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."
Some nice discussion here.
Need a good ol' fashioned Chinese to-hell-with-western-law hosting... works for spammers, why not legit projects that exist in that legal grey-zone?
meh
...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
You've still made ONE copy in that process, even if you delete the original.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, since I believe it's perfectly within Fair Use to make a decrypted copy. What happens if Apple goes out of business? What happens if I don't have a suitable network connection to authorize my Macs? I paid for the music, and do have some right to listen to it at 100% quality.
However, all I am stating is the strict legality of the situation. Owning this tool isn't illegal, but using it is. I don't know, however, that is enough under Indian law to get them knocked off the servers.
GPL Deconstructed
It all depends on whether you signed a contract when you bought the Sony drive that you would only use Sony blanks, doesn't it? Then it wouldn't be illegal to use the non Sony blanks, only that you would have violated your contract with Sony, and Sony then has the right to not honor any warranty with you (there is some wiggle of course, since you used a fairly extreme example).
All sales of Apple's music have implicit contracts, which you should have read before purchasing. There is authorized copying, which is streaming to three machines, converting m4p->CD->MP3 or m4a, and then there is unauthorized copying, which is streaming to unlimited machines and converting from m4p->m4a.
You can argue Fair Use, but they can argue that you willingly agreed to their contract, and all they are doing is enforcing it through vague laws.
GPL Deconstructed
You might find this plugin quite helpful. This thread has more info.
Playfair
It's not really a question about whether it's ethical or not. If you have music from the ITMS, you bought it from Apple, and YOU AGREED TO THESE TERMS OF SERVICE. If you make a piece of software to "circumvent or modify any security technology or software that is part of the Service" than you are breaking your contract with Apple, and thusly breaking the law. It's pretty simple.
And portraying a cracker-program as an "open-source effort" is a bit like calling the NRA a grass-roots civil rights campaign.
They're at least as grass roots as the ACLU.
Anyway, you say that as if the 2nd Amendment portion of the Bill of Rights wasn't a civil right.
Join the ACLU & EFF to support Amendments 1 and 3-9. Join the NRA and GOA to support Amendment 2. Amendment 10 gets ignored selectively by everyone, unfortunately.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Also, content distributor, and a software company.
But they control the method which facilitates AAC DRM, needed to let record companies to release their catalogues for distrubution. Without PlayFair DRM, it would be hard or next to impossible to persuade record labels to furnish iTMS with audio content (which they own).
Again, it's the method not the content.
Let me give you an example. Suppose you manufacture and sell locks and at the same time rent a storage facility where people keep their property. Someone comes along and makes a master key which defeats your lock mechanism, when it is illegal (by law) to reverse-engineer, or reproduce master keys or to otherwise tamper with the lock. In the end, the gatekeeper is liable for the stolen property and the burden to prosecute those who are manufacturing these master keys is on the lock manufacturer, not the owner of the property.
Get it? RIAA doesn't have anything to do with AAC DRM. Apple is the gatekeeper and they're trying to protect the well-being of their online music store.
You want fair-use? Go buy the CD or use less-restricted distribution channels who provide you with MP3s and OGGs. iTMS doesn't force you to purchase digital (restricted) files from their store. Abide by the terms of the contract you signed whilst registering. Any fair-use argument here is completely laughable.
...is not the fact that Apple went after PlayFair, that was more or less expected. What scares me is the fact that a large part of the slashdot crowd are siding with apple and big media on this one. Hacking your DVD-player is okay, the right to fiddle with your own devices shall not be infringed upon. Media files, however, are sacred. You shall not use them in any way big media does not approve of.
And why? To please big media, otherwise they would not venture into this internet selling thingy, posts explain. Anyone who does not accept the control big media is forcing upon buyers is a damn dirty pirate, responsible for the thousands of plagues in the world and puts 'us' in a bad light. The brainwashing is apparently working.
Really, what's the difference between deCSS and PlayFair? I don't recall anyone posting that Jon Johansen was guilty.
we come in peace / shoot to kill
Apple fans on Slashdot (disclaimer: I'm writing this on my PBook) always seem to claim that everyone willing to use iTMS should just obey Apple's TOS and never crack their DRM, because their DRM is fair as it can be circumvented by burning and re-ripping.
Well let me tell you: It is not fair. If one is a Hi-Fi geek, like I am, one wants to get rid of DRM without any additional quality loss.
Oh, but what I hear now: "128 kbit/s is not enough for Hi-Fi types, they want CDs nevertheless, regardless of their price". Sure - if CD's are available. But many songs are very, very hard to obtain on CD, if available at all, although they can be found from iTMS. And though 128 kbit AAC is barely adequate to my ears (my own iTunes library is mostly ripped as 224 kbit AAC), I can stand it if the alternative would be not having that song at all. But like hell will I accept any additional quality loss! And I still want to be able to play that song on Linux, too.
So, what options do I have left now? PlayFair. Would my intented use for it be within the limits of fair use? Yes. Would it be possible within the limits of Apple's DRM? No. Thus, the Apple's DRM is NOT fair. Would it be in violation of Apple's TOS? Yes. Thus, the TOS is not fair either. As it is a B2C standard-term contract, I seriously doubt it would hold any water in most courts here in Europe.
Yes, I live in EU (Finland), so no iTMS here, and the question is purely academic. But may be iTMS will be here one day.
That said, the EUCD is going to be applied in Finland pretty soon, but although that will probably make distributing of PlayFair illegal here, it seems the Finnish implementation won't outlaw its private use.
And what would make Apple's DRM fair to me? If the songs would be losslessly compressed in first place. Now the quality would be good enough even if an analog re-recording would be required (that is, no CD burning would be allowed).
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
A "cracker-program"? Hardly. Just a snippet from the sarovar response:
So read it and think again.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
So what is wrong with building a business based on supplying music for the iPod only?
Absolutely nothing. But getting governments to enforce that business model is another matter.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
>You've still made ONE copy in that process, even if you delete the original.
> I'm not saying this is right or wrong, since I believe it's perfectly within
> Fair Use to make a decrypted copy. What happens if Apple goes out of
> business? What happens if I don't have a suitable network connection to
> authorize my Macs? I paid for the music, and do have some right to listen to
> it at 100% quality.
>
> However, all I am stating is the strict legality of the situation. Owning
> this tool isn't illegal, but using it is. I don't know, however, that is
> enough under Indian law to get them knocked off the servers.
Since when making a copy for purposes covered under fair use provisions (as you stated yourself) is illegal?