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Free iTunes Over a Browser

Ade writes "One may now listen and search for Apple iTunes music via this front end or any webserver running the perl script called iTMS-4-ALL, which was written by Jason Rohrer, programmer of the secure filesharing system MUTE who hopes the script 'helps revive everyone's ITMS interfaces.' Music activists Downhill Battle, who organised the Grey Tuesday protests for disseminating censored music, run a copy of the script and say 'this is a cute tool, but it has the potential to become a powerful weapon to fight the major record label monopoly' in the ways they outline. Playing the music requires QuickTime for the ~600kb downloadable MP4 snippets to be heard." Update: 04/19 01:41 GMT by H : Thanks to Aaron at Punboy for sending us a link to a faster server.

27 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading. by TitusC3v5 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Misleading title. This front end merely lets you listen to the samples, not actually download/listen to the actual purchased songs.

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    1. Re:Misleading. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The other important part required for a full iTunes client is an implementation of FairPlay. FairPlay was reverse engineered back in January by DVD-Jon, and an Open Source implementation is available in VideoLAN CVS.

      It's the same code which is being used by the m4p2mp4 and playfair decryption tools.

    2. Re:Misleading. by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 1, Informative

      Is it still called "reverse engineering" when the protocol specification has been public for nearly a year?

      It's called DAAP, and it was hardly a secret.

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    3. Re:Misleading. by Abjifyicious · · Score: 5, Informative
      DAAP is the protocol used for the LAN sharing feature of iTunes. The music store has nothing to do with it.

      In a sense though, this isn't completely new. The search interface was hacked long ago, so Apple added some encryption stuff to lock out non-iTunes clients. All that's been hacked is the encryption key.

    4. Re:Misleading. by prockcore · · Score: 5, Informative

      And now I'm wondering how long it will take before the protocol will be changed slightly to lock out this program...

      I'm the one who discovered the AES key, it took me about 4 hours. Now that I know where to look, even if they change it, it won't take long to get the new key.

      So the question is, how often does Apple want to break older versions of iTunes and force everyone to upgrade? The other question is, why would Apple want to do that in the first place?

  2. Re:Fantastic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    This doesn't help you steal music. RTFA RTFA RTFA kthx.

  3. Re:Fantastic by Proud+like+a+god · · Score: 3, Informative

    RTFA, this is nothing about illegally downloading copies of the iTunes songs.

  4. Well... by Momo_CCCP · · Score: 4, Informative

    you can use vlc instead of quicktime if you use an OSS system. Now the ITMS itself is going to be slashdotted, whoops...

  5. Re:should have done this by dr.badass · · Score: 5, Informative

    why didn't apple make itunes work with any browser to begin with?

    Because they were going for seamless integration with iTunes the app and the iPod. What good would it be to use a browser interface be if you had to use iTunes to play the music anyway?

    It may seem like a nice idea to use a web browser interface, but it would completely shatter the sense of integration that they were going for, and succeeded at.

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  6. Re:This could be.... by spoonboy42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Linux/BSD users already can listen to and download music shared over iTunes using TunesBrowser. The project is rather young, so a do-it-yourself compile is necessary, but it does present a very nice, clean GUI interface to iTunes shares.

    (Incidentally, if you'd RTFA, your would notice that this project actually allows you to browse samples from the iTMS store, and has nothing to do with network song sharing.)

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  7. Re:This could be.... by dr.badass · · Score: 4, Informative

    ....the first step in allowing us linux and BSD users to listen to iTunes shared music. While we can share music (and its well documented) we cannot, to the best of my knowledge, listen to others music without using iTunes. Perhaps if this is doable, somebody can make a hack to allow us to listen to shared music?

    It's already been done. Personally, I don't know how well it works, but it sounds promising. IIRC, the Rhythmbox (iTunes clone for GNOME) guys are planning on including it when it's "ready".

    (The hack in this article is unrelated to iTunes' sharing.)

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  8. Winamp Plays DRM'ed MP4s Just Fine by lotsofno · · Score: 5, Informative
    Playing the music requires Apple Quicktime for the ~600kb downloadable MP4 snippets to be heard.
    Actually, using an easy to install plug-in, you can listen to iTMS' proprietary DRM'ed AAC tracks in Winamp, easy.
    1. Re:Winamp Plays DRM'ed MP4s Just Fine by danhm · · Score: 2, Informative

      Media Player Classic and 3ivx work too.

  9. DMCA by dachshund · · Score: 2, Informative

    Haven't looked at the script, but I know that some iTunes pages are HTTP/SSL encrypted with a fixed AES key. If this script requires those pages, it must be "circumventing" that encryption, hence DMCA problems. Of course, it's possible that they're not using encrypted pages...

    1. Re:DMCA by polyp2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

      This might be exempt though, isnt there some clause in the law that states that circumventing is not illegal if it is permitting use on an unsupported platform?

      In anycase it looks like apple are providing the tools to generate similar information anyway.

      (itms link maker)
      http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearc h.woa/wa /itmsLinkMaker

      (itms rms feed)
      http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch .woa/wo /4.1

      I cant see Apple being particularly pissed off about this since

      a) it gives them more exposure
      and
      b) they are already providing the information and tools (what could be more useful than an rss feed?) to make it possible to use the itms database in other applications.

      nick ...

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    2. Re:DMCA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Leaked? They key's transmitted in the data stream. They key wasn't "leaked," and no one "stole" it.

  10. Re:Bad Interface by DaHat · · Score: 4, Informative

    I believe that you have forgotten about another free iTunes client, one which has an amazing front end, flawless iPod integration, it even lets you purchase music from the iTunes Music Store... it's name: iTunes. Not all free things are bad, nor would I hope anyone be stupid enough to say that... iTunes is great! This web based system that this story refers to... isn't too good IMO. But then, I own an iPod and have no problem using iTunes, in fact, because of it I no longer use Winamp.

  11. Re:should have done this by frodo+from+middle+ea · · Score: 2, Informative
    Umm, because some people still haven't upgraded to Win 2000 or XP.

    I run linux, but have kept a Windows ME , still installed on my PC, for certain Windows only applications. But I can't use itunes on it too.

    WTF , how difficult is it to provide a linux or Windows 98/ME , application ?

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  12. Re:Probably won't last long by nathanh · · Score: 2, Informative
    It's this zero-tolerance attitude that will cement hardware DRM's inevitability. Apple tried to meet customers halfway and they still get attacked.

    Attacked? It's an alternate frontend, not a decryption device. You still get the same content from Apple, using the same protocol. It's only the previews, not the songs. All that has changed is that the potential number of users has been increased because you no longer need to use MacOS or Windows to run the official iTunes client.

    How in betsy's name is that an attack? This is free publicity for iTunes Music Store on more platforms than Apple can officially support. This guy is basically increasing the market for Apple. Would you claim it was an attack on car sales if people starting P2Ping the TV commercials? I bet the advertising execs for the car company would love it. Think Honda.

  13. Apple offers a similar tool by bullitB · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Apple-provided iTMS Link Maker has similar functionality. It's great for searching for music outside of iTunes or for linking to music you like. If they're offering this kind of stuff themselves, I'd imagine they wouldn't have a huge problem with others doing it too.

  14. Re:should have done this by Monx · · Score: 4, Informative

    GNUstep won't help you port Carbon applications. It only works for some Cocoa apps. Carbon is not objective c based. QuickTime (and iTunes IIRC) are still Carbon at heart. Sure there are Cocoa interfaces to QuickTime, but the core is Carbon. Porting Carbon to Linux probably isn't high on Apple's priority list.

  15. Re:This could be good for Apple by gerardrj · · Score: 3, Informative

    1. Launch iTunes.
    2. Click the "Music Store" link in the playlist area
    3. Click the "eye" icon in the upper right of the window
    4. Click "audiobooks" from the first column labeled "Genre"
    5. Click a category from the middle column, then you can see all the "authors" in the third column

    There is no (easy) way to see the list of all authors for all categories though, you have to go category by category.

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  16. Re:This could be good for Apple by jmelloy · · Score: 4, Informative

    First off, you can browse the iTunes Music Store without an iPod. Did you try the "Browse" button?

    Secondly, all of Apple's audiobooks are through audible.com ... the catalogs, if not identical, are very very close.

  17. Re:Puh-leeeeeze. by bfg9000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    So, you guys buy a digital camera from Wal-Mart and then document yourselves vandalizing CDs, in-store displays, and music preview hardware... Does Downhill Battle do anything of value, or is it all just lame anti-RIAA posturing?

    Vandalizing? They put STICKERS on the CDs. Your vague wording makes it sound like they smashed the place up with baseball bats. This is more along the line of civil disobedience, and does no real harm to the product, as the cellophane is removed when you get the CD home anyway.

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  18. Re:That magic juju by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can re-authorize tracks when you get a new HD....stop spreading so much FUD.

  19. VideoLan by ElGnomo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not sure if anybody has said it, but the downloaded previews are playable with the VLC media player ( i.e. videolan's media player, which is open source, btw )
    Link
    The player will also play just about any media file since it seems to rely on its own internal codecs insted of those installed on your system.

  20. Re:That magic juju by iMacGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's only three at once. As long as you deauthorize your old computer first, you can transfer to three new ones. Personally, I don't take Downhill Battle seriously on iTMS since I saw their first page about it. There was a graphic recommending people download using giFT/Poisoned (which gives artists zero cents) instead of buying from the iTMS (which gives artists whatever the RIAA gives them). Also, have there been any public statements from actual RIAA artists, instead of random internet websites, on not being paid enough? I don't recall seeing any.

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