. You are left with a non-DRM track that is not substantially different from the PlayFair-stripped track. The copyright violation occurs if you distribute the track to those not licensed to have it.
<RANT>
I'm amazed that any slashdotters at all are willing to put up with any sort of DRM, even the relatively friendly Apple version. It's reasonable for the copyright holder to expect me not to distribute it, but restricting my ability in any way to listen to it on all my computers is ludicrous.
My experience in college radio has shown me that RIAA labels are slimy bastards. I'm not willing to give up rights so they can apply an overzealous solution to a "problem" that might not actually exist. Even if all labels ceased to exist tomorrow, we'd all still be alive, folks.
</RANT>
Maybe I'm smoking crack on this one; would someone care to correct me?
"So using Apple's supplied tools to burn a CD, the DRM can be removed. By using playfair, the DRM can be removed. Why is one bad and one not?"
How dare you bring logic into a discussion where Apple is involved?
Now before I get modded Troll let me make a point. I've been reading Slashdot daily for a long long time. In that time we've seen a of programs that do emulation, reserve engineering, etc etc that in the end are applauded for empowering consumers. Over the years I have NEVER seen an outburst like this over something so natural to the computing and electronics world.
Let's go back to the original IBM bios being "cracked". This ushered in a whole new generation of cheaper "clones" and brought affordable computing to the mainstream. Look at Samba, look at DeCSS, look GAIM, look at Novell DOS, look at WINE, look at any of a billion pieces of software or hardware which let people use products in ways not forseen are authorized by the product manufacturers.
Now just because its Apple suddenly we are talking about how a "Criminal" "cracked" Apple's DRM and how we are all a bunch of assholes for not supporting Apple's commercial venture. Sorry but this is just like every article on Slashdot where Apple gets mentioned. Apple users come out in droves to support whatever Apple sells no matter what the story is about. These people are actually defending the DMCA for Christ's sake when you just know that if it were somthing that didn't affect Apple but they pesonally found useful they'd be cheering it on.
This is fanboyism at its worst. I'm sick and tired of reading posts from people who benefit from reverse engineering every single day yet don't even give it a second thought. Like the parent said. WTF is the difference between burning to CD and then ripping as opposed to just ripping? The end result is the same, a nonDRM file. Apple still got paid and you Itunes users seem to think this method for circumventing DRM is just dandy. Why are people who skipped the burning to cd part criminals? Oh I get it, they didn't work within the "Apple approved framework" and we should all be obeying the DMCA when it involves Apple. Hypocrites.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch