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iTunes 4.5 Authentication Cracked
fooishbar writes "Yesterday, Apple released iTunes 4.5, which deliberately broke the 4.2 authentication scheme, which had been successfully reverse-engineered. However, crazney has been at it again, and within 24 hours of downloading iTunes 4.5, has broken the new scheme, and added more features to this library along the way. If you want to incorporate iTMS support in your program, give libopendaap a go!" Reader ScottGant submits this story about the Pepsi/iTunes promotion: "News.com has this story about Pepsi's iTunes promotion give-away. The promotion,
which is slated to end this Friday, was to have given away 100 million
tracks through Apple's iTunes
music site. But according to Apple on Wednesday, only about 5 million
free songs have been redeemed."
That's way less than they anticipated. Only 5 million out of 100 knocked me flat. Since iTunes serves a pretty specific market, I guess that says a lot. Especially since the tracks are free. The question on my mind: how many of those 100 million winners actually reached folks? TFA mentioned something about distribution problems.
:P), but I have to wonder.
Also, about the new authentication crack: I am curious how this will impact their deal to offer free weekly songs, I'm assuming it's some sort of deal with the record industry. Today is a fairly uninspiring Avril Lavigne track (but free! I got it anyway!
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
The idea that Apple is "breaking" or "crippling" this part of iTunes is misleading. It wasn't a feature that Apple provided to begin with, and any hacks to break the DRM scheme will be thwarted by Apple eventually.
If you don't like this, you shouldn't use iTunes at all and don't buy their music because this is something they need to sell music online. Last I checked, you can just buy the CD at the store that contains no DRM at all.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
I collected iTunes numbers, more for the heck of it than anything else. But I figured I'd go ahead and use one when my daughter had trouble believing that someone -- she didn't know Who -- had recorded "Behind Blue Eyes" before Limp Bizkit.
So I took my number and went to iTunes.com. What a mess! What I was looking for was a place where I could enter my code and get a song. Instead, there was a confusing assortment of links like "Download", "Music Store", "Jukebox"... noplace that says "Enter your code here".
Now, I'm savvy enough to figure out that I'm going to have to download Apple's special player, run it, and *then* enter my code. But they didn't put the codes on the Slashdot homepage... they put them under the lips of Slurpee cups. If you want to appeal to Joe Slurpee, you need to learn from the "spank the monkey" advertisers: make it mind-numbingly simple.
Here's what I'd have done, if Apple had any interest in hiring an old VB hand. Put a textbox right in the middle of the itunes.com page. Put a big button next to it that says "Download song and player". Generate an install packet that's already got the free song code in it. If the installer sees that iTunes is already installed, just feed it the song code, otherwise install and download.
Joe Slurpee sees: enter code, push button, hear song.
So... anyone want my leftover iTunes codes?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
This reminds me of a historical anecdote. One of the many advancements made under Lord Tokugawa's rule, which is arguably the point at which Japan began to transform into the powerhouse of technological innovation we know and love today, was the world's first sukaisukure ('skyscraper'). Built as the southernmost endpoint of the Great Wall to commemorate its completion, the sukaisukure could hardly compare to today's structures; however, given that its architecture predated the use of steel in building design it stands as a testament to Tokugawa's extraordinary vision.
Despite Tokugawa's status as a visionary, he could not contend with the constant threat of an armed and discontented populace -- to secure his reign, he confiscated the weapons of the lower classes and permitted only those of samurai rank or higher to carry swords. Viewed as a tyrannical measure that sowed some degree of discontent, this nevertheless permitted Tokugawa's innovations to come to fruition and ultimately benefit society.
Apple is in a similar situation. They are at the bleeding edge of the industry, particularly in relation to the music industry's philosophies, and need desparately to prove that this model works. They can't afford to look on these hacks with benevolence because they've got to work with the RIAA and affiliated labels just to make the music available. Can't the people who want their music in freer formats simply buy it on CD and convert it for their own use -- thereby voting with their dollars for a better scheme -- rather than creating software that threatens Apple's relationship with its business partner and ultimately its customers via the policies it has to adopt in reaction?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I knew I should have climbed into that dumpster...
I'm hardly surprised by the results. Personally, I don't drink Pepsi usually (though it's not a religious thing, no matter what people think). But I'll drink a Sierra Mist, which is included in the contest.
So when My Lovely Wife (MLF) would go to the store, she knew to look for Sierra Mist with the label. For about the last 5 months she's looked, and every so often I'd take a peek.
Nothing. Nada. I've talked to other people in the San Diego/Southern California area. Nothing. I was on a business trip to Chicago - didn't see any out there (though maybe someone who lives there might have had more luck).
I don't know if it's that Pepsi had a lot of "warehouse" Pepsi to sell that just never got to the market, or if they only shipped it to certain areas. But whatever the reason, I have not seen one iTunes Pepsi cap - and those friends I have who have seen them in their area mention that it's not 1/3 that one, but typically more like 1/10 (though perhaps they were victims of the "Bottle Tilt Trick" in their area from ambitious music buyers).
I'd like to hear that Pepsi extends the contest for another 6 months in the hopes that the labeled bottles will eventually reach stores, but I'm not holding my breath.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
my main problem with 4.5 is that it no longer allowed sharing with other itunes running boxen on my home network - the one machine i had updated to 4.5 ( my parents imac) couldn't accesss my music on the g5. it seems like a fairly annoying thing that wouldn't be particularly hard to not break for no particular reason. while i personally think theres no reason to break apple's authentication or other security features in itunes (the current permisions are more than enough for me, and i have less than 20 pruchased tracks, and only 2 machines i play em on), its nice to know that work arounds do exist.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
I live in NYC and have seen exactly 1 bodega with iTMS Pepsi bottles.
Maybe someone forgot to ship these things to places where people actually would use them?
I hope apple didnt invest too much time/money in this new fixed drm. Will these media pimps ever learn?
This isn't about DRM, it is about access to the music store, sharing, etc. outside of the iTunes application.
And despite the poster's assertion, there's no real reason to think the authentication scheme was intended to break compatibility; as most developers know, sometimes you need to make changes for other reasons that force a break in compatibility. If this WERE about DRM, I'd say it was likely, but I see no reason to think this separate change was deliberate. It may have been, but no one's given any reason to think it.
MacNinnle, of course! The latest port of Ninnle Linux V3.
That's because for a "free" song you had to give them your credit card number.
No, you didn't. I got two free, no credit card required.
I've worked for marketing companies that created similar promotions for their clients. Promotions like this are created with the full knowledge that the vast majority of winning caps will be tossed. 5% is actually a pretty strong number considering the L.A. Lakers caps they had in L.A. were only redeemed at a rate of 1.2 % (You got $10 off at Foot Locker) Have you noticed that 90% of the time McDonalds announces "We're giving away a million dollars!" that you never hear about anybody winning the prize?
Vonal Declosion
Why Apple does not hire this guy? (David Hammerton)
Appearently the current developers have no clue.
Matyas
but the effort of doing what needs to be done to dl them in linux then convert them/remove the 'bad' parts so that it plays where I want it to is just too much...
Besides, NPR past shows are all free on the internet anyway.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
So... 95 million valid codes left, where's the code generator? :-)
They must have changed this a while back. You do not need a CC to have an iTunes account. This is how they allow for Prepaid cards and gift certs now.
I know that I did not enter a CC number when creating a login for my 9 y/o daughter to download free itunes.
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
Anyone who is inteligent and bored can crack just about anything in relatively short order. I'm sure most /. readers are all too aware of how easy cracks, keygens, and serials are to get ahold of. Though kudos to him as he got the job done faster than the latest yahoo protocol was reverse engineered, or maybe just kudos to yahoo! Though, I don't think apple will be hiring him anytime soon.
:(){
I dunno what iTunes *YOU* were using, but I never had to give my credit card # and I'm on free song #9 and counting...
Viva La Revolucion! Buy a Mac!
Well there's that.. and I didn't see any of the special bottles until the beginning of April. Wasn't it supposed to start in the middle of february?
But to keep myself on topic.. Apple probably has a standard singup path.. They assume that if you are going to redeem a free song.. that you might buy something later.. But yes.. its lame to require a credit card when you are making a purchase of $0.00..
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
I wonder what the typical redemption rate is for the Pepsi, Coke and other softdrink give aways. I know for paper coupons the redemption rate is about 2 percent. Granted alot of those coupons go straight into the trash. However, when people print coupons from the web only 20 percent are redeemed. And if someone is going to print them, you would think they would use them.
My point, is the Pepsi-iTunes rate of 5 percent unexpected?
What does the poster mean by "deliberately broke the 4.2 authentication scheme"? I would think it obvious that they didn't change the protocol by accident.
Perhaps the poster meant that Apple deliberately broke compatibility with certain third-party applications; if so, where is his evidence for such a claim?
Mike
Their new strategy seems to be fixed, and it's a strict policy of lip service. If they make sure:
- The De-Fairplay utilities don't have public development sites, and instead are forced to be these little files passed around on USENET and P2P and slashdot like they're some sort of contraband, well out of the public eye
- The way things work change just *SLIGHTLY* with every minor release of iTunes, causing all the De-Fairplay utilities to have to be updated with every minor release
Then, well. The slashdotters get to keep their de-Fairplay utilities and use them as much as they want; and from the RIAA's perspective, Apple's "doing something" about piracy, because there's no longer a publically visible way to crack Fairplay, and so they don't revoke Apple's license to sell music. Everybody wins! Except our civil liberties.
IMHO, right there is the explanation for why there was only 5 millions dl'ed songs. I can't imagine a parent giving away a CC number just to get a free songs for their children
That's because for a "free" song you had to give them your credit card number
No you don't...at least I didn't have to anyways. When I created my account to redeem my free music the credit card part was optional.
you have to provide one to create an account...
This is about authentication with the itunes music store, not removing the playfair drm protection.
.002 and .004
.m4a files which show no protection, and play fine in VLC, and itunes.
Fairplay still works without any changes. A "friend" did the following last night:
1. Using an old version of itunes on a pc, purchased a new song from the music store.
2. Launched VLC on the PC, and found it had no problem playing it. Checked c:\documents and settings\[username]\application data\drms and there was a new file: XXXXXXXX.005, in addition to the other two files that were already there. They had extensions
3. Upgraded itunes on the PC to 4.5. Bought another song. It shows fairplay v2 when you look at it's info.
4. VLC can also play this one. No new file in the drms directory was created.
5. Copied both songs.m4p and the key files from drms to the mac running the latest itunes. Put the keys in ~/.drms
6. Ran playfair (v 0.5.0) against the two songs. They decoded into
7. Just to double check, bought a third song using itunes on the mac. Ran playfair against it (still using the keys from the PC) and it decoded and plays fine.
My conclusion is that as long as you have the keys, you can still use playfair. My friend gets the keys from the PC running VLC. I don't know if other techniques may have been broken by the new itunes.
I don't have any problem with the ethics of removing the protection. I don't-- I mean, *wouldn't* use it to illegally share the music. It's just nice to have clean files in case Apple quits developing itunes for the PC, or some other unlikely scenario.
Here in beautiful Glendale CA I only bough 2 losing Pepsi bottles, and I drink a lot of diet Pepsi. The bottles didn't show up until recently and i think they were playing catch up. I waited over a month after the promo started before I finally saw a bottle for sale. This could be a factor in the lower than expected numbers.
I have neither Windoze nor MacOS and Wine doesn't feel like running iTunes today. Well, screw it, it's not like they had the music I was hoping for anyways. Anybody want my free song codes?
Lagito ergo expectabo
Mod the parent down. There is no insight contained within the post. He/she is completely incorrect about needing to enter a credit card number to redeem a song. When you open up iTunes Music Store, all you have to do is click on the pepsi logo in the center right on the window. It clearly says Redeem Song.
I found a link to this on Ben&Jerry's site after reading the news.com article. Pledge to vote in the next election and you get a free iTunes download with 24-48 hours.
Get 'em while they're hot--er, or before they melt?
You're missing the point. The only reason they can give a free song is because it has DRM. The only way the DRM works is if it is tied to an Apple account. The only way you can get an Apple account on iTMS is by having a credit card. Requiring the credit card is pretty indirect. Your mistake is in forgetting that these are DRM'd files, like everything else on iTMS.
Why is it that people don't want to pay for software and media content? If I like something, if it has any value for me, I will pay for it, no problem. I have a job, so I can affort to pay for the stuff I want. I pay for quality. But if someone were to steal from me or my company, I will bloody well see them in court! And so, Apple and the record companies should SUE this guy.
Ii might have something to do with the inconvenience of downloading and installing iTunes, creating an account (which includes entering a credit card number), and then finally entering the code and picking a song.
But I think more importantly, the vast majority of people simply don't know much about iTunes (or don't even know what it IS). I dug a lot of "one free song" bottle caps out of the wastebaskets in our office because people didn't have a clue what they were...however, once I showed them how to redeem them, their reaction was usually something like "I can get any song I want?!? COOL!". This leads me to believe that Apple still has a ways to go in terms of public interest and awareness of the online music store scene...which is actually an exciting opportunity for them.
That's because for a "free" song you had to give them your credit card number. I complained twice to Pepsi and Apple...never got a response. So, as far as I am concerned, they've fucked themselves on this one.
Actually, when signing up, the option was given to input a credit card number now or later. I opted for later. I have downloaded several songs with the Pepsi promotion but I still have yet to give them my credit card number. :P
I have to admit that I do like iTunes. It has a nice interface, the music store seems well designed, and I haven't run into any issues with the DRM yet. But still wouldn't mind seeing a new version of software like PlayFair that addresses iTunes 4.5.
Except you didn't have to give them a credit card to get the songs. I didn't have to put in any credit card informtaion until i actually bought a track -- after i had downloaded 18 free iTunes songs. So yes, they were actually free. You only needed to give them an email addy to create the account (or at least I did, but i used the account i'd had with apple for 2 years, so they already had my email).
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
was done LONG before ol Tokunaga. Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1192AD) is one as did his immediate successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Shall we visit the whole Genji vs Heike period?
Given the classic assumptions on "mail-in rebates" that only 10% of the people actually bother if the amount is less than $100...5% is actually amazingly high for something that has a very narrow audience given the number of people who by Pepsi (i.e., lots of people that bought winners didn't care about iTunes).
My wife and I would go out of our way to get the Pepsies with the promotion. We won quite a few times.
It wasn't a bad promotion, but many times we had to go out of our way to even find the Pepsies with the offer. They were hard to find.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
You are wrong. I just one for the first time the other day. I downloaded iTunes, installed it and clicked on the link in the iTunes store to redeem a free song code. It asked me for an email address and password and my name. Nothing more.
The problem was Pespi did a horrible job with regards to distribution. Bottles with codes didn't even hit the stores for weeks after the promotion started. They only just showed up in my area of Los Angeles a week and a half ago. So if you feel the need to blame someone, blame Pepsi for sabatoging the promotion.
For better or for worse, DRM is a battle that content providers will lose.
K
In the end, though, if this stays a technology arms race, Apple will lose. Why? Because most of the smart people in the world don't work for Apple. (That's also true even for Microsoft, incidentally.)
Apple will have to take another tack if they want to preserve the integrity of the iTunes DRM. What that'll be, I dunno, but I hope they don't resort to suing their customers.
Be who you are...and be it in style!
And cracking the authentication scheme is considered ... good? I love iTunes and the iTMS. If Apple pulls out of the market because it tires of people breaking their rules out of a overblown sense of entitlement, we'll all be worse off.
Some people here have their tongues so far up Apple's ass that they are even willing to defend their DRM technology, and attack those that work around it.
Shame on anyone that is defending Apple here but didn't defend the MPAA's attack on DECSS.
mirror
oh, and playfair:
mirror
Well, and another problem I saw was it was bitch to read the caps soemtimes. Another problem was that they only let you enter 10 a day. I guess they don't like my practice of ferreting them out of trash cans (we are a pepsi campus). I plan on getting a Xbox this way as well thanks to DewU. If I fail to get 550 points, I will get a minifridge for my desk.
Gorkman
Apple's authentication scheme is probably just placed to satisfy the RIAA. Not wanting to alienate their user base, and likely their most vocal supporters, Apple is just turning a blind eye. RIAA is happy, and iTunes users are happy.
Sun Tzu on the Art of War: Attack your allies to weaken your enemy
This week's schedule
If a person still needs a account to login to iTMS with this bit of reverse engineered method, the Authentication hasn't been cracked!!!
Authentication cracked means that you cand take an encrypted password and retreive the plain text for and already existing account.
All this guy seems to be able to do is figure out where and how iTunes sends its login information, so he can put it in his own application.
they want a credit card for you to retrieve your free itunes aac, and since this was a promotion geared towards teens, how are they supposed to get thier free music?
.5% went thru with it.
i had a couple caps but i didnt feel like signing up. great promotion there. only
tunesbrowser doesn't work. Doesn't see other itunes machines, and is quite unstable (running on FC1 anyway).
Little documentation, so it's hard to figure out where the problem is, or what is supposed to happen.
I collected over 150 bottle caps and not one was a winner! I drink about 6 diet pepsi's per day. And my friends at work saved the caps for me. So this is no suprize to me. I don't personally know anyone who won a song.
Actually, you don't. It's not a 'must fill' field, they'll probably ask for one when you buy the first song.
For the promotion, all I needed was an email address.
DRM is evil (or at least user-unfriendly), yes ... but this just means that WMA will be more used where DRM is 'needed'. To be honest, I'd prefer a DRMed iTunes song (that I can burn to CD, put on an iPod and play on several different PCs) than a WMA (more restrictions, only playable in Windows Media Player, and disgusting compression!)
OGG rules :)
cause it's been more than a month since i've seen any pepsi's w/ the promotion in my local stores
Finally... what took them so long?
I don't know why they bother trying to up the security. There is no way to secure media content that is compatible with mass distribution. It's the same problem they had with DVD encryption---you can't cut out the illegitimate users while not cutting out the legitimate users at the same time.
They need to work on their business model, because this piecemeal anti-cracking stuff is a joke.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Ok, you're a clever guy. We get the message.
But is your ego helping those of us who would like the RIAA to see the light and start being more open in their approach to digital music?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I also got a cap, but don't run Windows or a Mac. I did try it on a Windows machine at work, but after I saw all of the crap that had to be done to register to download a "free" $.99 song, I decided to just throw the cap in the trash. The work involved in redeeming it just wasn't worth it.
I live in Brooklyn, NY, one block away from a design and architecture college. This would seem to be a pretty target-rich environment for the yellow caps.
Guess what? I've seen THREE, and that was for a week about a month ago. I drink a whole lot of Diet Pepsi, too.
I'm guessing that either Pepsi totally botched the distribution, OR the local bottling companies didn't play ball, OR they simply didn't distribute anything like 100 million songs.
Jonathan
I tried three times to not give it a credit card number when I first redeemed some caps, the first week of March. No dice. Was absolutely required to set up an iTunes account from iTunes for Windows 4.2 at that time. I was kind of upset, but used a pre-paid card with like $3 left on it to set up the account... so in the end, it was a minor hassle. I agree it would have been much easier for "winners" to redeem songs if the account setup process was easier, that took me far longer than it should have.
What the planet of Hell do you need a workaround for? Just upgrade the other machines! iTunes is *DUM, DUM, DUMDUM* FREE (as in beer)! Is it really so hard to upgrade a free program?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
So, as far as I am concerned, they've fucked themselves on this one.
Other people's comments aside (about the CC field as optional for a signup), why would you say they fucked themselves?
They got the PR associated with giving away $100M worth of stuff. They only had to pay out $5M (less, since this certainly doesn't cost them as much as it would cost an actual customer). And you say they fucked themselves?
More like they fucked us. At least they used lube, but still... "Distribution problems" my ass. For anyone who considers every aspect of this as anything but well thought out and perfectly coordinated, I have a bridge to sell you...
And his hometown bombed.
Dudez, everytime you hack a piece of Commerical Software (yes its important enough to be capitalized p.i.) you increase the cost/risk to produce viable Commercial Software, thus you are shiting where you eat. foos.
n/t
It's a great day! We found a new way to screw over the one company who actually found a way to provide what everyone said they wanted: convenient, electronic distribution of music at a fair price.
But wait, that's not really what they wanted. What they really want is stores with no cash registers and libraries of thousands of pieces of music representing the creative efforts of generations of people while valuing those libraries at zero.
Oh, and they also want to complain about greed.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Alright, so all I have to say about this is, don't make a Windows version of the hack Please !! If we all agree not to port the code to windows, then all the script kiddies will be waiting for a DRM breaker that naver comes, and they might BUY some CDS. I dunno I think that what is happening with File sharing is criminal. If I go to a US court I will just pull out the legal papers from my home Countre Canda, and try to prove that online file sharing is PERFECTLY FINE. It only got a slight drop when everybody was doing it, now with this suing shit happenting, everyone is back in the red. So what the hell is the problem? It's not illegal, it's fine, and content proveders. WE know you need money.. I will all works itself out, lets just stop the madness. Please?
Here's a thought for you who didn't find a Pepsi Bottle with a yellow cap: TRY ANOTHER STORE. Just becaue 9/10 stores in my immediate area don't sell Sobe's Love Bus Brew, ndoesn't mean I won't travel somewhere that does.
To those who couldn't find where to insert your code on iTunes. USE YOUR EYES. It was right there on the front page: "PEPSI iTUNES GIVEAWAY." With a Pepsi logo with headphones on it. Click on it, insert your code, then it says ONE FREE SONG in the upper right hand corner. Find a song, click DONWLOAD, and it downloads it free.
To those complaining about having to use a credit card: How else are you going to pay for the songs you download? Food stamps?!
And about the DRM. c'mon people. Apple has to play the game of the law and the game of the recording industry in order to sell these things. But you tell me. How many other service let you KEEP the rights to the songs you bought, allowing them to be burned with the only restriction: Can only burn the same PLAYLIST 7 times to CD....Hell, Add or subtract a song from that playlist and you have a whole new playlist ready to burn.
People...just have no sense of reason. This is the BEST legal download service available on the market. Plus, the software is free, and is THE BEST jukebox software, on ANY platform.
Even WINBLOWS users are stating that "opinion." Should be more like fact if you compare all the others.
UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE!
I have personally won three or four songs, I use a mac and iTunes. I have never redeemed any of them. I always forget and throw the cap away about 5 minutes after the "haha I won".
Woops. Oh well, who cares about one free track anyway? What am I going to do with one free track. I've used the music store twice and it was to purchase full albums that I could't find on IRC to download.
>TFA mentioned something about distribution problems.
That could explain things. I only saw two yellow cap bottles around here the whole time the promotion was on, and those were both Sierra Mist. I never saw one single Pepsi with a yellow cap. And that wasn't because of other promotions getting in the mix, all I ever saw was plain ordinary Pepsi bottles. How was I supposed to even try to participate or use winning codes when I couldn't find any freakin yellow caps??
was to have given away 100 million tracks through Apple's iTunes music site. But according to Apple on Wednesday, only about 5 million free songs have been redeemed."
So iTunes is a failure.
Let's close it up. Unplug the servers and shut down the site.
They haven't sold enough Macs either, so let's close that down too. Can't make a dime unless they're the #1 record-setting, fastest-growing business in the history of civilization.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
"I don't know why they bother trying to up the security. There is no way to secure media content that is compatible with mass distribution."
It's the "a little goes a long way" paradigm. There's not a car lock that will stop a sophisticated thief who wants your car, but it stops 90% of the punters. Same with locks on doors and copy protection on computer games and gaming consoles. There are likely professional car thieves who also wonder out loud why the car manufacturers don't just give up because it's a losing battle, etc., but it's not going to happen, either.
"They need to work on their business model, because this piecemeal anti-cracking stuff is a joke."
Apple has sold 70 million songs in their first year, and the iTMS is the most wildly successful of any of the legitimate download services, by a wide margin. I think their business model suits them just fine. Remember, Slashdot readers != the general populace. The little annoyances of playing cat-and-mouse with the "all music must be free" crowd is just one part of doing business and is similar to the fraud and theft issues that many other retailers deal with.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
bull, I set one up sans credit card fine, I didnt put in a credit card number untill I decided to buy a song.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I've never even seen one of these Pepsi bottles in stores and I looked for them. No wonder they couldnt get all 100 million redeemed.
Had no idea that there was any deadline (let alone *tomorrow*) for redeeming these things. Trouble is... I'm never going to buy iTunes songs. Probably never going to buy any online songs. I'm happy buying a CD every few months and ripping it to enjoy at work.
I just don't see installing iTunes so that I can listen to the 21 songs I've won, meanwhile my 1000's of other songs are over in another application. That's what we call a dumb hassle. Maybe I should switch all those other songs over to some iTunes playlist. Maybe, or, blah...whatever.
So, really, I don't know anything about iTunes other than the promotion gave at least one bored boy a little something to do.
I'll give it a try. Redeem those caps today. But, if the CC is required then they can just go krunk themselves.
Any sex is only between two consenting adults, and is IN NO WAY RELATED to the $0.99 song transaction. If the I and the Ben & Jerry Corperation do indeed engage in this sort of behavior, it is A PERSONAL MATTER BETWEEN BETWEEN US and NOT RELATED to the exchange of personal information for objects of value.
And anyway, it takes at least two songs -- one of which must be Marvin Gaye -- to get me.
HTH HAND!
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Itunes maybe drm but they consistently have the most generous terms and usage limits. They also are reasonably priced. They put out a good product at a fair price...and they dont charge subscriptions. They are also the only paid song program for Mac users.
Itunes is a good thing , and if you hack their songs without paying you are a thief. It is not like Kazaa where you might say there is no victim, Itunes is based on selling its product,and if Itunes fails mac users are screwed.
If there is someday an Itunes for Linux are you going to hack that until it dies too?
The contest only ran for a few months. It's hard to say if 100 million pepsi's were sold (or could ever be), let alone 100 million iTune pepsi bottles.
-Anonymous Coward aka Kevin
They fucked themselves by saving a buck on the free song you were entitled to? Uh... yeah.
jrjBlog
Hey folks, look through what Jobs has said about this. He clearly thinks that what did happen is what was going to happen from day 1. He doesn't believe that the encrypted protection of the music is the way to keep selling it. He believes that the reason the iTunes store will do well is because it is more convenient than P2P. And, from an acquisition perspective he's hit that dead on.
Jobs has explained in countless interviews how he has tried to convince the RIAA that copy protection is a pointless investment. But, they would not be convinced. Copy protection only exists because of them, not Apple. Apple obtained the most liberal liberal licenses up to that point in history (by far).
They're just trying to appease the RIAA, and I am certain the whole time they are preparing (or making) arguments that there this DRM chasing is a fruitless endeavor. I believe this primarily because Jobs is a pig headed sonofabitch who will want to eventually get his point across.
The guy is apparently a bit eccentric, labeling himself a hard-line anti-American and an opponent of capitalism... but I thought this bit was just hilarious...
brb have to shut chooks in.
"I have just deconstructed the encryption protocol designed by Apple's finest enginee..ah fuck the chicken has escaped"
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
I find it interesting that the quote at the bottom of slashdot as i read this is "Anything free is worth what you pay for it."
KidFunkyFried
Is it possible there were multiple account setup procedures? I spent almost an hour trying to set up an account. It would not let me leave the CC information fields blank.
I've redeemed 24 caps. My "find" rate was on the order of 50%. I still have three left in my "To be used" stack, that I doubt I -will- be able to use before the expiration period.
Why? Because there is not enough music I -LIKE- on iTunes. I don't like 90% of the pablum they tried to force to me, and when I was browsing around, there wasn't anything I wanted that I Didn't Already Have. Nearly a third of my 24 redeems were recommendations from friends, or re-aquisitions of songs I don't have on CD alreay.
Did it change my soda drinking habits? Sort of. Before the promo, I was a diet coke drinker, I swapped to Diet Pepsi while I could find the bottles. Now, I drink Diet Coke again. (Well, Diet Mt Dew, there's another promo on Dew Points...)
As for breaking it? Eeh, I never worried about the first one. I burned to CD all the songs I DL'ed, and listen in the car. My MP3 Player is my PC where I have them legitimately anyway. Perhaps in the future that will change.
End of February? You were lucky -- I was working in Anaheim since January 2004, and we didn't see any yellow iTunes caps until the third week of March, which was right before the promotion ended.
I'm still getting yellow caps now; it's a good thing Apple is still letting me redeem them (at least through tomorrow), because I've already cashed in 7 or 8, and could reap a few more between now and the end of work tomorrow.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Perhaps you don't understand: libopendaap isn't about hacking iTunes. libopendaap is about other programs "talking daap" with other programs (and specifically iTunes). It's about interoperability; interoperability is perfectly legal.
Your 9-year-old daughter may not use the iTunes Music Store. From the terms and conditions:
I'm sorry, but I'll have to terminate your daughter's account and rescind the licences to her so-called "free itunes."
There was no credit card requirement.
The next pasture is always greener
The authentication doesn't just prevent DRM-removal. It also cripples iTunes' ability to connect to non-iTunes music shares.
I have my entire music library--which, incidentally, is 100% legal and paid for--on a Linux server running daapd. iTunes 4.5 broke iTunes so I could no longer pay my legally purchased music on my Macintosh.
Fortunately, the maintainer of daapd worked out the fix about as quickly as the maintainer of libopendaap did, and I've been able to upgrade iTunes after all.
Make no mistake, Apple's screwing around does have a negative impact on their customers, even the ones who haven't infringed copyright.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I think a large reason that this happens as well is because iTues doesn't play on Win 98.
Mac doesn't have a large user base to begin with (well, it does, but not in %).. and iTunes is only available on Win 2000 and XP.
I'm in college and i know sooo many people who are still running '98. Most people don't care or know enough to upgrade, or have computers with more than 128mb of RAM or something better than an old Dell with a celeron in it.
Even if they won a free song they wouldn't even be able to play it.
I admit that my Eastern history is not really up to snuff, but I don't remember any point in history where Japan took chunks of China long enough to both worry about defending it to the north *and* worried about improving northern defenses (much less decorating them).
I can't even figure out what major Tokugawa construction project you might be referring to. I can't find anything other than a number of castles that were built.
Apparently, one of the edicts of the Tokugawa era (not sure which Lord Tokugawa you're referring to) was that each province was required to have a castle. This resulted in a lot of castle-building, so it's hard to figure out exactly which one you're thinking of. I can't easily find any reference to a building at the end of a region.
May we never see th
The target group for this just wasn't that big.
1) Most people don't care about music. They put on the radio, and will buy a "Greatest Hits" collection perhaps once every 6 months, but that's about it.
2) The number of people who can be bothered to check out the iTMS, and know how to find Apple's software, and are savvy Internet users, is a minority of a minority of a minority. Sure, if all you read are trade rags on the Internet, you'd think it was the Second Coming of the Messiah. But most people couldn't care less.
3) So you're left with a comparatively small group of hipsters and gadgeteers who love music and know about the promotional offer. Now all that has to happen is for them to bump into a bottle (not can! not cup!) of Pepsi. Odds are pretty small.
this guy reverse engineered the protocol used to share iTunes music on a network. he wanted to play music stored on his mac laptop using his Linux box; music that, i presume, has either already been stripped of drm or didn't have it in the first place.
he also maintains a library that can be used to write iTunes clones.
I found a free cap at a local So. Cal Detention Center (jail--dont ask). I've looked through iTMS and couldn't find a single thing I wanted. Now if the cap was good for a free audiobook that would be a different story. I tried looking through iTMS' exclusive lists but still nothing enticed me.
If Apple doesn't want people to hack iTunes, they need to provide a way of playing the files on operating systems other than Windows and Mac OS.
Uh, yeah. And if Ford doesn't want people to steal Explorers, they need to provide a way of distributing cars to people who don't have any.
What planet are you from?
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
There are likely professional car thieves who also wonder out loud why the car manufacturers don't just give up because it's a losing battle, etc., but it's not going to happen, either.
Detroit isn't trying to keep the owners of cars from starting them though.
Alarm systems, starter kill switches, fuel pump kill relays, and laser cut keys are a lot different than, say cars that refuse to start in certain neighborhoods.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I hate it when webpages move my windows around. I put my windows where I have them for a _REASON_. don't fucking move /resize my windows.
If you want to have a window of a particular size/location then open a new one!
Bastards. If it weren't Ben & Jerry's I'd boycott!
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
How said anything about hacking songs without paying?
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Places like etree have long lists of bands (over 1k listed on etree) that are cool with trading (mostly live shows). There's some great legally free music downloads out there, start checking them out.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
You forgot to list cups from 7/11. You could buy the cups (without soda) for 10c at most 7/11 stores.
I live on Diet Pepsi and never saw even one cap in Northern VA.
If you don't like this, you shouldn't use iTunes at all and don't buy their music
I won't, thanks! Oh, and if you don't like Playfair, don't use it either! Software should not be illegal. People in America should not be GOING TO PRISON FOR SPEAKING PUBLICLY about algorithms.
Some things are just absolutely wrong - don't you get that? The music business is of very little importance compared to the sickening law which Apple is invoking to protect their business interests.
There's an old saying: For every taller wall, there's a longer ladder.
Oops, Step 4 should say the "Music Store" is accessed from the top of the lefthand pane. Didn't mean to confuse you.
Download my free songs!
Thanks for playing, but... The world's first skyscraper was actually one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. It was the Pharos(lighthouse) in Alexandria. constructed as three three different structures on top of each other(square base, an octagonal middle section, and a cylindrical top). The combined height of the Pharos was 117 m (384 ft), the size of a present day 40-story building. Some historians claimed it to be as high as 600 feet(63 stories). The Pharos was completed in 270BC and "stood" until a final earthquake took it down in 1326.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
To all you saying I'm wrong. Nope, sorry. I tried with 3 separate winning caps at three separate times. Each time when I followed somone's advice to skip the CC entry it came back at me REQUIRING it. If I knew I'd run into people like you all I would have gotten a screen capture of it. It was required. Did they change it recently? Fucked if I know, and fucked if I even care. I *was* going to buy into the service (as it was a pretty good deal), but not when they pull shit like that. That's what I mean by "they fucked themselves."
Once someone pointed out that if you hold the bottle at eye level at a 45 degree angle you could see enough of the cap to determine a winner before buying. Most of the ones I bought were during a sale at $0.99 each.
No store crack, no DRM crack.
This is just cracking the system of sharing music so that you can again write your own program to share music.
Is sharing your own music across a LAN illegal? Is it deplorable? iTunes still won't let you do it across networks (i.e. across the network), so the potential for abuse on this is low.
Apple had broken backward and backward compatibility with iTunes 4.2 in music sharing, apparently to stop MyTunes. Where was the outrage about that?
"iTunes 4.5 uses a new authentication algorithm. However, not even 24 hours after I downloaded it, and that includes a little sleep and lots of uni time, I've broken it. Hah."
Ok, so he's a young student and linux zealot trying to be arrogant. But still, why would he think its funny to break the law and harm a legitimate U.S. business? Especially since its the best and most honest music service out there, and they're just trying to earn a decent profit for providing a good service.
"I do not believe in capitalism or the free market. I am a hard line anti-American..."
Oh...
Wow. That would be a good point if it was an actual fact that you need a credit card number. I just helped a friend redeem a bunch of caps on her computer last week. No credit card needed.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Clicking on a "redeem song" button and entering an e-mail address was too much work for you!? Remind me never to hire you for anything ever.
It's still there. Are you implying that they'll be closing this 'loophole'? If so, you should rephrase as "Do you really think that Apple's 'loophole' of allowing you to go DRM->CD->non-drm will last forever?"
Big difference. One's FUD, the other is tin-foil hat.
-T
hmmm what where you installing iTunes into, a PC or a Mac (I did it on my iBook)
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I'm not a tinfoil hat type, but I wonder if they hosed us because of our well publicized deal with Napster (which I don't have access to, and wouldn't use if I did).
They should have *saturated* this area with caps, to show people how much better iTMS is.
How the fact that a legally developed and legally created utility such as PlayFair can be called illegal just because it gets you "free music".
Who said you have a right to free music? The point is people do have the right to write algorithms in computer languages on hardware they own, have the computer translate those algorithms into executable programs, and then distribute it to other people. In fact, "I have the right to write something I came up with and distribute it online, even if it's written in a language other than english" sounds an awful lot like the right to free speech.
Meanwhile, neither Apple or the MPAA has a "right" to prevent utilities to destroy their ineffective and truly unworkable "drm" systems from working. Similar to how if it turned out that corn syrup caused Masterlock products to melt, Masterlock would not have the right to have corn syrup banned.
Not free. You have to pay $1.29 or whatever for a bottle of Pepsi. That's $.30 more than if you bought the song by itself on iTMS. If you weren't going to buy some Pepsi anyway, then it's not a good deal at all.
I'd believe distribution problems too, though. I only found a few bottles in the Seattle area (not that I really went looking too hard, though).
I just tried to sign up for today's free song, and they wouldn't let me without a credit card. I refuse to store my cc info on any merchant's site.
Is there a workaround to this, or is it different with the pepsi caps?
Bullshit. It's about removing DRM from Apple's protected AAC files, thereby a.) breaking the terms that you agreed to *before* you downloaded anything from the iTMS to begin with, and b.) being a TRUE violation of the DMCA, as these programs do, and were designed to do, nothing other than circumvent Apple's copy protection.
This is a way to reclaim rights. They only person who can crack a song's DRM under this scheme is the person who bought it. That means they've already paid Apple. All people want to do is play their songs on non-Apple players, play them on Linux machines, and other fair uses. There's no reason to get all huffy about it.
I personally took advantage of the promotion - all in all got about 50+/- free songs. I don't drink all that much soda, I had a lot of help from friends/coworkers (they all know me as the lone Powerbook guy among the sea of Dell - since it was Apple's promotion, they figured I was the only person who could use the caps ;-) ).
;-)).
I think one thing that hurt the promotion was the lack of variety in sodas that could win. Pepsi, Diet Pepsi. No Caffiene Free Pepsi, Lemon Pepsi, Vanilla Pepsi, etc. No Mtn Dew (I can safely assume that the 5mil would break 10mil from the Slashdot crowd alone), no Dr Pepper, etc. I prefer Pepsi over Coke so when I was interested in a cola, it was going to be Pepsi. But I know a lot of people who generally like Pepsi products, just not Pepsi.
I'm in the DC area, we had the new bottles pretty quick after the promotion started (largely due to the lardy fatsos in Baltimore w/ a caffiene craze I bet
$.02
You raise a good point but I think you're being a bit harsh on Apple's DRM restrictions, particularly with the understanding that Slashdot users != typical users. Apple's DRM allows sharing on three (or is it five now?) PCs. The vast majority of their customers likely do not personally own more than three PCs upon which they want to play music. Likewise, the ability to burn no more than seven (as I believe the new number is) copies of a playlist before you have to re-shuffle them -- again, the vast majority of customers don't have more than seven cars or other locations that need their own CD.
The only feature of their DRM which is likely to be an inconvenience to the typical user is the inability to convert directly to MP3 without an intermediate burn/rip. But, I certainly understand why this is the case. Apple -- like the businesses that you and I work for or even run -- are in business to make money. If making money on the back end by selling iPods is what allows them to sell songs at a buck a track, then that's fine with me -- if I want to put music on my Zen and it's too big of an inconvenience for me to burn/rip, then I'll get my tracks from an online store that offers WMAs. There are plenty of choices for consumers out there; using a cracking tool and violating license agreements is not the only way.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Different with the pepsi caps. The Redeem function is a different section.
And for today's free song, they should pay us to listen to it. Avril Lavigne? please...
I never got around to install iTunes, nor will I do until Friday, so here are the codes of 3 Pepsi caps I have lying around for the quickest of you:
PPQ4F KKAI(D or less likely O)
HEWGG IHA4C
FPMFN DACVF
All are "One free song" of course, so enjoy !
A lot of people seem to be up in arms over this, so let me clear it up somewhat: when the Pepsi promo was started, there was an option in the account settings to choose "none" for your credit card. However, in the last week, that option was disabled, and new accounts now require a valid credit card to be entered in order to be created. So both sides of the argument are correct.
An interesting side note: my account had the "none" option selected, so even though that's no longer an option, my account has been unaffected! Meaning, unless Apple figures it out, I can keep my account open without entering any credit card information. I intend to do all my future purchases via iTunes Gift Certificates. ^_^
Thanks a million. Push Start to replay.
Is Microsofts DRM included in their purchased music store files (such as the ones purchased at Wal-Mart's site) that much harder than the DRM used with iTunes Music Store files? What if I want to purchase $.79 songs from Wal-Mart and play them on my Linux box (or on my Mac)? At this point if only Apple's DRM is cracked and not Microsofts then its got to be whole lot easier for Mircosoft to negotiate contracts with record labels/artists. Right?!
Cars that refuse to start in certain neighborhoods? That totally happens all the time. Why just the other day as I was passing a trailer park I saw 3 or 4 cars out on the lawn. I would like to think they worked fine up to that point.
You say not surprising like it were a bad thing for Apple to have 5 million songs downloaded - if even 1/10th of 1% of those = 5000 people - purchased additional songs it was worth the FREE publicity Apple got.
This promo wasn't a failure by ANY means:
Let's say Pepsi produced 100 million bottles with free song caps. Out of those, 70 million were sold. 50% of the buyers had computers (down to 35 million) and 50% of them had broadband (down to 17.5 million) and 50% of them were interested in digital music (now down to ~9 million).
Apple got over 1/2 of those people to use iTunes, many for the first time. Many of these people, now that they had to download the software are likely to remain apple music customers.
Then you break it down further - those who like the iTunes Store that also drink Pepsi and those that have a portable player that will play them and those that were just generally confused and thought that it was STILL stealing or thought that it was exclusively an Apple Promotion.
I KNOW older people that think ALL downloaded music must be stolen or illegal AND I know people who think iTunes ONLY works on Macs or if it has an Apple Logo and says Apple Computer it must be Apple/Mac ONLY.
I'd say; if we take ALL that into consideration they actually had a 75-90% redemption rate.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
iTunes for Windows 4.2 (see above).
Clicked on Redeem Song. Asked me to log on. Clicked Create Account. Page did not load. Navigated back, repeated several times. Popup comes up asking for information. Get submission errors if I try to submit without valid / complete CC info. Finally enter the info and await an email verification. Log on. Click redeem song, asks me to log on again. Log on with username and password. This time I'm allowed to enter codes. Once I find the song I want, it takes me 5 minutes to figure out that "Buy Song" is scrolled off the right side of my screen. Do a Help search to figure out how to buy the music in my cart. Realize I can't because nothing is in my cart, I'm "not logged in." Log in. Re-add song to cart. Click on Shopping Cart in left pane, click Buy Music. Enter username and password AGAIN. Confirm purchase (free).
I love iTunes, it's the best player/net radio/music file organizer/burner I have ever used, but the learning curve on the store's UI was ridiculous. Since then, I have had no problems redeeming 12 more codes.
I have Windows 98. All free songs I would have won, would have never gotten redeemed.
iTunes is for Windows 2000 or greater
So MOST of the pepsi sold here didn't have the deal. They ONLY gave us less than 3 weeks... and then to top it off, a week ago all the remaining ones were pulled and replaced with non-iTunes bottles.
Basically, you had to know - go out of your way to find them - and then hope there would be some next week.
I was able to cash in about 12 tops though - got alot of nice Hawaiian music for it. Thanks Apple :) No thanks Pepsi - you coulda done better considering there's a frig'n bottling plant right in town.
further
i have noticed the PC version iseems to not be as esy as the mac version, they say they are the same but I have not nearly had the problems with the mac version as I do the PC
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I'm a Coke drinker who was planning to buy Pepsi specifically to win some free songs, but I never once found a single iTunes Pespi product anywhere where I live, in Springfield, Missouri, or in Kansas City, or in Southern California when I went there for a visit. I even wrote an e-mail to Apple complaining about this, which went unanswered. So, if anything is to blame for the low numbers, this would be it.
So let me get this straight...
(1) I spend 99c downloading a song
(2) I spend the next X hours of my life writing or downloading an Apple DRM decoder
(3) I end up with a non-DRM song and a 99c credit card bill
I can see why this is easier than just performing step 1 and quitting. I mean, since I have 6 computers I need to play the song on, or I want to burn 8 of the identical CD, or I have no life.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
4.5 million teeth have fallen out due to this promotion.
indierock / punkrock band photos and more... http://www.digitaldefection.net
He should have waited a couple of weeks until the 4.5 base was firmly established first. Now how long before 4.6 comes out with another tweak to the system? Every time Apple has to update the system, they will piss off more people because of the DRM.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The post is a bit misleading, what was changed is the authentication when connecting to other persons' iTunes shares. Also, the libopendaap library is meant for browsing and streaming audio from iTunes shares.
Merry Christmas from a linux user who happened to win.. P9RX4 96RHX
Around here (delaware), we got the yellow caps after a couple weeks, and I redeemed about 7. Unfortuantly, they don't have any more around here. I guess they ran out: there just aren't any around. None. At all.
"The most looniest, zaniest, spontaneous, sporadic Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker, addict"
Funny, but many people are able to get into the iTunes Music Store and make purchases without a credit card. That's why Target is selling stored-value cards for the iTMS starting at $15 a pop.
Also, you can get credit from others as "allowances." It's pretty spiffy, especially for parents. This way, kids who aren't old enough to qualify for a credit card can still make purchases.
Some people need to RTFA before spouting off.
The guy didn't crack the new DRM scheme. He cracked the new authentication method for DAAP, which is the protocol iTunes uses to stream music to other iTunes clients over the network.
It's the "Music Sharing" functionality. It's what let's iTunes play from other iTunes shares. All that breaking the auth does is let you write programs to share music back and forth with iTunes over the network.
This has NOTHING to do with the DRM methodology in purchased iTMS songs!
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Until 4.5 I was able to burn purchased tracks using Roxio Toast. It stopped working and Roxio tells me that these are changes implemented by Apple and this mens I must use Apple software to burn them now.
*grumble*
You are correct in that Apple's DRM isn't overly intrusive. In fact, I believe that their DRM is one of the best current incarnations.
I do understand the fact that the vast majority of computer "users" have never even heard of an inode, or a hash, or XOR and they think that a "register" is where you pay for groceries. In the end I am thinking of what is good for them as well. Maintaining freedom is important, even for people who do not wish it or even understand why other people do.
I don't have any problem with Apple using technological means to try to keep people from breaking the DRM in this case. I take issue with using the threat of physical harm (which it is whenever someone invokes the law) to stop reverse engineering.
It's the equivalent of a big stupid kid planning to get into college by threatening to beat the crap out of anyone who blows the grading curve.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
browse their shitty (imo) selection
Well, just because it is the largest selection of any (legal) online music service, with all five major labels, and hundreds of indie lables, I guess they should have hired you to weed out the shit. Geez.
Just because apple charges a buck a tune doesn't mean that's what people think it's worth
This is where you really need to get your head out of your ass. A product is worth what the market will pay. So far over 70 million songs downloaded from ITMS means that a lot of people think it's worth 99 cents
It's the "a little goes a long way" paradigm. There's not a car lock that will stop a sophisticated thief who wants your car, but it stops 90% of the punters. Same with locks on doors and copy protection on computer games and gaming consoles. There are likely professional car thieves who also wonder out loud why the car manufacturers don't just give up because it's a losing battle, etc., but it's not going to happen, either.
Except in the case of digital data protection schemes on the Internet, just *one* person who cracks that scheme and releases it out on the 'net makes that crack available to literally millions of people. Not so in the physical realm. There it takes time to get the word around, and get the idea implemented in new areas for it to be useful. The Internet gets rid of that nasty in the middle step and makes it all instant. A little does not go a long way on the Internet in terms of prevention.
I'm just outside of San Francisco.
:P
I have *rarely* seen the iTunes caps - FAR more often, I saw NCAA "Final Four" promo caps or some other sports stuff. Very rare to see the iTunes caps. Whenever I did see a bunch of them, I made sure I selected the winning ones and redeemed them. I hate Pepsi and I still managed to guzzle down at least 15 bottles.
Pepsi had way more "sport theme" contest caps out in the wild than iTunes caps, at least around here.
I also drank a few more Slurpees, too. Really easy to peel back the cup edge to see if you're a winner before you even pour the Slurpee.
a new Pepsi/iTunes promotion - 95 Million free songs by the end of the quarter! /ha ha
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
The more you tighten your grip, Steve, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Da Blog
Not sure what ya'll are doing wrong. I have iTunes on Mac and Windows, (same account on both), no credit card was ever given, and have downloaded Pepsi cap songs and the new Free Songs on both machines with no problem at all.
They surely would have reached all 100 million if they had put the codes on bottles of Mt. Dew as well
My girlfriend switched from normal to diet soda at the beginning of this semester. Very shortly afterward, she began to have debilitating headaches. Unfortunately, we failed to make any connection. These headaches continued until two weeks ago when she learned about the concept of "aspartame sensitivity" and stopped drinking aspartame products. Her health dramatically reversed the next day.
Would you like to call her a "kook", or imply I am somehow an astroturfer in the pay of Diet Rite?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Any transfer of media involved making a copy. We all know how the recording industry feels about copying.
In my personal opinion, I didn't think a music dowload service could be sold to media companies without near-bulletproof copy protection. Every scheme I could think of was either crackable (one extreme) or would hinder fair use (other extreme)
And most importantly, how do you get someone to pay for something that can be obtained freely?
When the idea hit me, I was floored. I was going to make millions. Then, once I began working out some technical issues, those 3 points kept popping into my mind.
I guess the bottle availablity has more to do with your local distributor than Pepsi.
I live up in the North Country in New York. I'd consider my city to be pretty darn far from a major population center, yet strangely enough we had iTunes Pepsi's available by the second week of the promotion.
Fearing diabetes in my late 20s, I have long-since switched to Diet Pepsi, so collecting caps wasn't a problem -- I've amassed 47 winning songs thus far...
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
- Grandparent post makes an unverified claim saying aspartame is bad, and does not link to back up
- Parent post makes an unverified claim saying aspartame has been disproven to be bad, and does not link to back up
How about I just don't take either of you seriously?
Here's something solid. Aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Your move.
In other words...
And any idiot who says otherwise is, well, an idiot.All your points are valid, but I think its important to realize that there are plenty of reasons to despise the RIAA and similar organizations. I'm not going to go into them; I simply want to emphasize one of your points: If you want to hurt the RIAA, the most effective action is to buy lots of non-RIAA label music! Give indie labels the money to publish new artists so they won't have to sell their souls ;)
Listening to and spreading RIAA label music, without paying them directly, is mostly providing ammunition for the pro-DRM crowd and making their music more popular. Some people do buy CDs by artists they've downloaded and if most of whats available is RIAA label....
I choose a lot of what I buy after listening to illegal copies of it. Theres so much out there that I find it necessary if I don't want to buy a lot of CDs I'll never listen to. And I buy a LOT of music: $100+ a month on AVERAGE! So, while I may represent a small segment of the music-downloading, "childish, lifeless nerds", if I were buying RIAA label music, I'd be helping them through the efforts of those who rip/decode and spread the mp3s.
Fortunately for me, and the labels I support, I despise pop and the stuff that's my cup of tea is hardly ever picked up by a major label.
I'm guessing there must have been some, because in my area there were still coolers stocked full of these bottles as of a couple days ago. I will bet dollars to pesos that at that point they didn't all even leave stores. Then factor in how few people actually use iTunes and just threw winners away. Personally I thought it was a great deal...tilt the bottle, make sure you have a winner, and pay 1.49 for a liter of Pepsi and a .99 cent cong. (I never saw any contest caps on bottles of less than a liter)
From the license aggrement:
Important: After installing iTunes 4.5 for Windows, you'll only be able to transfer music to your iPod using iTunes. To transfer music from MusicMatch Jukebox or Audible Manager to your iPod, you'll need to first import the music into iTunes. For more information, search iTunes and Music Store Help.
What the hell is that?
Beauty is truly in the eye of the tiger
I could have explained the missing bottle vouchers, since Ive got about 500 emptys in my room, bah all that music I could have had, instead Ive only got a bad case of wind *burp* :)
Ok, now that's just plain silly. These are FREE songs we're talking about. So they didn't have a specific tune you wanted. What was keeping you from downloading a track from someone you never heard of? (The previews are there for a reason.)
You could have discovered something new that you really liked, without any risk of wasting money. Be a little more adventurous...
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
tard.
From Coca Cola:
Aspartame by itself is heat and pH sensitive (meaning it loses its sweetness over time), the concentrated fountain syrup causes aspartame to lose its sweetness faster than it would in a finished beverage. Fountain diet drinks, therefore, are sweetened with a blend of and saccharin to assure maximum product quality.
Your comments are very astute if we assume that most people are similar to Slashdot readers. Apple has done a tremendous job of getting iTunes / iPod awareness into the mainstream -- there's a higher non-geek ratio than many people understand. Most iTMS users don't read Slashdot or other tech blogging sites, nor visit Sourceforge regularly. Most iTMS users don't have more than five PCs, or need to burn more than eight copies of a CD, or have a huge desire to dump their collection of iTunes-purchased tracks into their Kazaa share directory.
It just may be so that among your circle of friends, awareness and use of the iTunes crackers approaches 100% -- no debating that. However, among my circle of friends who use iTunes, awareness is practically zero, and when I've mentioned it to them, their responses have been more along the lines of "how retarded," rather than "ooh, just what I've been looking for." Internet or no, there's a whole different strata of users beyond the Slashdot crowd.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Here's my theory. You routinely buy your Pepsi products at the same store. You are also completely unaware that a very sneaky warehouse clerk in the back of the store performs the well-known tilt cheat on every Pepsi bottle on every pallet that comes in and deftly sets aside the winners for himself and his friends. It's not like management would know or care what he was doing. You gotta love a good conspiracy theory now and then.
Then it's the time for another version of the modification, this time using a drill bit designed for steel, and a more powerful power drill.
Which is exactly what the auth crack was. :)
I strongly feel this is important... don't get health information from slashdot... Medscape
is a very good source of information which is geared towards a more scientific-oriented crowd than sites such as WebMD. (Although Medscape was recently bought by WebMD, it existed previously as a source of information primarily for health care providers, thus of a more technical nature, and WebMD seems to have left it relatively alone).
I did for all except for one, which was at a café and didn't feel like making a fool out of myself.
VNLGA
W7CPJ
(that first V could maybe be a U, kinda hard to read the font on the cap)
That one's been sitting in my desk drawer for 3 months, too much hassle for me to install iTunes for one cheesy song.
I am surprised to find Slashdot promoting a company that has abused free software to its own ends. By taking BSD UNIX derived code they did exactly what the GPL is there to prevent. How long will it take for people to realise that the GPL is a protection for software? Then, they took advantage of the goodwill of free software developers to develop for their proprietary product.
When Apple makes Quicktime, Cocoa and Quartz free software the community can take their free software support as sincere and not a thinly veiled attempt at gaining free labour.
You can read more about the GNU project at http://www.gnu.org/.
I havent tried / used itunes as yet. what is the reason so many rae dloadin songs from itunes?is it really bcoz they are getting the songs for a low price (is it so tempting to quit free mp3's).
What is the advantage over mp3, which does not hav restrictions at all (like no. of times to write etc..)
Why does yahoo do this
I didn't see that many, but I definitely saw some of the iTunes bottles in the Raleigh/Durham area. Target, WalMart, Eckerd, and Lowes are a few retailers that I've seen carry them. I got a free song with one of them, too.
I tried with 3 separate winning caps at three separate times. Each time when I followed somone's advice to skip the CC entry it came back at me REQUIRING it.
Call iTMS customer support. A CC isn't required for redeeming pepsi caps or gift certificates.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
>The FDA would take that very seriously.
The FDA is part of the problem, they're in the pockets of the evil corporate executives!!!!
If anyone has some extra ones that they won't use, could they email the extra codes to me?
Email: flamingmonkeyofjustice@hotmail.com
Here in California my brother and his buddy culled the herd at our local store (at a lake where they work) and got a whole case (24) of winners.
Win early, win often!
magnatune.com
Not necessarily. At some point, they're going to start using tamper resistant hardware. Good luck mod-chipping that. The only hole you can actually count on, is digital-to-analogue-to-digital conversion, to get data out of your "trusted" box and into an ordinary computer. That might be fine for ebook pirates, but it's going to be one hell of a PITA for daily life.
Rather than planning to spend tens or hundreds of hours on work-arounds when this happens, it would make sense to donate tens or hundreds of hours of your wages to the EFF or similar organisations which are working to prevent this problem from prevailing in the first place.
Fixing copyright
Get a life, identifying yourself with an over hyped consumer product is about as low as a human being can get.
Actually, posting your predictable "anti-consumerist" dismissal of a statement that was lighthearted to begin with, under the anonymous coward veil is about as low as a human being can get. The only way it could get worse is if you revealed yourself to be a GNU zealot, living in mommy's basement, covered in zits from forehead to ass, only leaving your hole at night to go get more Bawls or whatever it is that fuels your all night sessions of writing shitty, disorganized, inefficient code, the likes of which resulted in you failing out of the only community college whose standards were low enough to let you in in the first place, while all your intellectual peers were signing up for the army, which is what initiated your move into the basement in the first place.
Don't you have a rally at SCO headquarters to go to or something, nerd?
- Eat it.
They can't possibly achieve that way. Nothing is 100% tamper-resistant. Doing this to the entire market will create rather huge demand for "tampered" devices, which is a decent incentive for black market. Tamper resistance is also rather expensive; consumer devices are unlikely to use that all - and look at the "I ported Linux on Gameboy" crowd, it's fairly likely at least some devices will be modifiable in the required way. You can make a decent computer from off-the-shelf chips, even "mere" microcontrollers have interesting power now, see eg. ATMega family; the market with general-purpose chips would have to be tightly controlled as well, at which point all the small and middle-sized development-doing companies (or dependent on custom development) start screaming bloody murder, and black market inevitably appears. (Or the "legal" systems will be flexible enough to fulfill any needs - then they are likely to be flexible enough to run just about anything on them - including an emulator of a non-TCPA computer.) The countries that deploy this measure effectively kill most of their R&D, which will cause mighty cheer in the "underdeveloped" nations.
The only hole you can actually count on, is digital-to-analogue-to-digital conversion, to get data out of your "trusted" box and into an ordinary computer. That might be fine for ebook pirates, but it's going to be one hell of a PITA for daily life.
Multiple options exist. The D/A-A/D conversion with audio coupling is a bit extreme, however many other possibilities exist; odd kinds of network protocols, serial link (if present), high-speed lab equipment. You can even bump the audio link speed up by using multiple channels and higher samplerates; I think the successor of AC'97 codec should go up to 192 kHz on 24 bits and 5+ channels, even a rather ineffective data encoding scheme could get quite fast here, presuming the setup is local and the cables are high-quality. Many people here derided it as an overkill - for audio maybe, for unintended purposes it may get pretty handy. Also don't forget various options for video - from digital cameras to DV camcorders to anything exotic the future may bring.
Rather than planning to spend tens or hundreds of hours on work-arounds when this happens, it would make sense to donate tens or hundreds of hours of your wages to the EFF or similar organisations which are working to prevent this problem from prevailing in the first place.
This presumes two things: a) the belief that the organizations will be effective and successful, preventing the problem instead of just slightly delaying it, b) that the money from the wages will have more worth in the global scheme than development of purely technical politics-independent countermeasures, and b.1) that the technician in question is so swamped with paid-for work that he can pick as he pleases between working for money to donate and working on a countermeasures project - which was maybe true in the US at the peak of the dot-com boom, but may not be always an available choice for an underemployed technician, a student, or somebody in a low-dollar-wage country (eg. East Europe or India/China, and the most of the world in general, if you look outside of US/EU/Japan).
Whatever approach you think is the best, do it. If we can survive, it's by diversity of approaches - being it donations or tinkering. Do what you believe will have the most effect, whatever it is.
Elinks caches forms when being told so. It's fine for username and password, but it also remembers the subject line and fills it into the form, and when I forget to change it, it bites me.
You really are a moron, aren't you...
... can explain why Apple don't shut these guys down w/ the DMCA?
You must've read a different article/page then me, then.
All I saw was links to software that allows you to access an iTunes share. Something that, as far as I can tell, is allowable. I saw nothing about stripping out DRM.
Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
iTunes on Windows is slow
I believe that it was a poor design choice on Apple's part, but iTunes performance degrades quickly in the presence of shoddy video drivers. This may have been your problem. Also, if you disable SoundCheck (or just let it finish running) performance improves dramatically. SoundCheck determines the volumes of your music files and has iTunes compensate for bad rips, etc.
iTunes on Windows is slow
FairPlay is the DRM system used on files from the iTMS. iTunes could care less what you do with any of your files that were acquired elsewhere. It will even let you stream audio across your network with almost zero setup.
Winamp 2.95 is fast, convenient, and smart.
It sure is better than the 3.x version, but it has zero library management functions. It takes no time to search for a song in my library in iTunes. If I want to hear a song, I can begin to type any part of its name or its artist's name or even the album name and the song list updates live with each keystroke. It often takes just one or two characters to bring the song you want into the window. That is the one feature that sets iTunes apart from Winamp for me. I really liked Winamp and Macamp but I hated trying to find a particular song. I had to use filesystem searches, but that's not good enough.
You might want to take a second look at iTunes after you update your video drivers. Since you want it to be light weight, turn off all of the music store and sound enhancement features (turn off SoundCheck!). Then you will have an awesome music library management program. I think that if you have a significant music library that you will appreciate the search feature so much that it will eclipse iTunes other shortcomings.
The day is coming when you criminals who think it is funny to break code will go to prison for the rest of your pathetic lives. If you were any where near as clever as you think you are you would have a real job doing something to benefit mankind rather than attempting to constantly destroy things. "Constantly destroy things...", hmmm sounds like some thing a terrorist would do.
It would seem that Pepsi did indeed screw up big time with the distribution. It's a shame the caps were only around for about a month, I would have gotten many more free songs if they didn't disappear so fast.
I have no problem with the DRM.
"You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs"
But the box of windows I already paid for before seeing any license. The transaction has already happened, how do they get to modify it after the fact? Just beacuse it's SOP doesn't mean it is or should be legal.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
...just so y'all will shut up.
iTMS tries to figure out where you are located. If you are connected to the internet via a computer in the United States, and it is fairly certain of this, it doesn't require a credit card to make an account.
If it is not sure, it requires a credit card to verify that your address is in the US.
It's a licensing issue: since they can't sell to people overseas, they can't give songs away to them either.
Now, having heard this, some people overseas might get ideas about bypassing such protections. They may well work, and they are Not My Problem.
Geez, guys. With 30 seconds of thought, any of you could have figured this out. Why are there so many 'but *I* needed a credit card!' 'but *I* didn't!' posts all over the place?
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
I wonder if cowpimp will make a new version of mytunes with crazney's new libs. If not, he should at least share his source. Check it out: CowPimp.com.
ZX2C4
Somebody, whether it be PepsiCo themselves, some distributors, or something, really messed up on the iCap rollout. Everyone I know did NOT see them anywhere near the launch date. I myself didn't see any iCaps until **late March**. The only people I heard of who had iCaps even remotely close to release day were the people working at Apple, and I believe that even THEY had to wait a week or so before the campus vending machines were stocked up. (and had to suffer with frequent out-of-stock)
Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
So we've all agreed that too much Pepsi is bad. We also mostly agree that overconsumption is the main cause of obesity.
We can discuss the biochemistry of glucose and fat metabolism all day, but it is apparent that most people around here, people in general, and most doctors, don't really know biochemistry.
YMMV!
I'll close with a fortune cookie I've never seen, but imagine is somewhere: "Don't ask a fat person how to lose weight if you want to be skinny."
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
You know, right in among the Visa, Mastercard, etc there is a No Credit Card option, if you could just read...