Slashdot Mirror
Update on Playfair
An anonymous reader writes "A few weeks back, Slashdot reported that Apple had sent a cease and desist letter to Sarovar.org, the Indian site hosting the Playfair project. This is the first incident in India where a corporation has used legal means to shut down a Free Software project. Some of the prominent members of the Open Source/Free Software community in India have issued an update on this situation. There is also an interesting post in the FSF-India mailing lists."
So they acknowledge that the unauthorized copying of music is illegal, and believe a tool that makes an unauthorized copy of the music is not illegal? Because as the author states, Apple already provides a means to permit legal licensees of songs from iTunes to play on non Apple authorized hardware via CD burning (and subsequent re-ripping). This is *authorized* copying. Anything else, then, is unauthorized copying isn't it? Doing a clean decryption of the AAC file would certainly fall into unauthorized copying, according to the terms of use, I think.
So FairPlay's only legal defense is that it isn't illegal to write such a tool, only illegal to use such a tool...
GPL Deconstructed
Just move the Projects to a Host based out of Sealand http://www.sealandgov.com/ from the HavenCo Acceptable Use Policy http://www.havenco.com/legal/aup.html "Material that is unlawful in the jurisdiction of the server. For instance, if a customer's machine is hosted on Sealand by HavenCo, content which is illegal in Sealand may not be published or housed on that server. Sealand's laws prohibit child pornography. Sealand currently has no regulations regarding copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues; child pornography is the only content explicitly prohibited. At the present time, child pornography is not precisely defined; HavenCo is obeying rules similar to those of the United States, specifically a prohibition on any depiction of those under 18 in a sexual context."
I think apple just wants people to keep using its iTunes software. I personally like Winamp a heck of a lot more, but I put up with iTunes because i like the music store. (Only iTunes is capable of playing protected AAC files)
This ofcourse makes people much more willing to go buy iPod's which is apple's real revenue stream.
If people can use playfair to convert to non-protected AAC which can play in a number of players, they lose their iPod lock which is their main revenue stream.
This would be a good test--would Apple be the one that would finally get the Royal Navy to cut the links to the platform, or to outright invade? Who would you expect to stand up and defend Sealand from a "British war of aggression?" (n.b. There's no oil on the platform.)
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
...but the creation of personal copies may not require authorization, as is the case with DeCSS in Norway. Depending on the accuracy of that statement "unauthorized copying" may mean "unauthorized copies made for distribution to third parties".
And regardless of what you might think, tools are hardly outlawed anywhere but in the US, due to the DMCA. I can make a key that fits your front door, and only your front door, which has no other purpose. It's still not illegal until I use it to gain unauthorized entry.
That brings up an interesting question, given that there's a strong legal precedent in Norway, why isn't it hosted somewhere there? I'd love to see if they'd have the balls to try another DVD-Jon style case before the EUCD (aka the Euro-DMCA) is in place...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It hurts Apple because iTunes isn't meant to make money by itself, it is meant to sell iPods. The music bought off iTunes can only be played by the iPod, so if you want to put it on an MP3 player, you have to get an iPod. By stripping the DRM, the audio can be played on anything that uses AAC, or converted to a different format.
Sounds like this would be a good application for Ian Clarke's Freenet project.
Why not put the site on Freenet?
No, apple could just as well say "You also agree to give your first-born daughter to Steve jobs upon her 18th birthday."
JUST BECAUSE YOU AGREE TO THEIR EULA DOESNT MAKE IT ENFORCEABLE.
This could be far worse than any criminal penalty, because Apple could (in theory) go for pretty unreasonable damages. I don't see this happening - I think they will settle for the program going away from being publicly available. This does mean playing wack-a-mole for a while where they chase down every appearance on the Internet. It is possible to win that sort of thing if you are motivated enough.
Remember the DeCSS stuff and how long that took. Notice how long and how expensive the case against 321 Studios (DVD X Copy) has been. This stuff is now out of "public" view and confined to a few places that most people can't find easily. Is it gone? Heck no. Can every Joe Sixpack find it in five minutes? Maybe that is good enough.
Except that the TOS also states that you agree not to encourage such behaviour, I suppose it MIGHT be questionable as to whether downloading the software and/or using it would/should be considered encouraging - I see your point though. Maybe it's not so black and white as I had thought originally.
In truth, however, this is probably a very good move on their part.
Apple knows this technology is completely irrelevant, that it is "no big deal" from a technical standpoint and they expected something like this to be created from the beginning (Steve Jobs said exactly this--that they couldn't protect digital content).
As a *political* move, however, it makes a lot of sense. They aren't actually suing people RIAA style and I doubt it will ever come to that--instead they are just shutting down the servers that host it via C&D letters. If they didn't do this, they would be at risk of the music labels deciding that they aren't doing enough to protect their interests and *backing out*.
If you get this off P2P or FreeNet then good for you, you are an irrelevant statistic as far as Apple is concerned.
The comparisons to DeCSS really miss the point. DeCSS was big in part because there was no way to watch DVDs under Linux and because the MPAA really wasn't expecting it and tried to shut it down completely. With FairPlay there is a way to play it under Linux (though yes, there is a loss of quality) and they did expect it, so what they are doing is protecting their interests with the RIAA by giving a good go at it.
It doesn't matter if they "succeed" so long as they are actively pursuing it to the extent of the law.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Ironic, but no more ironic than the fact that the "land of the free" incarcerates a greater proportion of its population than any other nation. cite
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"Abide by the terms of the contract you signed whilst registering."
I see. While registering with Apple computer, who is barred from entering the music business due to a suit brought by Apple Records oh so many years ago.
If Apple Records gets iTunes shut down, I expect that all the fair use arguements suddenly get way more valid.
The difference is that, like it or not, we are pretty screwed when it comes to DRM. It's coming. It's already here. Whatever. The open-source community cannot stop that happening now.
What we can do is start messing things up for everyone else. The DRM being used in FairPlay is, actually, quite fair. You pay less for the song you want, you get less rights. I find it quite difficult, however, to see how I would want to move out of the generous (relatively) rights FairPlay gives you. The music can be on more than one computer, copied to an iPod and burned to a CD. Sounds pretty good, and it's a lot better than the sort of "one purchase = one medium" rules that the RIAA would like.
By advocating PlayFair, you're essentially supporting the idea that FairPlay should be abolished, even though it's alright. Great. What comes in it's place? Something the RIAA would like a lot more I expect. Apple have done a pretty good job of pushing them to the limit thus far, a little bit more and they'll withdraw their songs from iTMS and start pushing them with some harder DRM instead.
Then we're all screwed. What needs to be done is have the authentication system opened to software developers so they can be played on OSs such as Linux. I'm sure the idea hasn't escaped Apple's mind, but that is where effort should be placed.
DeCSS is very different. DVDs were already done and dusted. Messing with them was not going to result in anything but bad news for Jon. PlayFair could result in bad news for everyone.
Siding with Apple is making the best of a bad situation.
The Consumer: Fair use trumps all
Apple iTMS EULA: the EULA is the end-all-be-all
RIAA/MPAA: DMCA trumps all, and breaking the protection is illegal.
we have the best government money can buy.
anyways I find it ironic how "selective" we are when it comes to international laws. Having international IP enforcement obviously benefits corporations while having international labour standards, environmental standards or wage standards does not benefit companies. How ironic that a cease and desist letter is written to stop distribution of software but cease and desist letters are not written for sweat shops or environmental polluters.
Furthermore, do you think the DRM they do have stops anybody who wants to from copying the music? I doubt it--it's just a bone thrown to satisfy those who don't understand that DRM is "FLAWED LOGIC THAT WON'T WORK!!!" to quote the grandparent.
Programs and products that use DRM may work--they may work very well. But DRM will never, short of a police state, prevent people from copying DRM'd stuff.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
Has clicking a button been found to NOT BE a legally enforcible means of signing a contract?
i bought songs on iTunes, now tell me how i can use them on my lovely Linux boxen, or FreeBSD!
c /sys/DRAGONFLAME i386
I cant, with playfair however i can unencrypt them, and put them in a format that will work (OGG nice and small, and sounds good) so that i CAN PLAY it on my Linux boxen using XMMS.
There is no iTunes for Linux/BSD, and thus i am unable to listen to the songs i legally purchased from iTunes in the first place. Now that i have playfair i am able to decrypt the songs AND listen to them on my FreeBSD/Linux boxen without having to run Windows on a side box some place, except for purchasing songs.
I personally think that it is stupid that i am unable to listen to songs i paid for on another OS than one supported by iTunes. Sorry, but Linux/BSD is making an up march in the desktop area, so there will be more and more people like this.
bash-2.05b$ uname -a
FreeBSD DragonFlame.Network.Home 5.2.1-RELEASE-p1 FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE-p1 #1: Mon Mar 8 02:02:25 EST 2004 xistence@DragonFlame.Network.Home:/usr/obj/usr/sr
Running KDE.
But where I'm from a contract is a contract is a contract.
I agree. I also agree that the proper penalty for violating a contract should be actual damages suffered. In the case an iTunes customer using Playfair that would be $0.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Because Apple's DRM is not as bad as DVD restrictions. There are fewer practical objections and fewer people who are currently unable to do something they want because of Fairplay. Nearly everyone objecting objects on ideological grounds- they decided long ago that they will never, ever back down from their position on any form of DRM; everyone siding with Apple has decided it's not really a big deal and it's an acceptable tradeoff for the benefits of being able to buy what the ITMS is selling.
Is there such a thing as a p2p-based Savannah/Sarovar system? If not perhaps this is a good time to consider creating such a thing. I'm assuming that the current systems have features that basic p2p clients don't support. But between Bnetd, playfair, DeCSS, and others, there is clearly a need for a distributed, peer-to-peer, source distribution/co-authoring system. Maybe WASTE could be modified to do this sort of thing?
Note: I am not a programmer, so I'm not exactly sure what Savannah/Sarovar/Sourceforge sites do exactly, but there has to be a way to do it to prevent these projects from getting shut down.
My point is that instead of bickering over legal trivia, we need to be developing defensive systems to prevent corporations from controlling us.
I don't normally respond to Anonymous Coward comments, especially when we steer this far afield of the original topic, but I'll make an exception in this case.
Regrdless of how you wish to interpret it today, the second amendment was intended to refer to the collective right of people to bear arms, so the states can form a "well regulated militia."
Incorrect. The "militia" is the armed populace themselves. Some would argue that the National Guard are the milita, but the Supreme Court said otherwise when they ruled that the NG could be called up by the Federal Government and attached to the regular armed forces even if the individual States said no.
Also, all of the other rights specifically mentioned to be those "of the people" (as opposed to the state) enumerated in the Bill of Rights are individual rights (speech, religion, search & seizure, etc..), why would this one not be an individual right?
Moreover, the government regulates the ability to, say, own nuclear warheads. That's clearly arms. Why does the NRA support people owning assault rifles but not nuclear warheads?
Now this is where you need to study history. Back in the late 1700's when this was written the average individual citizen possessed individual firearms such as pistols, shotguns and muskets. Artillery such as cannon were held at the local armory. To extrapolate to modern times I would say that personal firearms, including full-auto, should be permitted. Anything more potent (rockets, grenades, mines and on up) would be held where? The local armory.
Not to start an angry political argument here, but I thought that this neede to be said...
And refuted. Your arguments are common but founded on shaky ground.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
That's all fine and dandy, but consider the following. AAC DRM media is not forced upon you. In the capitalist system you have the option of voting with your wallet and choosing alternate distributors. Willfully choosing a digital music vendor, signing a contract and then cracking the files simply because you disagree with the restrictions placed on them blows the fair-use (direct circumvention of DRM) argument out of the water. It doesn't even sound sane. You mean to tell me that you sign a contract with a company who's policy you hate, then go on to breach it? Where are your principles? I direct you to the terms of service:
While fair-use is a really good concept, it shouldn't be used as a moral blank check to excuse illegal practices, otherwise it just makes those people who are legitimately envoking fair-use to look foolish. I've heard people defend their use of warez as fair-use - some rebels who decided that they were entitled to OSX Panther 10.3 upgrade, and convniced themselves that it was just a Service Pack, or pirating iPhoto 4 because the standalone version lacked features and they didn't need iLife suite. Where does it stop?
In any event, before you attack me for the above sentence, you need to alter your perception of AAC DRM files and view them as rental media, rather than something you own - there is still a link between you and the vendor in a form of an ID which dictates how you may use the files. I would be more inclined to side with your fair-use concerns were you to advocate recording media onto CDs and ripping it from there, since Audio Discs fall beyond the control of Apple's proprietary anti-piracy measures.
The government's blessing which lets people engage in fair-use practices is superseded by Apple's own contract. Whenever there is such a legal conflict, company's contract with the customer supersedes the law, since you're not lifting information with legally available tools. The circumvention program has been deemed illegal by Apple, hence you're in violation and fair-use does not apply in this case. If you believe this is incorrect, sue Apple and observe the results. No judge would even consider your argument because you've been already accommodated enough in terms of being able to burn and control the content the way you please.
I agree. Call your representative. Vigilantism is hardly an effective (or legal) way to solve social injustice.
How is Apple's DRM not as bad as DVD restrictions? You could play DVD on Windows and Macintosh systems, just like FairPlay. You could play DVDs on hundreds of external systems, unlike FairPlay's one. DVD doesn't give you any means of copying it without stripping either macrovision or CSS, so that is worse than FairPlay's one (1) method of burning to CD. The only problem is, there are many more ways to play music than in a CD player. Plus, since there are hundreds of players that can play DVD anyways, what's the difference?
I don't know. I fail to see any significant difference in the restrictions.
Naw, what really sucks is that people pay $2500 for a computer and then work as AppleWhores for free. Microsoft pays good money for your type of messageboard astroturfing.
And don't forget folks; m4p -> CD -> mp3 violates the terms of the contract too. It doesn't matter what the method is. It's not allowed.
Playfair-Sarovar position paper
"iTunes ...would it be going any less strong if they had,...convinced the RIAA to go with non-DRM protected AAC files?
Yes. Because they would not have the selection of music they have today. "
It wasn't the wide selection of records that caused iTunes to succeed, many other online services had bigger catalogues, it was the reduction in the DRM that was the big difference with the previous download stores.
"Furthermore, do you think the DRM they do have stops anybody who wants to from copying the music?
Yes. Because it's easier, faster, and more convenient to just buy the damn thing."
The Kazaa copy has no DRM. If you lock the door, but leave the windows wide open, saying that nobody goes through the door therefore the door is working is true, but of no value. It may be FASTER & CHEAPER to buy the door key, rather than break the door down and go through the doors, but the windows are open!
"Of course it will. All you have to do is make it more convenient to buy the real thing than to pirate it. "
True, sort of. I think people perceive a value for an iTunes song. That value derives from it being legal, and high quality. As long as the price Apple charges is less than the perceived value of it, people are happy to pay.
DRM reduces the perceived value of the music, because it reduces flexibility and therefore the value of the music is less to the consumer, and the price it can support is less.
You're simply trolling at the end. For starters, it isn't 'pirating' it's copyright infringement. Then, to say only 'thieves' (it isn't really theft) will break the DRM is simply ignorant. I will break the DRM. Doing so will allow me to play the song without quicktime and on a Linux PC.
"But I'm still right here, giving blood and keeping faith. And I'm still right here."
offtopic, but is that book called "II Cybernetic Frontiers"?
If so, there's a relevant quote in there:
This was written in 1974, 30 years ago.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.