FairPlay v2 Reversed, Playfair Back Online

An anonymous reader writes "Two weeks ago Apple released iTunes 4.5. The minor changes Apple made to their Music Sharing Protocol (daap) were reverse engineered after just one day. According to a post in the Doom9 forums FairPlay version 2 has also been reverse engineered. playfair has already been patched with the new code and is back online with FSF India providing legal support. How will Apple respond?"

Comments

Obvious

[thebra]

"How will Apple respond?"
With FairPlay v3.

Re:Obvious

[green pizza]

>>How will Apple respond?
>With FairPlay v3.

Of course! Apple has to show the RIAA and record labels that they're trying to prevent "unauthorized decryption" of the .m4p files from the iTunes store.

There's really nothing else that Apple can do. If they ignore PlayFair, the RIAA will surly pull the plug on iTunes.

I'm waiting for Microsoft to start their MSN music store. I have a feeling MS will tell the RIAA what they can do with their wishes and desires. For one, MS will want to keep as much money to themselves as possible. They'll also want the RIAA to quick overreacting every time a weakness in DRM is exploited.

Re:Obvious

[nosphalot]

I don't think its a matter for Apple to decide. If the music labels that allow Apple to sell the music keep telling them to change the DRM, Apple has little choice. Without a product to sell, iTMS is pointless.

Re:Obvious

[garcia]

Don't forget that it continues to make the community look bad. "See, we made this format so that people could legally download music for a nominal fee and they just keep breaking it so that they can pirate the tunes."

Don't bother with DRM, RIAA sponsored music, and certainly don't bother with breaking it. Just ignore it and support free music.

Re:Obvious

[Bander]

Please don't be so naive, at least in public.

Apple is not fighting this because they are evil, they are doing it becasue if they don't, record labels will be less interested in working with the iTunes Music Store.

If you must blame someone, blame the RIAA. I agree that it's sad that Apple is playing along with the bastards, but if they aren't seen as vigorously defending the "right" of the labels to make egregious profits, they could stand to lose a critical revenue stream.

Bander

Re:Obvious

[Planesdragon]

If they really wanted to be innovative, they would give the project their blessing.

How is that innovative?

Playfair is the equivalent of a Windows OS keygen. It might be an interesting academic exercise, but no more so than picking a lock or cracking encryption.

iTMS is actually more deserving of the title "innovative." And even that's not by very much. "Good business" is a better label.

Re:Obvious

[athakur999]

I'd say Apple will respond by paying someone to get the story submitted to Slashdot with a link to the offending website, thereby ensuring no one will be able to download it.

Re:Obvious

[Abjifyicious]

Apple is not fighting this because they are evil, they are doing it becasue if they don't, record labels will be less interested in working with the iTunes Music Store.

That may be one of the reasons, but then there's also the fact that their DRM only works with iPods. The whole idea behind the music store is just to sell more iPods. If there was no DRM, people could use their music on non-iPod players that support AAC, but as it is they're locked into buying iPods forever unless they want to re-purchase all their music.

Re:Obvious

[pla]

Don't forget that it continues to make the community look bad.

To which community do you refer? FSF people? GNU people? EFF people? Free-and-Open source (in general) people? Whitehats? Greyhats? Blackhats? Music lovers? Anti-corporate people? Slashdotters?

Put simply, it doesn't really matter how you answer. When something threatens corporate profits (you can see that I at least fall into the last category above), they spin it so we all manage to come out looking bad. Cracked DRM? Damn those anti-corporate open-source hippy weed-smokin' bastards! Leaked Windows source code? Damn those anti-corporate open-source hippy weed-smokin' bastards! A new worm that only affects Outlook or MSIE? Damn those anti-corporate open-source hippy weed-smokin' bastards!

We can't win the PR war, because "they" have a PR budget, and we do not.


Don't bother with DRM, RIAA sponsored music, and certainly don't bother with breaking it. Just ignore it and support free music.

While good in theory (and a stance I almost fully agree with), we all have a few RIAA-signed groups we enjoy. As a better choice than supporting DRM'd downloads, just buy the CD (preferably used so the RIAA doesn't actually profit from the sale, although on the down side, the artist doesn't get any money that way either). Then rip to whatever format you like.

Of course, the RIAA has already started working to plug that particular hole (via broken CDs), but so far have failed miserably. Aside from the overall pathetically weak nature of the DRM on CDs so far, broken CDs have failed for the only reason the RIAA cares about - Profit. The general poublic may have no idea about the trampling of their fair-use rights, but they do get annoyed when they buy a CD and it won't play in their car.

Re:Obvious

[nolife]

MS probably does not have to make money selling music from the store itself. They will license the technology to the player makers and encoding places (chah ching!), ensure the decoding can only happen on recent versions of Windows (chah ching!) using IE (chah ching!) and probably tied into passport and MSN (chah ching, chah ching!). Hell, it might even tie into the XBox (chah ching!) and MS embedded devices (chah ching!).
Being a monopoly has its advantages.

Re:Obvious

[theLOUDroom]

Don't forget that it continues to make the community look bad. "See, we made this format so that people could legally download music for a nominal fee and they just keep breaking it so that they can pirate the tunes."

See, but that's stupid. People can already download music for free without playfair.

The only compelling reason for the existence of playfair is so that you can use the music you've legally purchased in whatever format you want. (Maybe you want to buy an Ipaq instead of an ipod for example).

THIS ISN"T ABOUT PIRACY IT'S ABOUT CONTROL.

It's like a "broadcast flag" for music. By claiming it's a pircacy issue, you only HELP the RIAA and hurt those who understand the big picture.

Re:Obvious

[Kplusplus]

That "buck" arleady gives you music that you can play at home, in the car and while jogging, by using the iPod. You remember it, that thing that Apple markets as "the" cool thing to have.

yes, non-DRMed MP3s serve them extremely well by providing the pirates with perfectly ripped tunes that they know not to be purposely screwed over by the RIAA. AFter all it's not like you can't just give that MP3 to all your friends without having them need to pay for the artist's work( and a large "packaging" fee to the Label)

Yes, the community doesn't look bad for constantly hacking products to rip them off and make things freely available that shouldn't be after all, we do live in a communist society, everything should be free and doled out equally to all. Maybe we should have parades for the authors, after all they are heroes for stealing something merely because they couldn't have it.

yes, an iPod is an investment in a service since after all, it only plays iTMS music, it can't play a multitude of other non DRMed formats.

Yes, we should btite you since after all we shouldn't get in the way of your pirating things, its not like its illegal or anything.

Re:Obvious

[kemapa]

I'm going to take this opportunity to show anything Apple does is rated absolutely great on Slashdot but anything similar Microsoft does is evil.

The Slashdot article about "Janus", found here, contains a similar discussion about DRM, but with a focus on Microsoft (since "Janus" is Microsoft technology).

There is a post very similar to the parent of my reply, stating that Microsoft is not the one pushing for DRM, it is the media giants (RIAA, MPAA). Of course, since it was defending Microsoft's DRM, it was not moderated very high. But the parent to my reply is rated +5 and says almost the same thing (but is defending Apple).

And there was a lot of Microsoft bashing regarding the proposed DRM, moderated very highly of course, which can be found here, here, and here. But if you bash Apple on Slashdot for their DRM, you will be moderated -1 in a few seconds.

I know this will get moderated straight to -1, but I am not attempting to start a flame war, I would actually like to start a discussion and have someone explain to me exactly why Apple DRM is wonderful but Microsoft DRM is wrong. Keep in mind that I am not trying to defend Microsoft's DRM, my position is that BOTH DRMs are bad. Anyway, my real question is, what makes Apple so perfect and Microsoft so wrong?

Re:Obvious

[b1t r0t]

The only compelling reason for the existence of playfair is so that you can use the music you've legally purchased in whatever format you want. (Maybe you want to buy an Ipaq instead of an ipod for example).

Remind me again how Apple (or anybody) is forcing you to buy music with DRM included? I seem to have missed that part.

Re:Obvious

[Durandal64]

Yeah, Apple looks reall "fair" to slashbots right now. But they're slowly but surely tightening the noose. More and more files will be flagged as not-burnable to CD, more and more restrictions will be placed.

There are no non-burnable files on iTMS. The same contract applies to every song. You can make 7 burns of the same playlist, and authorize music on up to 4 additional computers. And Apple hasn't tightened the noose; it's loosened it, probably in response to PlayFair. They allowed for authorization on 2 additional machines, but took away 3 burns (oh boohoo, like I'm going to burn the same playlist 7 times). Apple's working a compromise between the music lovers and the RIAA, and so far, it looks like their model is working well. "Tightening the noose" my ass. Get your facts straight. I hope I can see the moderation of your post in the meta-mod panel just so I can make sure whatever imbecile modded you as "insightful" never gets mod points again.

Re:Obvious

[ratsnapple tea]

You're wrong. These are your choices:

1. Buy music with DRM.
2. Don't.

And that's ignoring your third choice, which is to keep doing whatever you were doing (legally!) before the iTMS came about. Which includes, for example, buying a CD and ripping it yourself. All Apple's done here is give you another way to purchase your music legally, should you so choose; no one's FORCING you to use it.

Maybe...

[Plaeroma]

...Apple should hire the guys, as they are obviously at least as good as the guys they have now.

Re:Maybe...

[bizpile]

...Apple should hire the guys, as they are obviously at least as good as the guys they have now.

I'd say they are better, its much harder to reverse engineer than to engineer.

Re:Maybe...

[wizarddc]

Plus they seem to be the best of show in reverse engineering, which would give Apple an insight on how they are doing it and what they could do to prevent it, or at least make it harder to do.

As a side note, why can't Apple make it easy for their own client to download newer versions of the whole app, or at least the protocol code, automatically from the client? Downloading and updating seems so archaic nowaways. Upgrading directly from the client would be convienient and allows them to update their stuff with a lot of reliability amongst their userbase.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily. Engineering takes more creativity.

With reverse engineering you can watch the machine do its work, examine the input and output and compare them, etc. You have something to work with and you know when it is right...because it works.

The original engineers had to create something out of nothing...

Re:Maybe...

[csirac]

Never mind. I'm a moron.

How is this different?

[palndron]

I do not want to get flamed, but honestly, when I read this stuff I wonder how everyone can get so pissed off when someone breaks the GPL yet be so supportive of someone doing this kind of work?

For all of the lofty talk in the community, is it at it's root support for whatever it takes to get "what I want, free"?

I just would like to know the difference between these things which to me seem similar.

Looking for a better understanding.

Re:How is this different?

[Just Some Guy]

If you break the GPL, you are committing copyright infringement. If you use this tool, you may not be committing copyright infringement.

We can and should be upset with people using this to distribute cracked files, but there is no clear reason why using it to, say, play back legitimately purchased files on a Linux machine is morally or legally wrong.

Re:How is this different?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

For all of the lofty talk in the community, is it at it's root support for whatever it takes to get "what I want, free"?

Have you ever visited the planet Earth?

It's not about stealing, it's about exercising your right to fair use, on the songs you purchase from Apple. It's a *right* you have, you hear? this simply prevents Apple from trampling on *your rights*.

No doubt some people will use it to steal and share, but then, you can buy laser printers, yet the KKK have the right to print their racial slur with the same hardware you use. Would you like it if laser printers couldn't be bought easily anymore just to fight a minority that misuses the product?

Re:How is this different?

[CelloJake]

I think the difference is that the cracking of DRM is justified by the fact that the copyright laws protect certain actions which DRM restricts, under the guise of preventing other infractions of the copyright code.

On the other hand, violating the GPL is by definition a violation of copyright law, assuming the GPL is a valid license (which I believe to be true).

While most people who use the DRM breakers will be breaking copyright laws in their actions, there are uses of it that are not inherintly violating the copyright laws (except for the DMCA, intrinsicly) which would be impossible without them.

-Jacob

Re:How is this different?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine that every book you bought came in a different crypto script and you needed real, microsoft or apple glasses to read each different type of book - effectively a corporate tax on reading. Would you accept this? Would you call a person who circumvented this device a "criminal" with double standards?

No.

It has been proven time and again that there ARE economic models to make money that don't include vendor-lock-in. In fact not only is vendor lock-in anti communistic, it is anti competition and that makes it anti-capitalist.

Fuck DRM, fuck every sniveling executive whose job relies on just being a middle man who takes his little "tax" off everything that real people produce. These people are worthless to a communist society, and they are usless to a capitalist society. They are the dead weight every way you measure it and as far as I am concerned I am not going to let them slowly seal up cultural production across the globe into their little cabals.

Why would ANY society want that to happen? The ONLY society I can imagine that happening in, is one that is run by the self-same people who stand to make a profit off it. And that worries me, because I think there are deals being cut between big media and government for kick-backs. And we need to crush that type of non-citizen corporate lobbying. Why does a corporation have a right to lobby, or even meet with elected representatives? Only citizens should be allowed to meet with government, and only AFTER an elected rep has meet hundreds of citizens for hundreds of hours should he be ALLOWED (we own them remember) to talk policy with a PAID lobby employee of a company.

It doesn't seem all that wrong until you *really* think about what is going on. We need radical democracy to smash all these cretins off the face of the political landscape and start anew; with old-school right wing libertarians and old-school liberal humanists fighting it out for the CITIZENS. There is always corruption, but back in the early days of each democracy of the world there were people *who could not be bought*, I don't think any modern democracy can make that claim anymore. And it makes me sick.

Re:How is this different?

[karmatic]

One, EULAs have never shown to be legally binding.

For example, take a video game. Do you need to agree to the EULA to run it? Of course not:
1- Minors can't enter into contracts. Can only people 18+ buy games?
2- They are amending the terms of sale, after the sale has taken place. This is not legal.
3- Contract laws require that you actually receive something in exchange for what you are offering. Now, the theory behind the EULA is that your computer (and through extension, you) makes a copy when you run it, as such, you need a license to copy. However, Copyright law specifically allows fair use, which allows you to do more than the EULA anyway, and copyright law lets you make copies anyway. As such, you are literally getting nothing in return.
4- Click-through agreements have never been shown to count as a legal agreement
5- What if you just skip it altogether?

The reality is, the companies who use EULAs are abusing the system, and trying to treat a license like a contract. It is not. A license doesn't have any of the above issues (the GPL is, for example, a license).

For example, copyright law says that you may not distribute copies. However, a license can say "you can go ahead and distribute copies, but only if you do X, Y, and Z". A license giveth, a license does not take. As such, minors can use licenses, too.

For example, suppose I were to were to write some sheet music, and give it to you. Copyright law is fairly specific about what you can do with it. For the most part, it just means you can't distribute copies. Now, suppose I placed the text "You may make and distribute copies, provided this copyright notice is present on all copies". This is a license. It gives you rights you do not normally had. You do not need to "enter" into any agreement at all. If you don't want to use it, you don't have to.

shame ...

[eatmadust]

I would much prefer WMA and WMV to be hacked! I find that much worse than Apples iTunes!

GPL

[millahtime]

Can playfair be protected under the GNU GPL and be illegal in the US (under the DMCA) at the same time?

FiarPlay name change?

[Power Everywhere]

I've read on several other Mac news sites (Macintouch, MacMinute, MacSlash) that FiarPLay is now called hymn (for hear your music anywhere). Why didn't Slashdot note this, or has there been a fork in the project?

How will they respond?

[xwinter]

This is probably the excuse the music industry is waiting for to force Apple to raise their rates in the future. It is the old "Gotta make up for revenue lost to piracy" excuse. You have to admit, that while this does provide an avenue for fair use, a large percentage of its use is going to be for piracy.

Apple's rock and hard place

[Dark Paladin]

Will I use the new Hymn/Playfair program? Oh, probably - my .Mac account runs out and I'm not going to renew, and it's how I bought my iTunes songs in the past.

So, now I'm kind of boned (maybe - probably not, but maybe) in the future. Yes, I can "rip to audio-CD-and-then-to-MP3", but Hymn will make it all a "one stop shopping trip" for my fairly large iTunes store collection (hey, they had a special on classical music and BB King - give me a break).

Apple really doesn't have much to worry about, since people have to buy the music first before they can remove the Fairplay protections. And even if a bunch of butt-munches start "sharing" their music with others, that means more AAC files out there, which means a better chance we'll see more MP3 players that include AAC support in the future.

So while Apple doesn't have to worry about Fairplay, the fact is that the folks they get their music from - IE, the RIAA and even independant musicians - might like to hear that Apple's not letting just anybody give away their music without paying for it. Apple might not care, but since the place where they get music does, Apple's obligated to at least "fight the good fight" to show "due process" or some such.

Yeah, I'll use it, I know Apple will work to shut it down, but it should all be good in the long run.

Re:Apple's rock and hard place

[clichekiller]

Will I use the new Hymn/Playfair program? Oh, probably - my .Mac account runs out and I'm not going to renew, and it's how I bought my iTunes songs in the past.

AFAIK you don't have to have a .MAC account in order to purchase from their music store. Is there some other reason that you will stop buying/playing your music when your .MAC account runs out?

with fair play v3?

[joNDoty]

I don't think so. Apple did counter the reverse-engineering with a second version, but at this point I think they realize that it is not cost effective to spend money on a problem that cannot be fixed. It takes Apple too much time and money to develop a new system. They will have to choose to 1. ignore it 2. change their philosophy

Hire the guy!

[Hack'n'Slash]

Personally, I think Apple should hire the person(s) that keeps reverse engineering it. Then they get a knowledgeable staff member, and don't have to worry about a new version being cracked... At least for a little while. :)

More info

[arvindn]

from Macworld

Silly.

[GigsVT]

DRM, copy protection.. it's all the same stuff, and it's never worked. I don't know what makes people think it can work now, when it has failed for the last 25 years.

The only successful DRM has been to have a completely proprietary platform like Apple or SGI. You also get the side bonus of locking your customers into only buying your proprietary hardware upgrades.

big difference

[green pizza]

I do not want to get flamed, but honestly, when I read this stuff I wonder how everyone can get so pissed off when someone breaks the GPL yet be so supportive of someone doing this kind of work?

For all of the lofty talk in the community, is it at it's root support for whatever it takes to get "what I want, free"?

There's a big difference here...

PlayFair decrypts .m4p files into plain .m4a/AAC files. The reason people use PlayFair is to allow the use of iTunes-purchased files to be played back without having to use an iPod or iTunes. Sure this could lead to increased piracy, but so does buying a CD at Walmart.

PlayFair still requires the music to be purchased in the first place. Apple's files (at the RIAA and record labels' demands) are still encrypted, even after "purchase".

PlayFair users are generally working with their own, purchased files. They are not dipping into some secret Apple server full of encrypted, unsold songs.

iTunes buyers simply want more freedom. They're using PlayFair to achieve this.

Encrypted music the next big thing?

[Ghoser777]

We have DRM'd music, what about Public-Private Key Encrypt'd music? Won't it ultimately come down to that, where the key's are owned by a company and you have to be connected online to listen to your music? It must be depressing to sell any type of software online... wait till nanotech does the same thing to the "real world" that dd and cp have done to the electronic world. My guess is either capitalism will fall, or liberty... at that point where you can replicate matter with ease, I doubt they can coexist.

Matt Fahrenbacher

Not similar at all...

[Otto]

Someone violating the GPL is using other people's work without giving them credit or compensation. It's copyright infringement.

Someone decrypting FairPlay'd songs has a whole host of reasons to do so, including using those songs in a fair use manner. You have to *buy* the songs before you can decrypt them.

Example: Say you want to convert the M4P's into MP3's for compatibility with your portable player. iTunes won't let you do that, without the tired hack of burning and reripping an audio CD. But if you FairPlay, you can decrypt the songs into M4A's and then iTunes will convert them to MP3's for you just fine. No (sane) laws have been broken, and it's perfectly ethical to do this. You're not giving away the music, you're just converting it to another format for compatibility with other devices. That's fair use, as I see it.

And frankly, getting iTunes store music, decrypting it, and sharing it isn't going to happen. Nearly everything you can get at the iTunes Music Store is *already* out there on the P2P networks. It's not like this creates more copyright infringement.

Re:Not similar at all...

[Otto]

And with respect to all those arguments claiming that you're just converting formats for personal use, it's nieve. The RIAA doesn't care about what you say anymore than you care about what they say. The power to work around a DRM is a power which we can abuse, and they have no reason to trust us not to abuse it.

a) The word is spelled "naive".
b) Naive it may be, but it's true nevertheless. What's the point of putting decrypted songs on the P2P networks? They're all already there, and in better quality than 128kbps AAC too.
c) The power to work around a DRM system is not a power that they have the ability to take away, so whether they trust people with it or not is irrelevant.

where do you want to draw the line?

I'm perfectly satisfied with the line as it stands. They can keep trying to protect things with DRM, we can keep breaking them. Until they finally understand that it is not possible to create an unbreakable DRM scheme, it'll likely stay this way.

Structured society is all about trading certain rights for benefits

Yes, and that's why we have laws in place to define those rights. Fair use is something we, the people, do have, and I will not trade it away for anything.

This isn't about encryption or breaking DRM or even copying music. This is about taking the music I paid for and using it in the way that I want to use it. Are you seriously suggesting that I no longer have the right to listen to music I purchased on a portable player? Because that will be the main use of this software. Whether you believe that or not is irrelevant, because it's still true.

Nonsense

[Otto]

Next to none of its use will be for piracy. Why? Because the music is already out there. It's not like iTMS has anything special that isn't already shared. Okay, they do have the iTunes "Exclusives" that show up every once in a while, but beyond that I seriously doubt most people will be buying music and sharing it with the world. Hymn (as I see it's now called) will be mainly use for compatibility reasons. You should see the Apple forums, where the majority of questions are about how to play back iTunes Music Store songs on this or that MP3 player..

more info

[xandroid]

According to MacWorld...

• new version, and they're calling it a complete re-write (now fully GPL compliant, too)
• new web host (in the US, surprisingly, and ballsy too: Babu (creator) says "This [host] is well aware of the DMCA and DRM issues and is very much willing to defend us in case Apple threatens to bring down the site")
• now preserves the iTMS header files, including the user's Apple ID ("This proves that our purpose is for fair use and not for piracy and should help us in our legal battles")
• "hymn" stands for "hear your music anywhere"
• and the new site's not even slashdotted yet!

(Not really karma whoring, just adding the info that was in my submission... bah.)

Keeps with Copyrights

[seven5]

I think it should be noted that: The software is now called HYMN for Hear Your Music aNywhere. The software has now made it so that while the DRM is stripped it KEEPS the AppleID inside of the song so that the original song can be traced back to its original owner if it were to show up on a p2p network. I think this is totally important and a GREAT stance for HYMN to take. While it allows fairuse of the songs to let us play them on Linux, 3rd party players, and Xbox Media Center, it still keeps copyright protection in mind. I'm really impressed with the developers for doing this.

Reactions

[RavenZ]

Well, there are several opinions to that, so here's mine:

Fry this guy! Apple was the first to market with an online music store and is currently market leader. The Apple DRM system is probably the best out there when it comes to quality (AAC, much better than those crappy 128/192 KBps MP3s) and restrictions: Basically you can use the files on every computer in your household and iPod.

If you really want to hack a DRM system: Windows Media 9 is waiting for you and it will be the HD-DVD scheme both in coding and as DRM. Remember: If you break it now, make it to the press, the DVD Forum will not like using WM9. Clips are available here

What will Apple's reaction be? Well, the iPod has a lot of processing power (ARM core? Does anyone know the exact specs?) and it will survive the next generations of DRM change.

Nope

[Otto]

Playfair actually decrypted the music directly, it didn't intercept it in Quicktime.

The key to decrypting iTMS files lies in its keyring. See, when you get "authorized" by Apple to play your purchased music, a key gets downloaded to your machine. This key is used to decrypt your music. The key is stored inside a keyring, and the keyring is encrypted using other information specific to your machine (Windows key, chunks off the BIOS, etc, etc).

The method to decrypt the keyring was reverse engineered, giving you the key, giving you the ability to decrypt the songs directly.

Simple.

Re:If you don't like the terms of the iTMS service

[The Darkness]

Don't use them. Buy your music from other providers. The music is owned by its creators and its distributors.

Bull! The music is owned by the public but the artists or whoever shafts them are granted by us a (supposedly) time limited monopoly on that work during which they can make money. This is incentive for people to actually create things.

Disney, et al. have perverted this system so that an artists grand-children can milk money from their works. They have also worked hard to mislead people about copyright. In your case they have succeeded.

If you want free music, buy from artists who choose to give their music out freely. Respect the property rights of others.

No argument.

But but but...

[localman]

Breaking the DRM doesn't allow people to pirate the music. It's CD's and MP3's that make up the bulk of pirating. DRM or no, legitimately purchased AAC files don't make up any substantial portion of pirating anyways.

I would guess that approximately ZERO pirates have been twarted by DRM and LOTS of legitimate users have been annoyed by the restrictions.

Why are they (Apple|RIAA) so intent on DRM anyways?

Cheers.

Re:looks like its time.

[aristotle-dude]

Fairplay does not deny your right to fair use. You are free to burn a copy to disk just as you are free to photocopy portions of a book under fair use or tape record from the radio.

Fair use does not gurantee you to the right to a perfect copy.

Oh Come on.

[OS24Ever]

This argument needs to go to sleep and fast.

Burn protected AAC to CD Media.

Rip with VBR --r3mix -b112 with lame or your favorite encoder.

Play on whatever you want.

And the 'compression' argument doesn't hold water unless you have a $10k set of speakers to listen to it on powered by a McIntosh analog amp. And if you have that you're just a cheap a$$ bastard for not buying the music. ;)

I burn all sorts of CDs and listen to them in my cars, my stereo, etc. I can't tell the difference between it and my lossless compressed burns when they are side by side. Granted I've not paid for a song I have and tried it but if you decompress a 128k AAC and a flac compressed one and play them on the same stereo they sound no different

Re:Oh Come on.

[Spectra72]

Oh is that all you have to do? How convenient.

Kinda funny

[kilbo]

Everyone here saying "but it only removes the copy protection, you still had to buy it" Same is true for CDs. Someone had to buy it somehwere. Didn't stop them from sharing them all over God's green earth. Expect the same with AAC files if this continues

Support Hymn? Buy more iTunes songs!!

[SuperKendall]

You want to show some support for Hymn? One way is to buy some iTunes songs, to show that increasing freedom of music only leads to more sales! If everyone from /. went and bought a song or two, that would show a nice jump.

I plan to buy a CD or two this week to show that just because I can free up my music doesn't mean I'm going to stop buying or shipping my music out to everyone on the planet.

You can also fill out a form to let Apple know you'd like Hymn to stay around and it will increase you purchases there.

Interesting Change

[localman]

One change mentioned on the page (if anyone actually read it) is that the new version strips the DRM, but leaves intact the Apple User ID who originally purchased the song. That is pretty cool - as it give them some legal justification. If people share stuff they can be ID'd. This is perfect for me, as I just wanted to be able to play my songs on whichever computer I use but wouldn't share them with anyone other than my wife. (Which for all I know, might be illegal, but WTF is with that?)

Cool

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

[johndeerejedi]

I doubt Apple is seriously concerned about PlayFair. The purpose of a lock really is to keep honest people honest. It's just a minor inconvenience for someone determined to get at the contents. Apple just wants to make it trivial+1 effort to keep most people from breaking it because it's too much of a chore. That's why they let you burn it to a CD and re-import as MP3 or whatever, but not convert directly to MP3--to make it too much of a hassle for most users to massively violate the agreement.

Re:On whose behalf?

[garcia]

Illegal fair use?

Fair use includes making a backup copy. I don't believe making a backup includes downloading one from the Internet (but that is open to interpretation).

Illegal copy I make for my wife?

Doesn't fall into the downloading category.

Illegal copy of music I already bought so I can take it in my car without worrying about car thieves stealing my only copy?

Illegal copy on my hard drive so when the less than immortal physical CD craps out I don't have to pay for a new copy at full price?

Again, doesn't fall into the downloading category.

Illegal monopoly on region codes (violates WTO)?

I don't see how this has anything to do w/this topic. We are talking about music not region coded DVDs/games.

Illegal price fixing (RIAA)?

They were found guilty and supposedly paid the price they deserved. The open debate about the severity of the fine is irrelevant.

obligitory steve jobs quote

[cygnus]

found here:

When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content.

...

And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.

apple *expects* this stuff to get hacked lickety split, people. they aren't even trying to protect it that much...

Mirror in US, on University connection

[Anonymous Coward]

The site is becoming slow. I have a fast Internet2-enabled University connection, so anyone can download quickly from these. This has enough bandwidth for all of you. :)

It's probably a DMCA-banned circumvention device, but these are my last days on ResNet. *sniff*

Here's a mirror:

UNIX-style source: http://128.220.38.69:8071/hymn-0.6.0.tar.gz

Windows binaries: http://128.220.38.69:8071/hymn-0.6.0.zip

Mac binaries (with GUI): http://128.220.38.69:8071/hymn-0.6.0.dmg

You can check my MD5SUMs against the official ones, http://hymn-project.org/download/MD5SUM .

Not buying the music?

[MacDork]

• And if you have that you're just a cheap a$$ bastard for not buying the music. ;)

Last I heard, you had to actually purchase the music and have a iTMS account for Fairplay to work. It won't work on that AAC file you grabbed off of Kazaa, because you don't have a valid key to begin with. This is clearly a fair use issue, not one of copyright infringement.

I just burned my ability to mod this discussion, but that had to be said.

Taking away our rights hurts everyone

[Anita Coney]

Right now, under the laws of the United States, we have the right to make music compilations and give them to friends and family. There are no limits to how many times we can do this or how many people we give them to. DRM takes away that right away.

If you feel like turning over your rights to corporate America, then so be it. Fortunately, not everyone shares your view.

Re:PPC Emulator for x86 runs Mac OS X !!!

[phillymjs]

Due to the nature of emulation, PearPC is quite slow (the client will run about 500 times slower than the host).

So PearPC is written in Java, then?

Ba-ZING!

GOOD!

[zpok]

I really like this. Even more now that they leave the ID info intact.

This program is made to circumvent DRM, but not to pirate. As such it allows fair use as stipulated under copyright law

IANAL but I don't like this trend of locking in the user more and more. There was never any real action against people taping their LP's in the time when my back didn't hurt that much after sex.

I'm actually from the other side (involved with a label) I and don't think pirating stuff is in some weird way noble and nice, but like almost everybody on that side of the fence, I do like music - a lot more than most Britney Spear copying idiots I'm sure - and I do buy the stuff, and I can't foretell on what equipment I'll be wanting to play it on in a couple of years time. So the more options I have, the happier I am.

That doesn't mean I want Apple to support every music format possible, I like their focus on ease of use... When I was a kid I also had to find out how my cassette player and mixing desk had to be hooked up in order to copy. But nobody was actively trying to make my life difficult either.

On that: Apple needs to show it's "concerned" and needs to be seen to try and do something about this - it's a lawyer thing, else they don't uphold their part of the bargain - but really, do you think deep down they really care? There isn't a company that's more into music than Apple. They know very well what reality looks like and how consumers think.