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.

Comments

should have done this

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:should have done this

[2nd Post!]

Uh, how difficult? You wouldn't believe the answer if you can't imagine it in the first place.

A straight Linux port would require:

Quicktime
Carbon/MacOS ToolKit

And Quicktime would require a working audio subsystem, a working video subsystem, as well as their networking, 2d, and maybe even 3d stack, if you do a full Quicktime port.

And if you ask "Why Quicktime?" the answer would have to be, "Why would Apple port iTunes without Quicktime?"

I don't know why Quicktime doesn't work on 98/ME, but I don't think they were omitted lightly.

Re:should have done this

[2nd Post!]

To put it more simply, Apple doesn't have a Linux business plan, that's all. No conspiracy, no idiocy, no MS-like behaviors.

Apple isn't a conscious being; someone has to make the plans and training and data to be transmitted all the way down to the sales people.

Which iPod to sell to Linux users?
Which software to use? Would it be bundled with the iPod? Would it include source? Would it include a linux distro on a disk?
What are the requirements? What libraries? What toolkits? What scripting languages? What interpreters? What hardware platforms?

Then there's iTunes! How about song management? File management? All the same questions as the above. And then there's support software. Rendezvous, for streaming and networking. Firewire for synching and powering.

Finally iTMS: How would authentication work out?

Apple has to have all of these things in place before it can sell the iPod and iTunes and iTMS to Linux users. They need the support center info, support structure, and training.

Will it pan out? I mean, this is exactly the reason why games have a hard time being ported to the Mac platform. Most companies don't have the resources to pull it off (much less for Linux).

Theft of service?

[Sheetrock]

At least one of the ideas struck me as being intriguing (using the iTunes database as a source for determining if a song might be controlled by the RIAA) but some of the others would be problematic.

Having a P2P service pulling album covers and other metadata from Apple's pay service is as likely to be considered stealing as pulling copyrighted music without paying for it. Even checking their database from a non-iTunes application may raise hackles. It's a cute hack, but why risk upsetting Apple when they're already providing the fairest online music store to date?

Re:The real solution

[dpete4552]

Because Linux is just as much of a competitor to Apple as it is to Microsoft. For all the reasons Microsoft doesn't want to do anything to help Linux on the desktop (e.g. porting applications), Apple really doesn't want to do anything to help Linux on the desktop. As I read elsewhere, it's all about mindset. Apple doesn't want people thinking "Linux vs. Microsoft" they want people thinking "Apple vs. Microsoft".

Puh-leeeeeze.

[LocoSpitz]

Right now this is a cute tool, but it has the potential to become a powerful weapon to fight the major record label monopoly.

Give me a fecking break. The people at Downhill Battle have a history of vastly overstating the importance and relevance of their "accomplishments", and this is no different. Being able to browse iTunes over the Internet (something that won't last long once Apple hears about this) will do nothing to defeat the record companies. The amount of self-delusion that must go into a thought like that is startling.

While I'm on a rant, let me talk about something else that's been bothering me. Just what is it that Downhill Battle hopes to accomplish? One of their projects is showcased here. So, you guys buy a digital camera from Wal-Mart and then document yourselves vandalizing CDs, in-store displays, and music preview hardware (which, incidentally, has led me on more than one occasion to purchase indie-label music that I would not have found without the machines), and then fraudulently returned the camera. And this accomplished.... what? Far as I can tell, nothing beyond proving just how immature these guys are. Does Downhill Battle do anything of value, or is it all just lame anti-RIAA posturing?

Re:RIAA "monopoly" = BULLSHIT

[green_crocadilian]

Should I feed the troll? Yes, I think I should.

The companies comprising RIAA form an oligopoly (and the RIAA itself can be considered to form a monopoly if it usually acts as a single body) simply by virtue of their dominance of the market. It doesn't matter if they provide a useful service. It doesn't matter if they charge, or don't charge, exorbirant rates. It doesn't matter if they have 10 million competitors (each with $0.12 in annual sales). As long as you have 5 firms dominating (>50%) a given market, that's oligopoly for you.

Now, is oligopoly good? Classical economics says it's not an efficient way to distribute goods. I.e. RIAA makes a killing, the consumers get ripped off, and the ripping off part actually outweighs the making a killing part. On the other hand, if I understand it right, under some circumstances oligopolies produce more research and development than a monopoly or a large number of small firms. If only that research was directed at something useful and not at turning a given random person off the street into a pop star...

Weapon to fight RIAA labels

[Rich Klein]

It lets you dig into the iTunes metadata and see what label owns a given song, so you could write a perl script to weed out RIAA-affiliated songs.

Re:Probably won't last long

[AstroDrabb]

It can create users. For example, I have a few Linux desktops and _ONE_ windows XP desktop at home. I don't use windows xp for much and don't install software on it. I also did not want to install Apple's iTunes application just to check it out to see if they have the songs I like. So I downloaded this app, did a quick search, and wham, iTMS does have the songs I like. I now will probably give iTMS a try to see how I like it. Though I doubt I personally will use it much since I purchased tons of CD's years ago and mostly listen to them. With this little app I can preview some newer material to see if there is anything I may be interested in buying. I personally don't want to use windows XP and I don't want to have to use it to browse music to see if there is anything new I may like. Linux has 25% of the server market and 2.8% of the desktop. Just about the same desktop share as Apple. So, Apple has the same potential market size that they get from their Mac OS X users. The only reason I can think of for Apple not to have even a non-supported Linux client is because they want a hardware monopoly. They have to support MS Windows if they want any success, and if it is not MS Windows, they want it to be their OS. That is just wrong to me and not any different then the tactics by MS. Thier iTMS should be platform agnostic and only exist to drive iPOD sales to _all_ consumers regardless of that consumers OS of choice.