How To Play Your iTunes Music On Other Systems

ptorrone writes "Engadget has a step-by-step for the non-uber geek on how to play your purchased music from iTunes on other systems. To be clear, this isn't a way to take music you bought and give it to someone else, this is so you can listen to your own purchased music on other systems or devices. In fact, your personal info is still in the file."

Comments

Sweet!

[djhankb]

I've purchased a bunch of em.
My previous solution was to burn then to CD, then rip them using something else, like Grip under linux.

my 2

-H

Re:Sweet!

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

I've purchased more music off of iTunes in the two months since I got my iPod than I have in the last 5 years. Apple has gotten about $70 dollars so far off of iTunes from my wife and I, which isn't bad considering my less than legit ways in the past...

Re:Sweet!

[Milo of Kroton]

CDEX works well for it too, or if you can play it in some other players with a .wav output.

Re:Sweet!

[ajayvb]

I agree with the sentiment. I use Winamp for earlier stuff I have (legal/illegal). But I'd have to import all those files into iTunes, so that I can listen to my randomized playlists. Now, I love Winamp,and iTunes isn't that great (my opinion) if you don't have an iPod.So, this makes it better for me to use my dowloaded tunes with Winamp. I disobey the letter of the law, but like I care...

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have to actually burn a CD, or can you just make an ISO image on your hard disk, then mount the ISO image and rip directly from that?

Re:Sweet!

[djhankb]

hmm, never tried that...
I just use the built-in iTunes recorder to burn to disc as an audio CD. I don't think they give you the option to make an image file.

-H

Re:Sweet!

[m3000]

And iTunes makes it incredibly easy too.

1. Create playlist with protected songs
2. Click "Burn Disc" and let burn
3. Eject CD
4. Reinsert CD
5. Tell it to rip those songs into mp3 format when the dialog box comes up

I don't understand why there just isn't an automatic "Convert to mp3" option on protected songs and save you 50 cents.

Re:Sweet!

[ricochet81]

this is also what I do. So damn anooying that I have to burn the songs to rip them to get them on my (non-apple) $100 265MB flashplayer.

Re:Sweet!

[Stevyn]

legal/illegal?

The RIAA will be at your doorstep in 9 minutes. Posting on slashdot is now equivilent to an affidavit when it comes to piracy. I believe it's a clause in either the DMCA or the PATRIOT act.

Re:Sweet!

[Nick Harkin]

Or just create an image file, and mount it virtually, with something like Alcohol 120%

PFT.

[Anonymous Coward]

oh christ, why is it that when a real, viable, legal alternative to illegality is created, people have to spend so much damn time and effort to break it up, and make it illegal? i mean, i realize that this is not about sharing, but seriously, it makes you think about what a waste of time it is to crack fairplay....

Re:PFT.

[TheGavster]

Is it no less a waste of time to burn iTunes songs to CDs and rip them? If anything, decoding this way is more in the spirit of Fairplay than burn and rip, as it maintains the ownership info.

Re:PFT.

[Just Some Guy]

make it illegal

Who said anything about making it illegal? If I buy a hard-to-find song on my wife's iMac, and I want to hear it on my Linux box, I'll happily do what it takes to make that happen. I keep hearing the tired suggestion to "just burn it to a CD, then rip it into an MP3. Get this: I can get music for free from the radio. I pay for it so that I can get good sound quality. Transcoding from one lossy algorithm to another does not fall within my definition of acceptable quality.

Some people will use these tools to share music without authorization. Some of us will use them to listen to the music that we paid for when and where we want to listen to it.

I'm not out to rip anybody off. I just want to hear some tunes. Understand?

Re:I have a way to do that too.....

[euphonaesthesia]

Same way. From the article:

hymm started out as "Playfair" which was on Sourceforge, where you could grab the source / program. Then, Apple had requested for it to be removed, so PlayFair outsourced itself to India, where it was later removed, again. Now the application is called "hymn", or "hear your music anywhere". [...]

Re:I have a way to do that too.....

[Luscious868]

hymn (the tool talked about in this walk through) is PlayFair. It's been renamed and a new author is working on it. Also, the latest release keeps your Apple ID in the file so if you have it on a P2P network your asking for trouble.

strange name, eh?

[maxbang]

From the article:

Now the application is called "hymn", or "hear your music anywhere"...

I would have called it "hyman" because it makes more sense. Then again, if the program crashed on you, I guess you'd have a busted hyman, so I see where they're coming from on that.

Re:strange name, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hymen is the word you meant.

Re:I have a way to do that too.....

[stuffman64]

hrm... RTFA.

The method he uses implement 'hymn,' the sucessor to PlayFair.

Cool... But...

[thedogcow]

This is a great way to do this legally... but... there is always someone that will circumvent the issue and find a loop hole to share music within iTunes.

I really don't see illegal mp3/acc file sharing to be stopped. Ever.

Re:Cool... But...

[DaHat]

This is NOT a legal method!

By purchasing songs from the iTMS you have contractually agreed NOT to bypass their DRM system in anyway other than those provided (ie burning to cd and re-ripping). Any other means, such as this is a violation of said contract and you are liable for any and all damages, regardless of if they are actual (ie 10,000 people didn't buy a CD because they got the song from you instead) or imaginary (ie they think 10,000 didn't buy a CD because they had the remote ability to get the song from you).

Re:Cool... But...

[EvanED]

It's even legally risky to make such a program and not use it, and use such a program you neither made nor got. So making one you've used yourself wouldn't help.

However, the authors have one big defence here: the program is obviously intended to not be used to enable piracy, at least by itself. Leaving the ID of the purchaser in there essentially precludes distribution of any files that have not been processed further. Such an argument could concievably significantly help in a defence.

Re:Cool... But...

[arkhan_jg]

a) Terms Of Service are not a contract. They are terms which if you do not obey, they are grounds for terminating your business relationship. I.e. if apple catch you removing DRM from itunes tracks, they can refuse to sell you any more tracks. However, once they've (Apple) sold you something, first sale doctrine dictates that they cannot use copyright law to impose further restrictions. Specifically, use restrictions (i.e. you cannot do this with our product) are simply not enforceable post purchase. The music is not licenced, it is sold, and the only restrictions are those of copyright itself, i.e. you cannot distribute your copies to other people.

b) even if by some legal juggling*, these TOS could be treated like a contract, i.e. you were considered to be licensing the music, not buying it, you cannot give up your legal rights by contract. No more than you can sign into slavery, or sign away your first amendment rights in the US. Such a clause would be, and has been judged to be an illegal clause, and thus stricken from the contract. Since fair use rights are not constitutionally granted rights, it would be less clear cut; but there is a strong precedent for fair use rights not being revocable by contract terms. But in this case it's a moot point, as there's emphatically not a contract post sale.

c) There are in fact two offences you could be taken to court over. The first is copyright infringement. Your fair use rights are a defence to this charge, as long as you do not distribute copies to anyone else. Potentential to distribute has nothing to do with it, you have to actually be spreading those tracks on a p2p network. Therefore, making copies to play on another device would be legal.
The second charge would be with the DMCA. However, it's not illegal to use a DRM-removal tool under the DMCA, only to write or distribute one. Therefore, stripping music you own of drm to use on another device is also fully legal.

Ergo, despite what Apple and it's fans tell you, removing DRM from music you own is 100% legal. Distributing it to others without permission is 100% illegal. Since the article contains instructions on how to play your legally purchased music on other devices you legally own, that is a 100% legal action.

* Note, in order for it be a valid contract, the seller has to have to have an ongoing relationship with you regarding the product post sale. If, on the other hand, they give you something, and you give them money, and you get nothing more from them after that other than their legal obligations like warranties (and you pay them nothing more for that particular product) it is a sale, and the contract is finished regarding that item, regardless of what the vendor would have you believe by tacking on EULA's, use clauses, licences or anything else. The only things that apply from that point on are the relevent laws of the land, and the vendor *cannot* restrict you any further than the law allows. And I will keep saying this till people stop spreading false information to the contrary.

Re:Cool... But...

[Bingo Foo]

And this is why it was genius to watermark the files as well as DRM them. DRM can always be broken, if you can play a file at all. "Scratching out" watermarks will seriously degrade sound quality, since the watermark is in the audio even after decoding. Even if you break DRM for your own backup purposes, you can't release anything into the wild without fear of being nabbed for illegally distributing copyrighted material.

Re:Cool... But...

[CarrionBird]

And if you are burning and re-ripping, you are still illegial byt your standards. Just because Apple doesn't do anything to stop you from doing it that way does not mean that you're not still bypassing the DRM.

Either way you are breaking the DCMA.

Also condsider the possiblity that someone mya use this and not share it at all. (i.e. use thier music in an non-ipod player)

Re:Cool... But...

[DaHat]

Incorrect!

DRM breaking is explicitly forbidden

Burning is explicitly permitted (albeit limited).

Ripping is implicitly permitted (ie they provide a tool to use for doing so and have stayed mum on the subject.)

The DMCA does not apply to burning and re-ripping as you are not bypassing the DRM system with out authorization. Remember, Apple has granted you permission to burn as the only legal way contractually permissible way to free iTMS songs of DRM.

Re:Cool... But...

[lordholm]

First of all, you agree to the TOS, and if you break the TOS Apple can sanction you according to the TOS. You do however not break any contract.

But that has already been discussed.

What I'd like to add is that you can hardly consider something non-negotiable a contract. A contract is there as a mutual agreement between two parts and whether or not it is written or oral a contract of any worth is negotiable before signing / agreeing.

Just my 0.02€

Re:Cool... But...

[Pendersempai]

you cannot give up your legal rights by contract. No more than you can sign into slavery, or sign away your first amendment rights in the US. Such a clause would be, and has been judged to be an illegal clause, and thus stricken from the contract.

Err... people give up their first amendment rights with contracts all the time. They're called Non-Disclosure Agreements.

What ARE contracts if not a binding way to give up rights? Stop playing lawyer.

Why buy anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the need to buy music when we can all sing to ourselves and save money instead?

la de la de la..
*cat suffers heart attack*
oh...thats why we buy.

Re:Why buy anyway?

[DaHat]

Because by singing a copyrighted song you would still need to pay royalties for the performance you give to your roommates or neighbors as they hear you sound like a tortured cat in the shower.

Re:Why buy anyway?

[stefanb]

Be careful though who listens in -- if the tune resembles anything well-known, the *AA will come right after you!.

4 cents

[Bon bons]

"hymm decodes the songs you have purchased using the key from your iPod and/or your operating system and make a new file which is not protected, it keeps the cover art and song data as part of the file. Since this is using your key, you can only do this for your songs, which I personally think is fair- they're the songs you bought, you should be able to put them on your other computers or devices."

I don't know, even if that doesn't technically violate fair use, it comes really close. He [the author] is right though: they're the songs you bought, you should be able to put them on your other computers.

Re:4 cents

[reiggin]

You did not buy them outright. You bought them with conditions attached. You licensed them for use with iTunes and iPod. Those are the terms you agree to after you install iTunes and the iTMS. You are violating those terms after you click on "I Agree."

Re:4 cents

[DaHat]

WRAAAAAG! At times it feels like I'm the only one who recognizes that fair use does not apply when you have contractually agreed not to bypass the DRM... for further info, see some of my other posts in this thread.

Re:4 cents

[harlows_monkeys]

You did not buy them outright. You bought them with conditions attached. You licensed them for use with iTunes and iPod

Then how come iTunes supports CD burning? Are you only supposed to use iTunes to play those CDs?

Re:4 cents

[value_added]

Maybe someone can 'splain this to Ricky who's been trying to tune out copyright related stories to keep his sanity ...

I'm wondering whether songs on iTunes, etc. are really "bought" or just "licensed"? If they're just licensed, seems to me that if without the transfer (or possibility of transfer) of ownership, the "It's Copyright Infringement Not Stealing!" debate leans in favour of the ..., err ... casual infringers.

Re:4 cents

[arkanes]

Fair use certainly DOES apply. You may be in violation of your TOS, but thats not a LEGAL issue, it's s civil issue between you and Apple. Doing this is NOT a violation of copyright under any reasonable interperation, although writing and distributing this application may be unlawful under the DMCA, which only makes provisions for research and not for fair use.

It is extremely questionable and probably false that the licensing terms from iTunes (or, indeed, for any other online music store) can be applied to anything except the service provided by the store. For historical examples, look at book publishing and pay-per-view TV, both of which tried very, very hard to force a "licensed, not bought" model on consumers and were smacked down in court. It's certainly not any sort of clear cut "this is illegal wah!" as you seem to be claiming.

Re:4 cents

[OmniVector]

and does that make it right? it used to be illegal for black people to sit on a certain part of the bus, or for rape victims to get an abortion but it's not anymore.

if everyone's breaking the law, then it's a sure sign that the law is flawed.

Re:4 cents

[TwinkieStix]

WRAAAAAG! At times it feels like I'm the only one who recognizes that fair use does not apply when you have contractually agreed not to bypass the DRM... for further info, see some of my other posts in this thread.

Contractually? I believe that it's a "license agreement" not a contract. That's a big difference. And these licenses haven't yet been tried by a court. License are intended for copyright - how I can distribute the program. If I pay for something, I own it, and nobody but the government can legally tell me what I can and can't do with it.

Some of those things I can do:

• destroy it
• dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way
• drive over it with my car
• yell at it
• take it apart and look at it
• tell my friends that I have it
• make backup copies of it
  

Some of the things I can't do:

• use it to kill people or physically harm them
  
• copy it and distribute it without permission
• use it to hurt the environment or some endangered specie

Re:4 cents

[elbarsal]

I find it interesting that you are unable to cite any case law supporting your claims.

OK, I'll bite, even though I'm not the parent poster.

Take this with a grain of salt, because it's only an engineer's understanding of law from the professional practise exam.

If you contractually agree to something that is legal and within your rights to agree to, and does not restrict "commerce", the courts are likely to interpret the wording of the contract in a strict sense - i.e. accept that you intended to waive your "fair use" and abide by the terms of the contract (maybe the Hedley Byrne case applies, if i remember right). This is similar to companies entering into an agreement for services, and the customer agreeing to the use of the product provided - terms that could include non-disclosure agreements and restrictions of the use of designs and such.

It may be arguable that the terms of service are not a contract and as such are not enforcable under contract law, but that is an issue for the courts to decide, and in general, the courts are averse to trying to re-interpret agreements between two parties when the wording is clear, except in cases of "fundamental breach" (see Harbutt's Plasticine) where the service provided was so flawed as to render the contract invalid on the whole.

Again, IANAL, but I did have to take a (limited) contract law exam for my engineering professional practise exam. This is Canadian common law - precedents can sometimes be applied to US cases. Is there a lawyer out there who can add anything, or correct me where my memory fails?

ed

Re:4 cents

[Halfbaked Plan]

if everyone's breaking the law, then it's a sure sign that the law is flawed.

When a riot mob breaks the store windows and the whole neighborhood empties the corner mart of merchandise, it does not cease to be stealing.

Re:4 cents

[cpt kangarooski]

Contractually? I believe that it's a "license agreement" not a contract. That's a big difference.

Actually, there is basically no difference.

And these licenses haven't yet been tried by a court.

Yes, actually they have, and they're often upheld. ProCD is the leading case.

License are intended for copyright - how I can distribute the program.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

If I pay for something, I own it, and nobody but the government can legally tell me what I can and can't do with it.

So when you pay to rent your apartment, you own it? No -- payment isn't enough to get ownership. And in case you hadn't noticed, the government is really firmly not on your side in this issue, and they are happy to screw you.

make backup copies of it

That's very arguably illegal, actually.

Re:4 cents

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Yes. Buying rights to listen to music is not buying all rights to the music. Bill Gates payed a lot more than 99 cents for full rights for "Start Me Up" (regardless of whether you think it was worth it). Apple was sued for a lot more than 99c when it used Eminem's song in an ad without what he felt was necessary permission.

People, if you want to fight DRM, etc. there's only one way. Raise millions of dollars somehow, buy a song, and then distribute it freely. Or most likely don't, because you too will feel the need to be repaid some.

Re:4 cents

[Alsee]

if you want to fight DRM, etc. there's only one way. Raise millions of dollars somehow, buy a song, and then distribute it freely.

Not only is that simple to prove false, it also involves a pretty appalling leap of logic. Another way to "fight DRM" is to support/pass the Digital Media Consumer Rights Act.

You make the rather peculiar leap of logic that the purpose of fighting DRM is for "free distribution". Note that the DMCRA only de-criminalizes perfectly legitimate and legal non-infringing use. It does not permit you to "distribute it freely" at all.

Note that I don't have an issue with DRM itself. DRM is stupid, makes for a crippled product, makes it difficult to figure out how to be able to make perfectly legitimate and legal fair use, but they are free to use all the DRM they like. The problem is dumbass law like the DMCA that attempts to enforce the DRM by making it a crime to do the math involved to make perfectly legitimate and legal use, or to help others do the math involved in making perfectly legitimate and legal use, and which would imprision innocent non-infringing people.

-

Re:4 cents

[wnorris]

no, what he's saying is that when you purchase a track from iTMS, you are granted certain rights and you agree to do only what they say you can do with the track. one of those rights they give you is the right to burn it to a CD. however, they also explicitly say (from my understanding) you cannot circumvent the DRM encryption in the manner that HYMN uses.

is it a raw deal that they dictate what you can do? perhaps, but you agreed to it when you bought the song.

Re:4 cents

[OmniVector]

there's a difference between non-violent civil disobedience and anarchy. i'd hope you can recognize the difference :/

Re:I have a way to do that too.....

[rsmith-mac]

Since it's just PlayFair, does this mean we can count this as a duplicate against the editors?

Easier with VLC

[Anonymous Coward]

13 steps to play your songs?

I prefer this 3 step procedure instead:

1. Install VLC.
2. Open your M4P file in VLC.
3. Click play.

That's it!

Re:Easier with VLC

[casuist99]

Are you under the impression this works for DRM'd files? I'm pretty sure I have the latest version of VLC and when I play songs I've purchased from itms, all I hear is silence.
VLC is great, works great for DVDs without windows, but not a substitute for iTunes in this case.

Re:Easier with VLC

[Dahan]

VLC will work on any machine playfair/hymn works on, seeing that playfair/hymn use the decryption code contributed to VLC by Jon Lech Johansen. Note the "Copyright (C) 2004 VideoLAN" at the top of the src/hymn/drms.c file, for example.

Re:Easier with VLC

[Phroggy]

I have an even easier solution that works just as well as yours does:

1. Open iTunes.
2. Find your M4P file in the Purchased Music playlist.
3. Click play.

That's it!

It just works?

[Bifurcati]

I find it ironic (though perhaps humorous!) that this hack is most simply implemented on a Windows platform. Note that on Mac et al., you have to have an iPod, and have it plugged in, because that's where the decrypted keys come from. On Windows, however, the key encryption has been reverse engineered somehow (I don't really understand this bit) and they're able to get the key directly from your computer. This hasn't been done on the mac, so you have to wait for the iPod to decrypt it for you.

I just find it interesting that the DRM was most easily compromised by allowing iTunes for Windows! Is this just because of the sheer user base, meaning things get hacked together faster, or is it more profound, i.e., Windows is more easily hacked. Food for thought :)

PS - I've just ordered by G4 Powerbook laptop (drool, drool), doing the switch from Windows. Faintly nervous, but all my friends (both of them...) are getting the Powerbooks and loving them!

Re:It just works?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a flaw in Apple's implementation of iTunes on Windows, nothing in the least inherant about the Windows platform.

Re:It just works?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I find it ironic (though perhaps humorous!) that this hack is most simply implemented on a Windows platform. Note that on Mac et al., you have to have an iPod, and have it plugged in, because that's where the decrypted keys come from.

Have you even bothered to look at the code?

The keys are stored ENCRYPTED on the iPod, just like they're stored encrypted under Windows as well as MacOS X.

> Windows is more easily hacked.

Do you have a problem understanding the difference between Windows and iTunes?

iTunes for Windows is not Windows, it's iTunes.

Re:It just works?

[scorpioX]

On OS X, Apple added a special flag to the kernel execve() call that will not allow a debugger (gdb) to attach to a process that sets this flag. They did this specifically for DVD Player (at the behest of the MPAA) and for iTunes (maybe a condition of their contract with the RIAA?) so that people could not attach and get the decrypted key (or trace the encryption method). I suspect (but don't know for sure) that iTunes on windows does not have this "protection" and someone attached to it with SoftIce and got the key or RE'd the encryption method.

The same "protection" was used in the OS 9 DVD player so that MacsBug could not attach to the player. But with that, DVD player just refused to run if it detected MacsBug was loaded.

Re:It just works?

[Bifurcati]

Ooookay, take it easy. No, I have no problem understanding the difference between Windows and iTunes. Windows (and OSX) are DIFFERENT platforms, on which two DIFFERENT versions of iTunes run (albeit ports of each other). I also, however, point your attention to the manual (have you looked at it?). I haven't looked at the code, but I'm trusting that the manual is correct to some extent.

According to it, the system key can only be obtained (so far) for Windows machines, and is then used to decrypt the user keys which can then be used on the songs. On the iPod, these user keys are (according to the manual, section A.1.2!) stored decrypted. This is what I was referring to in my message.

I was merely commenting that decoding the system key has only been done on Windows, and wondering why that was. scorpioX suggested an explanation in his interesting reply.

Re:It just works?

[Bifurcati]

Hmmm, fair enough! (I happy to admit if I'm wrong :) But does that mean that the System key is copied to the iPod as well? Or is the manual completely talking crap? i.e., is the system key needed, or if not, what is used to decrypt the user keys? (Heck, is there actually a system key?!)

I can't really understand the code well enough to be able to comment on this; anyone? Is it just that they know how the decrypt the system key off an ipod or off Windows, but not anything else?

Re:It just works?

[scorpioX]

Well, re-compiling is certainly an option -- if you have the skills. Compiling the Darwin kernel is no easy task -- there are lots of dependencies. It can be done (I've done it for Darwin 6 - Jaguar), but it is not something a user would be able to do (unlike Linux). BTW: If anyone's interested, I found the blocking code in the Darwin kernel. Search for 'PT_DENY_ATTACH' -- it's in the ptrace() call. You'll need an Apple login ID to view it. (Free, but you have to agree to the terms of the ASPL.)

Re:It just works?

[Dahan]

That's pretty interesting... Your earlier message says Apple added a flag to execve(), but Darwin's execve() looks standard to me:
int execve(const char *path, char *const argv[], char *const envp[]);

Having execve() do the protection wouldn't work anyways, seeing that gdb wouldn't call execve() with that flag set. I ktraced iTunes, and it's just calling ptrace(PT_DENY_ATTACH, ...) on itself, rather than having its parent do it. You could probably run iTunes under a debugger and set a breakpoint on ptrace() and skip over the offending call.

On the other hand, while recompiling Darwin may not be "something a user would be able to do" (I've never tried), I'm sure someone who is knowledgable enough to reverse engineer iTunes' key generation scheme is also capable of compiling their kernel.

Re:It just works?

[Dahan]

Yeah, less than 10 minutes, and I don't even know PPC assembly:

(gdb) where
#0 0x90010748 in ptrace ()
#1 0x002460a0 in ?? ()
#2 0x8fe16534 in __dyld_call_module_initializers_for_objects ()
#3 0x8fe16040 in __dyld_call_module_initializers ()
#4 0x8fe1334c in __dyld__dyld_make_delayed_module_initializer_calls ()
#5 0x00004940 in ?? ()
#6 0x00004828 in ?? ()
#7 0x00004788 in ?? ()

A little breakpoint at the right place, and iTunes is currently running under gdb on my G4. Not that I know what to do with it now :) But it's trivial to bypass the the anti-debugger protection.

Re:It just works?

[SmittyTheBold]

Why not modify the iTunes binary to NOP at the point it sets the flag? Simple, easy-to-undo hack that solves the problem.

It certainly sounds more likely to work reliably than just hoping any potential user has an iPod.

Re:It just works?

[HeghmoH]

It works with DVD player, too. Just do gdb /path/to/DVD\ Player, then break ptrace, then do a return 0 every time it hits the breakpoint. It calls ptrace about ten or fifteen times when it starts, and it gets kind of annoying, but after that it runs. I haven't actually tried playing a DVD, but the program is running in gdb and I doubt if there would be any more problems.

Re:It just works?

[Geoff-with-a-G]

Is this just because of the sheer user base, meaning things get hacked together faster, or is it more profound, i.e., Windows is more easily hacked.

The fact that people were better able to hack an Apple program with Windows doesn't mean "Windows is more easily hacked." They weren't using iTunes to hack Windows, it was the other way around. It implies that the environment gives you more control over the programs you use with it, which is a good thing. I imagine if they had released iTunes for Linux, it would have been hacked even quicker and more effectively.

I have an easier method:

[Polarism]

Step 1: Use iTunes to burn a CD with whatever songs you bought and want to burn.

Step 2: Use winamp to rip the CD to your computer.

Step 3: Enjoy restriction-less CDs and MP3s.

Then again, I stopped using iTunes now too..

Re:I have an easier method:

[Hanji]

Step 4: Play music at loud volume and cringe at distortion caused by music being re-encoded twice into a lossy format.

Re:I have an easier method:

[Polarism]

"just started" like a year ago lol I bought one album just for shits and giggles.

Re:I have an easier method:

[real_smiff]

This method (the one discussed in the article) is superior* because it doesn't involve transcoding.

*from an audiophile (i.e. not legal) perspective

Re:I have an easier method:

[Polarism]

I dunno. I ripped it at a higher rate than it was encoded in the first place, didn't lose any quality (at least to my ears).

Re:I have an easier method:

[EvanED]

Then you're wasting space instead.

Re:I have an easier method:

[Polarism]

yeah 3 or 4 megs more than the total original set

big waste indeed

Re:I have an easier method:

[gandalphthegreen]

You forgot a step:

4. PROFIT!!!!

Sorry...but someone had to say it.

Re:I have an easier method:

[Crizp]

you still lose in audio quality.

If you can't hear it, maybe you're one of those (not degratory meant now :) that can't hear the difference between a 128 and a 192 Kbps MP3.

A 256 Kbit re-encoding of a 128 or 160 Kbps MP3 sounds... lousy. In my ears, that is. 256 K source and 320 K re-encoding, however, wouldn't be _that_ bad but still less optimal than the solution in the article. I thank $deity for the long-awaited lossless codecs :)

Re:I have an easier method:

[Polarism]

I don't know exactly what you might be hearing, maybe people with absolutely perfect hearing hear it.

I don't.

Re:I have an easier method:

[dpete4552]

I actually find it easier to just drag the file into Playfair and have it spit out a perfect non-DRM copy (ID3 tags and album art included) than it is to burn it to an audio CD, and then re-rip it to an mp3 and reenter any meta info that was lost in the process (e.g. album art).

Re:I have an easier method:

[wnorris]

while easier, i think the obvious attraction to ripping & burning is that there is no question that it is granted by the iTMS TOS and therefore perfectly legal. Just reading through some of the replies on here should make it quite clear that there is still much debate as to whether usage of HYMN is legal.

Not necissarily

[d34thm0nk3y]

Breaking a contract is not necissarily illegal (lets not even debate whether an EULA actually counts as a contract)

The S in TOS stands for service. The contract stiplulates the penalty for breaking the contract: refusal of service. Basically they say we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who breaks our terms. The only thing Apple could do to you for breaking this "contract" is ban you. (of course the DMCA could possibly come into play somehow, but it is relatively untested)

Re:Not necissarily

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Breaking a contract is not necissarily illegal

Yes, it is. We even have a term for it: "breach of contract."

The contract stiplulates the penalty for breaking the contract: refusal of service.

Right. Which means if you run PlayFair or Hymn or I'mABigScriptKiddieLookAtMeWoo or whatever on one of your iTunes songs, you are no longer legally authorized to listen to any of your iTunes songs. You are, at that point, engaging in copyright violation, which if you do it enough is a felony!

Re:Not necissarily

[DaHat]

I will not debate you on the legality or binding-ness of a EULA as they have almost always been upheld by the courts.

I suggest you check your facts though, as you will note from the Apple Terms of Sale which says:

You agree that you will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any other person to, circumvent or modify any software required for use of the Service or any of the Usage Rules.

This does not mean that if you bypass the DRM of a song that you loose the 'right' to download any new songs but still retain the 'rights' to your existing ones, it means that if you bypass the DRM that you can have your 'rights' to the already purchased songs revoked! You not only loose access to the service but everything you 'purchased' from it.

Re:Not necissarily

[d34thm0nk3y]

Except that at this point you are no longer copying them since they are already on your computer. Copyright only deals with distribution.

Re:Not necissarily

[BillyBlaze]

While I really wish that were the case, it isn't. Nothing's stopping us from pretending like it is as a wussy form of civil protest, though.

Re:Not necissarily

[DaHat]

On a Windows based machine:
Step 1: Click on file
Step 1: Press Control-C
Step 1: Press Control-V

I don't know about you... but I'd call this copying.

If you use an application to do it and in the process of copying it strips DRM information it is still copying, regardless of if it is not distributed outside of your PC. And remember, copyright does not come into play on this as contract law (ie the agreement between you and Apple governing your purchase of songs) supersedes copyright law in this case.

Re:Not necissarily

[damiam]

Playing a CD over the radio is distribution.

Re:Not necissarily

[d34thm0nk3y]

I will not debate you on the legality or binding-ness of a EULA as they have almost always been upheld by the courts.
Crap, I said I wasn't going to but This decision certainly didn't.

Now, for the sake of argument lets take an edge case. You purchased the songs on iTunes and burnt them to CD. After doing ghis you break the EULA. Do you think a court would allow Apple to confiscate that CD (assuming they could). I seriously doubt it, especially considering the above decision, the fact it was in California, and the TOS specifically mentions that it is governed by California law. How is having it on your MP3 player any different?

Re:Not necissarily

[EvanED]

What your parent is saying is that copyright law is a misnomer: it should be called distribution law. Sure, copying a file from one place to another, including with this program, is copying. However, it isn't distributing it, and thus title 17 has nothing to say about the actual copying (though the DRM removal would be a sticky issue).

Whether this is true or not, who knows.

Re:Not necissarily

[DaHat]

The fundamental difference between your example and the Apple agreement is that the purchaser of the software has not agreed to anything, but when you buy an iTMS song you have.

The case has to do with free software you may receive with hardware which is often labeled as "not for resale", similar to candy bars or bottles of pop which make come in a bag or 6 pack. Under those cases you have not agreed in anyway to not sell them individually and can do so. (Hell, I'm receiving some free software soon which is labeled as "not for resale" and I intend to sell it on ebay, perfectly legal).

The moment you click "I Agree" however, you are bound by the license/contract and cannot resell the software.

When you purchase a song from the iTMS, you are purchasing the (revocable) rights to said song, something Apple can exercise at their leisure.

Re:Not necissarily

[DaHat]

In my copying example I was only referring to the actually copying act, not the copyright law. Furthermore, I did state the fundamental point that:

copyright does not come into play on this as contract law (ie the agreement between you and Apple governing your purchase of songs) supersedes copyright law in this case.

Which is the point I am ultimately trying to hammer home here.

Re:Not necissarily

[EvanED]

"In my copying example I was only referring to the actually copying act, not the copyright law. Furthermore, I did state the fundamental point that:

copyright does not come into play on this as contract law (ie the agreement between you and Apple governing your purchase of songs) supersedes copyright law in this case."

I don't disagree that your statement is true. However, I'm saying that you're still misunderstanding the parent who was saying that copyright law doesn't apply *at all* because there's no distribution. (However, the DRM breaking would cause it to apply in this case.)

Re:Not necissarily

[arkhan_jg]

The contract stiplulates the penalty for breaking the contract: refusal of service.

Right. Which means if you run PlayFair or Hymn or I'mABigScriptKiddieLookAtMeWoo or whatever on one of your iTunes songs, you are no longer legally authorized to listen to any of your iTunes songs. You are, at that point, engaging in copyright violation, which if you do it enough is a felony!

Simply not true. once they've sold you a track, the doctrine of first sale applies, and apple CANNOT impose greater restrictions than copyright law allows. Copyright law prevents you distributing copies (and a few other rights such as not pretending you wrote the music). Nothing else.

It specifically does not prevent you playing those tracks back. If you violate your TOS with apple, they can refuse to sell you any more tracks, but they cannot prevent you using, decoding, transcoding, ripping, or even deleting your existing itunes tracks. They can sue you if you give them to others, nothing else. Once they've taken your money, and the sale is completed, the contract with them regarding that track is over.

Re:Not necissarily

[EvanED]

While you're *almost* completely on track here, but you're forgetting the DMCA. The transcoding of your iTunes track would be illegal because it would involve circumventing a copyright protection algorithm.

(I'm just saying what the law says here, not what would be held in the courts.)

Re:Not necissarily

[Aaden42]

> > Breaking a contract is not necissarily illegal
>
> Yes, it is. We even have a term for it: "breach of contract."

No it's not. We have this other term: "unlawful contract." If you signed a contract to be someone's slave and then tried to back out of the contract, you'd have no problem getting out of it. Any contract agreeing to human slavery is illegal on its face.

There's this other law called Copyright which gives you (the consumer) certain RIGHTS to COPY creative works under certain limited circumstances (collectively referred to as FAIR USE).

IANAL, but it's my present understanding that any clause in a contract which attempts to deprive you of your fair use rights would be found unenforcable.

Format shifting is considered fair use. Format shifting includes taping CD's to play in your car. While I'm not aware of any legal tests at this point, I see no reason why format shifting should not also include transcoding / decrypting digital content to play on devices which you own which would otherwise be incapable of playing the content.

Remember: Just because the EULA says one thing and you click OK, that doesn't mean that every single line in the EULA is legal Gospel. That's why they include the clauses that say something like, "If any part of this agreement is found to be unenforceable, the rest of the agreement will remain in force without the unenforceable section(s)."

And as previous posters have mentioned, no one's even really tested click-wrap in court, so it's hardly a given than any part of the EULA is binding.

Re:Not necissarily

[cpt kangarooski]

Copyright only deals with distribution.

No.

Copyright deals with half an assload of different things. Distribution is one of them, but only one of them.

The biggies are reproduction, creation of derivatives, distribution, and certain public performances or displays. Read 17 USC 106.

You may also want to read MAI v. Peak, and Utah Lighthouse v. Intellectual Reserve, which go into some detail as to how things already on your computer can be copied illegally without leaving.

Re:Not necissarily

[arkhan_jg]

When you purchase a song from the iTMS, you are purchasing the (revocable) rights to said song, something Apple can exercise at their leisure.

Then by definition it cannot be a sale. if your ownership of the song is revokable, it's a lease, not a sale.

However,it's not a lease simply because the vendor says it is.

It is a sale if:
they give you a tangible product. You pay them for it.

Since you have a legal copy of the song on your harddrive, they advertise the product as a sale (buy this track...) and you can burn it to CD and keep it, regardless of what Apple does with the DRM, it's a sale. Of course, we'll only get a bulletproof legal definition of that when someone takes Apple to court to allow them to resell a DRM-encoded itunes track to someone else. This doesn't mean Apple can't use DRM restrictions if you let them; it's just that they have no legal basis to stop you removing them i.e. because it's a sale, then you are fully entitled to remove the DRM, as first sale doctrine dictates they cannot impose any further restrictions (i.e. use restrictions) on your product than copyright law allows.

Oh, and those EULA 'contracts' you click 'I Agree' on? They're simply not legally binding. They are applied post sale, they are not a legally authorised signature (my 2 year old nephew always clicks OK when I'm away from the computer, the little tinker), and there is no opportunity to negotiate the terms. With the exception of the handful of US states with UCITA laws (which specifically declare EULA's binding), EULA's are not, and never will be legal contracts. They're nothing more than FUD.

Re:Not necissarily

[cpt kangarooski]

Nonsense. It deals with all aspects of the rights of the creator of a work.

That's a bizarre way of putting that -- copyrights are the rights of a creator of a work, basically. But they aren't all-encompassing. Copyrights are enumerated -- anything not specifically given over to the artist isn't covered by copyright.

Re:Not necissarily

[arkhan_jg]

The DMCA does not prevent you circumventing copyright protection schemes, only distributing a tool that does so. Using said tool that's hosted outside the US is perfectly legal.

Re:Not necissarily

[cpt kangarooski]

No, it's public performance.

Re:Not necissarily

[DaHat]

The ultimate question is regarding distribution.

This evening while looking for something completely unrelated I found an interesting page providing some case law regarding emulation at: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/EmuFAQ2000/Appendix B.htm

Quoting from it:

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. George Frena. 839 F.Supp. 1552 (M.D. Fla., 1993).
George Frena, the sysop of the Techs Warehouse BBS, had 170 digitized images from both Playboy and Playgirl magazine posted to his computerized bulletin board system. The two magazines were commercial adult publications protected under copyright law. Playboy Enterprises, owner and publisher of both magazines, sued Frena for copyright infringement. The Federal District Court acknowledged Frena's claims that the uploading had been done by his users without his approval; however, it still found him liable for intellectual property violation. It ruled that Frena's users had illegaly copied the pictures by digitizing them; furthermore, Frena had infringed on exclusive vendor distribution rights by making the pictures available for download by his users. It also found Frena in violation of trademark law, since the infringing material contained registered trademarks belonging to Playboy Enterprises (the Playboy and Playgirl logos).

This case established two things. First, courts can find against a defendant in an intellectual property dispute whether or not the defendant is aware of such activity. Second, intellectual property protection extends to all copies of a given work regardless of how they are made or the media on which they are presented.

It would not be hard for a plaintiff to argue that in bypassing a DRM system, the resulting file could very easily end up being copied by potentially thousands and thousands of users, with or with out the knowledge of the original copier of the file give how most P2P apps work.

There does exist the principal of "substantial non infringing use", however when a system exists to prevent rampant copying and is bypassed, it is not unheard of (and some would say not unreasonable) for a content owner/licensee owner (ie Apple) to fear unauthorized distribution and sue preemptively.

Re:Not necissarily

[arkhan_jg]

Oops, hit enter too quickly. The DMCA does not prevent you using a DRM-circumvention tool, but it does prevent you writing one in the US, or distributing it in the US.

If it's hosted offshore from the US, then it's not illegal under the DMCA to download and use it on something you legally own.

Re:Not necissarily

[cpt kangarooski]

What your parent is saying is that copyright law is a misnomer: it should be called distribution law. Sure, copying a file from one place to another, including with this program, is copying. However, it isn't distributing it, and thus title 17 has nothing to say about the actual copying (though the DRM removal would be a sticky issue).

Whether this is true or not, who knows.

I know. It's not true. Copyright law deals with copying AND distribution AND lots of other stuff besides.

Copying a file as you describe is copying, and is perfectly capable of being illegal all by itself per 17 USC 106. Title 17 discusses copying quite a lot, in fact.

Re:Not necissarily

[Planesdragon]

And remember, copyright does not come into play on this as contract law (ie the agreement between you and Apple governing your purchase of songs) supersedes copyright law in this case.

Nope. (IANAL-RU?)

the iTunes EULA--heck, every EULA from MS Windows to Kazaa to the GPL--relies upon copyright law as its foundation. The license is "merely" a means whereby the rights-holder agrees to let others make copies in exchange for something--be it "share and share alike" or simply money in their pocket.

If you violate the iTunes EULA, you might render the contract void--which means that you have to delete and destroy your copies of the songs, and Apple owes you refunds for them, and one or the other of you owes the other some renumeration for breach of contract.

Re:Not necissarily

[cpt kangarooski]

There's this other law called Copyright which gives you (the consumer) certain RIGHTS to COPY creative works under certain limited circumstances (collectively referred to as FAIR USE).

Wow, you are fucking stupid.

First, copyright doesn't give anyone the right to copy anything. What it does is, it gives the copyright holder the right to exclude other people from copying things. That doesn't mean it's legal for the copyright holder himself to copy it, even. It might be libelous, or fraudulent, or a national secret, or something. It is analagous to a negative easement in real property law.

Second, copyright doesn't give non-copyright holders dick. Rather, having granted various broad rights of exclusion to the copyright holder, it then shrinks those rights in specific ways. So for example, it still doesn't make it legal for you to copy something that's libelous. OTOH, the various exemptions in the law do take away the right of the copyright holder to exclude you from making copies, in some circumstances.

Third, only the fair use exemption is fair use. All the rest are a divers bunch of statutory exemptions that really have little or no relation with one another.

IANAL, but it's my present understanding that any clause in a contract which attempts to deprive you of your fair use rights would be found unenforcable.

Fourth, no, such a contract would be perfectly well and dandy most likely. You are perfectly free to go to Central Park and walk around. You can agree to a contract that says you won't ever go there again. That would be a legal contract.

Of course, people don't really get punished for breaking contracts. But they do have to pay the penalty for their actual breech. If there was a million dollars in the park, and the penalty for breech would be a hundred dollars, you'd be stupid to not break the contract. You'll still come out ahead, and no one has a problem with that. You just owe the other guy the cash.

The trick is, if you contract such that you're being specifically allowed to do something that's otherwise illegal, breech will be bad because then you're also breaking the law, and that is further punishable.

And as previous posters have mentioned, no one's even really tested click-wrap in court, so it's hardly a given than any part of the EULA is binding.

No, stupid. The ProCD case is by far the most well known instance of a EULA being upheld in court, and it's been somewhat influential. There is a lot of dispute about the issue, but they HAVE stood up in court before, and they're likely to again before things are resolved.

Format shifting is considered fair use.

No. SOME format shifting MIGHT be fair use. Other format shifting might NOT be fair use.

In each case where fair use is alleged, you have to conduct the fair use test (see 17 USC 107) with regards to the specific circumstances involved. Change the circumstances, and the outcome of the test can easily change. In fact, format shifting is really on rather shakey ground!

Format shifting includes taping CD's to play in your car.

OTOH, no court will ever bother conducting a fair use test for that, since there's a seperate statutory exemption (17 USC 1008 -- not applicable for computers, however) that covers some taping.

While I'm not aware of any legal tests at this point, I see no reason why format shifting should not also include transcoding / decrypting digital content to play on devices which you own which would otherwise be incapable of playing the content.

See the Diamond v. RIAA case -- where wonder of wonders, the fair use analysis was performed.

But circumvention runs into 17 USC 1201, and since violations of 1201 are technically not copyright violations, there's an argument that fair use doesn't pertain, being solely a copyright defense.

Re:Not necissarily

[AC5398]

Twirlip? Twirlip! Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!

OMG, how completely delightful it is to see you again!

And copyright law is completely being an ass in this instance. Unless this means the radio must play less of Justin Timberlake and ilk ...

Re:Not necissarily

[zpok]

"You are, at that point, engaging in copyright violation"

No, you are not. You might be in breach of contract, but you are not engaging in copyright violation. On the contrary. Copyright explicitly grants you the right to make copies on other media.

IANAL but I know that much.

BTW I am part of a record label and while I don't condone piracy, I think Fair Use is extremely important. I think FairPlay violates Fair Use. I don't think that's the end of the world, but if I can or must, I'll circumvent it.

Re:Not necissarily

[DaHat]

Once again quoting from the Apple Terms of Sale...

REFUND POLICY
All Sales are final.

If you violate the contract/agreement/etc midway through, it does not nullify past events. That's not unlike me breaking my lease and expecting my landlord to refund my last 12 months worth of rent. Such an idea is preposterous, and many such contracts have provisions for should either party break the contract. A cell phone contract is a perfect example, a customer of Verizon has agreed that should the customer break the contract, that they will pay a $175 dollar early termination fee.

Breaking of the contract simply means that all granted rights under it become null and void (ie your 'rights' to the purchased music) and that future relations will require a new contract. Something either party can reject based on past experiances. Something either party can reject based on past experiences.

Re:Not necissarily

[Chester K]

Yes, it is. We even have a term for it: "breach of contract."

A contract can never strip you of certain rights guaranteed to you, even if it specifically outlines you as giving them up. Fair use is one of those rights as recognized by the courts.

Re:Not necissarily

[k8to]

Private replay of works is not an action which is controlled by copyright. Full stop.

You're referring to public performance, which it does cover. It also covers distribution.

In the iTunes case, distribution was done with respect to the copyright and the license. If you later breach the copyright, it says you lose your rights as granted by the copyright. Sadly I'm not lawyerly enough to know what that means your legal status as to the files and private use of them is. However, you aren't either.

Suffice it to say, to be legally sure, you'd probably have to consult a lawyer, and maybe a bunch of dissenting lawyers and the agencies they represent would have to consult each other and a judge and over a lawsuit.

In practical terms, of course, I really doubt anyone will ever care about your private reproduction and media shifting, so it doesn't really matter.

Re:Not necissarily

[phiz187]

Breaking a contract is not necissarily illegal
Yes, it is. We even have a term for it: "breach of contract."
That's not a criminal act, that is a civil offense.... -PHiZ

Re:Not necissarily

[zephyr1256]

On a Windows based machine:
Step 1: Click on file
Step 1: Press Control-C
Step 1: Press Control-V

IANAL, but I don't think copyright law has any bearing on doing something like that, if there is no distribution. However, if I were doing that to copy the files to a public ftp server or p2p share directory or something, then it copyright law would have bearing on this. It's all about context and what the effect of the copying is.

I don't think you are violating copyright law by using hymn, unless you distribute the songs to other people(ie, I think your fair use rights prevail here over your TOS). But regardless, currently, because of the DMCA, that is moot, you violated the DMCA by circumventing protections, and that will be the case until this bill is enacted(hopefully soon).

Re:Not necissarily

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Didn't the files get distributed (copied) to your computer? Making further use of that copy is copyright violation.

It's like if you had software you rented for $5 a month. If you stopped paying but continued using, you would be liable for breach of contract and copyright violation - your "right" to "copy" was contingent upon your payment. Simply because you were earlier authorized to copy and use the software, it doesn't mean you are perpetually authorized to use one copy that you aren't copying any more.

Re:Not necissarily

[Alsee]

Perhaps you were thinking of 1201 (c)(1)"Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected. - (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title", however circumvention is not infringement. Therefore there is no fair use defence.

Yippie! A non-existant defence is not diminished, LOL.

The DMCA does make descrambling a crime:
TITLE 17 CHAPTER 12 Sec. 1201 (a)(1)(A)
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

This is exactly why we need the DMCRA to be passed. It decriminalizes both "software product capable of enabling significant noninfringing use of a copyrighted work" and the act of circumvention itself when "such circumvention does not result in an infringement of the copyright in the work".

-

Re:Not necissarily

[Kiryat Malachi]

Interestingly enough, however, playing a song over the radio is not controlled by the sound recording copyright (the right which controls almost all other forms of distribution) but by the song writer's copyright.

This is *only* true in the US.

Re:Not necissarily

[Phillup]

IANAL... but, I'd say any "technological measure" that gets cracked does not "effectively control" anything.

;-)

Re:Not necissarily

[Wylfing]

>> Breaking a contract is not necissarily illegal

> Yes, it is. We even have a term for it: "breach of contract."

I've almost lost count of the number of times I've seen this misunderstanding. A breach of contract is grounds for a lawsuit, but it is in no way, shape, or form a crime or "illegal." In other words, the other party(-ies) to the agreement can take you to court if they think you've harmed them, and then a judge will decide whether you were justified in breaking the contract.

So no, it is not illegal to break a contract. It is merely actionable by the (possibly) aggreived party.

Re:Not necissarily

[Phillup]

Breaking a contract is not illegal, but the legal system can be used by one party to seek recourse from the other party.

Can be... not must.

And, to the best of my knowledge... the government, or any other entity, has no standing to bring chages for breach of contract unless it is a party to the contract.

It is a PRIVATE matter.

Of course, IANAL... and YMMV... and void unless otherwise prohibited... etc...

Re:Not necissarily

[zenyu]

If you violate the iTunes EULA, you might render the contract void--which means that you have to delete and destroy your copies of the songs, and Apple owes you refunds for them, and one or the other of you owes the other some renumeration for breach of contract.

These things are generally decided based on some past example, unless common sense dictates something else. Apple may be in trouble because they call the EULA terms of sale, which implies they sold you a copy of the song. When you are sold a copy you have the right to make backups and to transfer the music to another media. But they do provide you with what a judge might consider a resonable means of transfer to another media with the burn to CD functionality. Even if they didn't call it terms of sale, the very fact that they charge you per song might make a judge consider it a sale. A sale also means that Apple can't terminate your right to play the songs you have already purchased, those are your copies. The fact that Apple does do this when you simply move to a country where Apple does not sell music is also likely to make a judge rewrite the EULA to comply with the law.

I think the using hymn is very likely to be legal for a iTMS customer* under US copyright law, but we won't really know until Apple's EULA and the DMCA+ is tested in court. I think it's in Apple's favor to keep the legality of its EULA in limbo. Most people will comply with their vendor's interpretation of the law even if it is clearly illegal#, since the EULA has not been shown to be clearly illegal in court this means an even larger portion of the populace will comply with the questionable restrictions.

*If someone else purchases iTMS songs on your computer and gives them to you then you are not under the terms of the EULA at all. The person who gave you the songs may have violated the EULA, but you are free to treat the songs like a book that has been given to you. The American stolen goods doctrine does not apply because she may have violated a suspect license and but she did not steal nor copy anything. In this case only the anti-research provision of the DMCA might apply; which is one of the more illegal provisions under our constitution as currently interpreted.

+The many pronged attack on the constitutionality of the DMCA has begun, the private subpoena powers are under attack now, and if anyone is ever found guilty in an ElcomSoft/Felten type case the anti-research provision will work it's way up in the courts. Some DMCA provisions are clearly unconstitutional, and even if 'trafficing in facts' portions were upheld, the significant non-infringing uses clause would apply if Apple's 'this sale is not a sale' provisions are held to be illegal.

#For instance Major League Baseball claims copyright to the scores of their games, it is actually a federal felony for them to make this obviously bogus claim. As far as I know, this felony has never been prosecuted in the history of our great country of laws.

Re:Not necissarily

[Phillup]

I think Fair Use is extremely important. I think FairPlay violates Fair Use.

Well, if my laptop, which has my iTunes on it, goes into the shop for repair... does that mean I'm no longer allowed to listen to my music?

All of my other computers run Linux.

How, in this case, would using FairPlay be a violation of fair use?

(Assuming I'm able to actually pull off the unlocking of the data with just a linux box. From my backups, of course.)

So... that is the situation. The original computer is broke.

I have no ability to run iTunes and burn CDs. But, I do have backup copies of the data.

What is "fair"?

Re:Not necissarily

[Doomstalk]

Right. Which means if you run PlayFair or Hymn or I'mABigScriptKiddieLookAtMeWoo or whatever on one of your iTunes songs, you are no longer legally authorized to listen to any of your iTunes songs. You are, at that point, engaging in copyright violation, which if you do it enough is a felony! You just illustrated the whole problem with the issue. You do something they don't like, and instantly you're a felon. I'm not part of the tinfoil hat brigade, but it's not too much of a stretch to see Apple or other DRM'ed music distributors adding all kinda of crackpot terms into their licenses and since they're subject to change without notice, you're stuck with terms you didn't even agree to. If you listen to your music without complying, you're a felon.

Re:Not necissarily

[LittleBigLui]

the iTunes EULA--heck, every EULA from MS Windows to Kazaa to the GPL--relies upon copyright law as its foundation.

Can't say anything about the iTunes EULA, but usually software EULAs are (as the name suggests) usage licenses - as opposed to distribution licenses like the GPL - and have nothing to do with copyright and everything with contract law. They are a contract that you "sign" - usually - by opening the shrink-wrap that wraps the software media and the contract itself or by installing said software. Very shaky legal grounds AFAIK, although IANAL either.

Re:Not necissarily

[arkhan_jg]

I like the way you don't quote the following section, specifically

`(B) The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title, as determined under subparagraph (C).

If the use is noninfringing (i.e. would be covered by an existing fair use defence), then A does not apply, i.e. circumventing the protection is NOT restricted. Transcoding a work for the purposes of interoperability is a fair use right, ergo removing the DRM is not illegal.

The DMCRA is needed because the tools are illegal to write, distribute or tell others about under the DMCA, even if the tool itself has substantial noninfringing uses.

The DMCA does not ban using crowbars, it just bans anyone making one, giving or selling you one, or telling anyone how to make or use a crowbar. The DMCRA would address those issues, which do need addressing.

Re:Not necissarily

[arkhan_jg]

Of course, the above only applies when you're use is non-infringing.

Were you to remove the DRM in order to say, put it onto a P2P network, you'd get nailed under copyright law AND the DMCA. but that's not what we're discussing, right?

Re:Not necissarily

[Twirlip of the Mists]

You just illustrated the whole problem with the issue. You do something they don't like, and instantly you're a felon.

Two things. 1. It's not just "something they don't like," it's something that's been made illegal by our elected representatives. 2. It's hardly instant. There's a threshold. If you do this much piracy in a 180-day period, you're a felon. I think it's pirating $1,000 worth of music in 6 months, but I won't promise that. Check the statutes.

Re:Not necissarily

[Alsee]

Ah, ok. Now I see what you missread.

(B) The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title, as determined under subparagraph (C).

So it ONLY applies to non-infringing use of particular classes of works, and only those that shall be defined through paragraph (C).

Paragraph (C) says in part: "during each succeeding 3-year period, the Librarian of Congress [] shall make the determination in a rulemaking proceeding". Further note it again says "noninfringing uses under this title of a particular class of copyrighted works ".

So the text you quotes does not apply to non-infinging use in general. It only applies so specific non-infringing use of specific classes of works and only those specificly exempted by the Librarian of Congress.

Many people were demanding that the Librarian of Congress grant a general exemption for fair use. The Library of Congress report gives an extensive discussion that they are prohibited from doing so. They can only grant exemptions for particular classes of works. They have only granted two extremely narrow exemptions in each rule-making cycle thus far (two exemptions in 2000 and two 2003). You can find the list here.

(1) Internet filter block lists.
(2) Software protected by obsolete/malfunctioning dongles.
(3) Software tied to obsolete formats/media, where the required hardware is no longer manufactured or reasonably available in the marketplace.
(4) E-books where ALL existing editions deactivate blind/vision-impaired features (text-to-speech/braile).

The DMCA is worse than you thought. Aside from those 4 narrow exemptions, circumvention to make fair use *is* criminalized.

-

Re:Not necissarily

[zpok]

FairPlay is the DRM Apple uses. Not to be confused with PlayFair...

Re:Not necissarily

[Phillup]

Not to be confused with PlayFair

Too late...

;-)

Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Not necissarily

[d34thm0nk3y]

Copyright deals with half an assload of different things. Distribution is one of them, but only one of them.

The biggies are reproduction, creation of derivatives, distribution, and certain public performances or displays. Read 17 USC 106.

This is, of course, true, but it could be argued that all of the things you listed are forms (or aspects in the case of reproduction) of distribution. Regardless, taken in the context of the comment I was replying to my statement makes sense. The GP argued that Apple could revoke your rights to listen to the song and so you would be ingaging in copyright violation. I was saying that copyright laws do not apply since you are not reproducing, distributing, deriving, or publicly performing the work. I was trying to get my point accross without having to make a full paragraph response(I apparently should have just done the paragraph in the first place)

Re:Not necissarily

[Planesdragon]

usually software EULAs are (as the name suggests) usage licenses - as opposed to distribution licenses like the GPL - and have nothing to do with copyright and everything with contract law.

Nope. They both alter the default allocation of rights ("you can't copy or distribute this copywritten work") to achieve a new distrubtion of rights ("You can copy this work if you pay me money and don't give it to anyone else"), which uses contract law--but it's based on copyright law.

Or, in geek-speak: The EULA program works using the CONTRACT language on top of the COPYRIGHT layer.

Re:Not necissarily

[Alsee]

the above only applies when you're use is non-infringing

Yes, he said so himself.

However he (and you) failed to catch the end of that paragraph and the one following it. It does NOT apply when you're non-infringing, except in four narrow cases. In general fair use *is* criminalized. The DMCRA has one clause to decriminalize the software, and another clause to decriminalize non-infringing use.

-

Re:Not necissarily

[cpt kangarooski]

This is, of course, true, but it could be argued that all of the things you listed are forms (or aspects in the case of reproduction) of distribution.

No, it absolutely cannot be. 106 reads as follows:

Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission

If all of those were forms of distribution, they would not be listed seperately, and coequal with distribution, which is merely ONE of the MANY rights comprising copyright. No court will ever agree with you unless there were to be a total sea change in the statutes, and pretty certainly not even then. You're just wrong.

The GP argued that Apple could revoke your rights to listen to the song and so you would be ingaging in copyright violation. I was saying that copyright laws do not apply since you are not reproducing, distributing, deriving, or publicly performing the work.

Well, you're close to being right, but you're still wrong. To merely listen to music, without engaging in other prohibited behavior, is never a copyright infringement. Copyright does not include the right to prevent others from listening.

BUT if you look at the seminal MAI v. Peak decision, you will find that whenever anything is copied in the normal operation of a computer -- copies to hard disk, copies to RAM, copies to caches, etc. -- it is considered reproduction, and it is generally infringing, barring permission to do so.

So if you have copies of music from iTMS that you are no longer authorized to make fixed, though short-lived, copies of, then you cannot in practice listen to it, since that would require some copying. I know this is a case worth bitching about, but before you do, you really ought to read the case so that at least you can make a decent argument.

Re:Not necissarily

[arkhan_jg]

Blimey. That's even worse than I was told (by a declared lawyer, no less). Rather glad I'm not american now!

Anyway, thanks for the heads up, I'll avoid making that mistake in future.

Re:Not necissarily

[Alsee]

Rather glad I'm not american now!

Chuckle. Then hopefully you're not European either (EU Copyright Directive) or Austrailian (US-AU Free Trade treaty) or anywhere in central/south america (Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty), or anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa (some Free Trade treaty in progress, can't find the name though), or Jordan (US-Jordan Free trade treaty), or Sigapore (USSFTA), or pretty much anywhere else on earth.

The US is threatening economic barriers and economic warfare to extorting countires all over to sign "Free Trade" treaties. The US imposed 100% tarriffs on Ukrainian goods because Ukraine did not pass a law criminalizign the manufacture of blank optical media (CDs DVDs) unless they burn serial numbers into them. They are merely being a bit more subtle against first-world countries.

-

Re:Not necissarily

[arkhan_jg]

I took part in lobbying against the EUCD. Obviously, we failed. Now we still have a chance when the law is passed into UK legislation, as there is a certain amount of wiggle room in implementation.

Plus, there are national elections in both the US and the UK; and with the real possibility of the tories getting back in because of Iraq (the tories are rather anti-EU) there's still plenty of things to try before the EUCD becomes national law in my country, especially if the US will continue to demonstrate how anti-competitive the DMCA is.

We've got two years before the EUCD theoretically has to be passed into local law; and the law isn't passed at all yet.

Title 17 Chapter 1 Sec 107 of the US Code

[DAldredge]

TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > Sec. 107. Prev | Next

Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -

(1)

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2)

the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3)

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4)

the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors

Re:Title 17 Chapter 1 Sec 107 of the US Code

[EvanED]

The claim that this is not a legal method is not based off of copyright law and whether you are infringing there, it is based off of the agreement you... agree to when you buy music from iTunes. d34thm0nk3y hit it right in his post in that the question whether this is leagal lay in whether the terms of service are enforcable and whether violating them would be illegal.

Fair use does not enter into this discussion.

Re:Title 17 Chapter 1 Sec 107 of the US Code

[orangesquid]

If apple's contract told you to rob a bank, would you?

Some companies (especially ones with '$' in their name) are infamous for TOSs that severely overstep sane boundaries which may become legal boundaries (by precedent) if this winds up in court.

Re:Title 17 Chapter 1 Sec 107 of the US Code

[DaHat]

Key quote:
In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include

That did not say that if it falls under the below categories that it's fair game, what you quoted is nothing more then a guide, not an absolute, it is open to interpretation and no matter how you may interpret it... the way a judge or a lawyer or a company interprets it is far more critical (and possibly costly to you) should you be accused of copyright infringement and you use fair use as a defense.

Re:Title 17 Chapter 1 Sec 107 of the US Code

[EvanED]

That's all well and good. I'm not saying that the TOS wouldn't be struck down in court. I'm just saying that, in the present discussion, your post is a red herring. Read what you quoted sec. 107 in response to:

By purchasing songs from the iTMS you have contractually agreed NOT to bypass their DRM system in anyway other than those provided (ie burning to cd and re-ripping). Any other means, such as this is a violation of said contract and you are liable for any and all damages, regardless of if they are actual (ie 10,000 people didn't buy a CD because they got the song from you instead) or imaginary (ie they think 10,000 didn't buy a CD because they had the remote ability to get the song from you).

Where does the above say anything about copyright law? Your response to me would have been an appropriate reply, but fair use, as I said, doesn't belong in the discussion, at least until you've dispensed with the TOS discussion. (And quoting the law would probably still be overkill at that point.)

I beat all the DRM for everything

[hartba]

I just plug the headphone out into the line in of my computer and encode the songs to MP3 myself while I'm asleep. As long as you can get an audio output from a device, music DRM will never work. So what if it takes as long to record as my tape deck used to. I'm asleep, so I don't know the difference. Encoding music is easy, filling your iPOD full of illegal substances and getting it across the border is hard. Those dogs can smell anything. That's why you have to kick them in the throat. I'm not saying I'd do anything illegal... but I'd kill somebody, in front of their own mama to listen to itunes in my car and if anybody tried to tell on me, I'd gouge their eyes out.

Re:I beat all the DRM for everything

[hobgadling]

Now wrap your iPod around that set of songs. Smoke while you are doing so. We do whatever we want to whoever we want, all the time.

Hey William Hung!

[AtariAmarok]

"What is the need to buy music when we can all sing to ourselves and save money instead?"

William Hung? Is that you?

Re:Hey William Hung!

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

The most recent MP3s I listened to were of my church's youth choir, of which I am a part. And yes, I started singing along my part.

Incidentally, since I am one of the artists, what are my legal rights with respect to distributing the MP3s without asking permission of the choir director (or, worse, the entire choir)? We are unpaid, but the mini-orchestra that accompanied us was. And the CD was of course not free.

Re:Hey William Hung!

[lakeland]

Short answer... you have no right to copy it. Were it physically possible, you could copy your part of the performance. Normally people assign their rights to a single entity (perhaps your church) and then they can ask a representative of that entity (your pastor) for permission.

Asking a single person is of course significantly easier than asking everybody who contributed, and if you're concerned about that person turning around and saying no, then you can write a contract stipulating when they should say yes. If you want to be really cautious, then create a new entity which owns the copyright, and you can write its charter.

Re:Hey William Hung!

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

WTF? Manager or lawyer? A voluntary church youth choir?

Oh. You mean God?

Apple is only putting up a fictional fight...

[utahraptor]

After all, we all know that about 1% of people (maybe slightly higher on the mac side) are smart enough with even less people caring enough to want to use something like this, especially since it is anti-piracy minded. Apple is only appearing to be serious about this to keep the record companies in bed with them.

"Hi, Ma!"

[AtariAmarok]

"Now the application is called "hymn", or "hear your music anywhere"... "

Seems to me that the acronyum is HYMAW.

Re:"Hi, Ma!"

[black mariah]

If you're going to be a humorless pedantic tit then the acronym is actual HYMA. Then again, none of those are funny which was the entire fucking point of the grandparent.

case law

[mr_zorg]

I find it interesting that you are unable to cite any case law supporting your claims.

Just because he chose not to doesn't mean he is unable. I tend to agree with the original poster, but IANAL. Clearly fair use has precedence over copyright, but I can see where contract law would take precedence over either.

When you watch TV, did you agree to a contract that you wouldn't make copies? No. When you buy a book, do you sign a contract that you won't share it with friends? No. When you listen to a CD, did you agree to a contract that you wouldn't rip it to mp3s? No. When you install a software package such as iTunes, did you agree to such a contract? YES. It's called the EULA, and there-in lies the difference.

Of course, there's considerable debate over whether EULAs are themselves enforcible -- but that's a different story. Assuming they are, I see no reason why they shouldn't take precedence.

P.S. This is a dupe, it's been covered before.

itunes is awesome, but...

[chaos421]

i really like itunes. the layout is great, and the integration of itunes music store is fantastic because of the ease of use, speed of download, etc. it is slightly annoying that the songs are encrypted. if my other mp3 player could read these files, i wouldn't have any complaints. perhaps the solution is to send e-mail/letters to your favorite mp3 player company and request they release firmware upgrades for your players so that the itunes format is supported.

Re:itunes is awesome, but...

[zpok]

While you're at it, don't forget to put Apple in the cc.

Re:itunes is awesome, but...

[ZipR]

Yeah. So what if it's unprotected? What can play m4p files (or whatever they are) anyway? Perhaps if these could easily be converted to mp3 files, it might be useful, but for now, no iTunes for me!

Re:itunes is awesome, but...

[wnorris]

perhaps i'm unclear... are you suggesting to write to sony, dell, et al and ask them to support m4p files? It's not that they don't want to... who wouldn't want to have a piece of apple's pie? - iTMS is by far the largest online music store around. the problem is that apple hasn't released the specs on fairplay, so these other manufacturers physically can't create a player that will play m4p files.

Re:itunes is awesome, but...

[chaos421]

ahh i see... well in that case we should be sending our letters to apple...

only listen to open music

[js3]

don't listen to closed music, there is no drm with open music

Re:I have a way to do that too.....

[real_smiff]

> hymn (the tool talked about in this walk through) is PlayFair. It's been renamed and a new author is working on it. Also, the latest release keeps your Apple ID in the file so if you have it on a P2P network your asking for trouble.

It seems like only a small step to remove the Apple ID from the decrypted file, hmm? I'm not advocating piracy but.. someone has to say this, 'cos it's what's going through plenty of people's minds.

Burn, Rip?

[pclinger]

Is it just me, or can't you just burn the cd, then rip it into mp3? Is this against the iTunes EULA? Or do people just not want to do this because they feel they are going to lose some minor amount of sound quality doing this?

Re:Burn, Rip?

[nsayer]

Is it just me, or can't you just burn the cd, then rip it into mp3?

Sure. But when you do so, you lose quality. For one thing, some of the songs at the itms come from 24 bit masters. So immediately when you turn them into 16 bit CD audio tracks, you throw away a lot of potential dynamic range. That's beside the fact that decoding the AAC and then re-encoding it to either AAC or MP3 will lower the audio quality, AND you'll lose all the meta data.

Re:Burn, Rip?

[Wildfire Darkstar]

Except that, of course, we're not dealing with CD quality rips. AAC is not lossless, so the best you can get, burning a CD from iTunes purchase music, is quality roughly identical to the original, lossy file. Which, yes, is usually pretty good.

But ripping from that CD is functionally identical to taking the original AAC file and directly reencoding it to another format. Even my tin ears can detect quality loss a fair percentage of the time. For people who really care about archiving their music, and for true audiophiles, the trade-off is often unacceptable.

Re:Burn, Rip?

[ShavenYak]

For one thing, some of the songs at the itms come from 24 bit masters. So immediately when you turn them into 16 bit CD audio tracks, you throw away a lot of potential dynamic range.

Well, you've actually already lost that dynamic range in the .m4p file, because it's only 16 bit as well. The real problem is that the AAC compression has thrown away some of the sounds of the song, and created some artifacts. Then the MP3 compression applied later will likely drop different sounds and do who knows what with the compression artifacts already present - in addition to creating its own artifacts. Depending on the MP3 compressor you use and the bitrate, this might or might not be objectionable. However, if you have a player that can handle AAC natively, you can be guaranteed no loss of sound quality using Hymn.

That, and you don't put any extra wear on your burner, or use up blank CD-Rs (or add a write cycle to a CD-RW).

Incidentally, the Foobar 2000 audio player can read .m4p files directly, and do anything with them it can with any other file (burn to CD unlimited times, convert to MP3, whatever floats your boat) as long as you're running it on a computer that's authorized to play the songs. It also supports a bunch of formats that iTunes doesn't, such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio, AC3 (for rips from concert DVDs, of course) and more.

Re:Not necissarily; DMCA provisions

[David Hume]

Not necissarily Breaking a contract is not necissarily illegal

Merely breaking a contract is not "illegal" if by "illegal" you mean "criminal" (as opposed to incurring only civil liability). However, violation of the DMCA may (or may not) be "illegal" -- i.e., criminal. The DMCA, and particularly 17 U.S.C. sec. 1201(b) provides in pertinent part:

(b) Additional Violations. -

(1)
No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that -

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;

(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof; or

(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof.

17 U.S.C. sec. 1201(b) (emphasis added)

It appears the software in question violates section 1201(b). I suspect the DMCA takedown notice is on the way.

However, it does not appear there is any criminal (as opposed to civil) liability. 17 U.S.C. sec. 1204(a) provides in relevant part:

Sec. 1204. - Criminal offenses and penalties

(a) In General. -

Any person who violates section 1201 or 1202 willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain -

(1) shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and

(2) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense.

17 U.S.C. sec. 1204(a) (emphasis added). Because the author of the software at issue doe not appear to be acting "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain," it looks like there is no criminal liability.

On the other hand, the potential civil liability is substantial. 17 U.S.C. sec. 1203(c) provides in relevant part:

(c) Award of Damages. -

(1) In general. -

Except as otherwise provided in this title, a person committing a violation of section 1201 or 1202 is liable for either -

(A) the actual damages and any additional profits of the violator, as provided in paragraph (2), or

(B) statutory damages, as provided in paragraph (3).

(2) Actual damages. -

The court shall award to the complaining party the actual damages suffered by the party as a result of the violation, and any profits of the violator that are attributable to the violation and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages, if the complaining party elects such damages at any time before final judgment is entered.

(3) Statutory damages.

Re:I have a way to do that too.....

[1u3hr]

Since it's just PlayFair, does this mean we can count this as a duplicate against the editors?

It's a "howto". It explains that you 1) install the app 2) drag and drop protected iTunes files into it. It's newsworthy, in spite of this being the third or fourth time this app has been mentioned, because now it's got a new name (hymn). If you recall the earth-shaking story a few weeks ago that Darth Vader was going to have a new costume in the next SW pre/se/quel, though we didn't actually have an image or description, you know how low the bar is.

don't bogart that joint my friend, ...

[zpok]

"This is NOT a legal method!
By purchasing songs from the iTMS you have contractually agreed NOT to bypass their DRM system"

Well, yes, but there's also the notion of Fair Use, a legal right that allows you to copy or re-format for your own use.
So while this might not be a strictly legal method - breach of contract - the contract itself might put unfair restraints on your rights. It's not as simple as you make it out.

Then again IANAL.

Where I totally disagree with you is that any party could claim damages when you haven't pirated or aided and abetted piracy at all and as such have not caused one single dollar of losses. This is not about piracy, this is about circumventing a restriction for your own use. RTFA if you think otherwise.

This is about copying a DVD to VHS or an LP to cassette. It might be a breach of some sort of contract, but then again, most things are. That's not the same as being liable for damages.

Re:I run ful time in linux, you insensitive clod

[AnEmbodiedMind]

Apple don't support KDE except to release changes to KHTML back to the community as required by the GPL.

There is presumably no good business case for building an iTunes for Linux.

They are a company, not a charity.

Some contracts are illegal

[A nonymous Coward]

For instance, I know someone who rented an apartment which has no window in the bedroom for escape from fire. But it is in a very nice place at below average rent, so he puts up with it. Legally, that apartment should not have been rented at all.

I rented an apartment whose lease had an illegal clause concerning a cleaning deposit. I ignored it and signed it anyway, and when time came to leave, and they tried to enforce it, I took them to small claims court and scared them so much I got an additional several hundred dollars out of them to dismiss it in such a manner that they were not on record of having even come to court.

Illegal contarcts can not be enforced. Whether or not the iTunes contract is illegal or has illegal clauses is another matter.

Actually...

[schmaltz]

"breach of contract" is a civil matter, not criminal. You haven't violated any laws, therefore what you're doing it ain't illegal. You can only be accused by the other party(ies) to the contract of breach - not by any officials of an executive branch of a government (in the US.)

Furthermore, the breach has to be declared by a civil court judge - lawsuits must be filed, and your case has to make its way through the system before that judgement (and/or injunction) can be declared.

OTOH, if it were criminal, you could be ARRESTED.

This is precisely why the DMCA was conjured - to apply criminal treatment to what was previously a either (or both) a civil infraction or a minor criminal matter (misdemeanor) - copyright infringement. Now it's felony material.

Re:"Lossy" FUD

[Erwos]

Maybe to you. Some of us, on the other hand, actually have good enough ears to tell the difference. This kind of comparison also can involve sound card and speaker quality. A POS sound card/chip with $3 tinny speakers is not really conducive to testing this kind of thing.

To be fair, I used to believe it was all BS until I actually tried it - and, believe it or not, I could tell the difference.

Now, ordinarily, a little quality loss wouldn't bother me that much if I was just yanking crap off IRC or P2P[1], because I didn't pay for it, so who the hell am I to complain? But at the prices that iTunes is charging (ie, the same price as a real CD), that's unacceptable.

-Erwos

[1] A habit which I've stopped, I may add, and not because of iTunes or the RIAA.

Re:"Lossy" FUD

[mrchaotica]

Who cares if it "sounds exactly the same?" If it's decoded and recoded, it's NOT the same! I bought a song at a certain quality, and I damn well want a fair-use-enabled song of the same quality. It's the principle of the thing!

GUI

[ahoehn]

If you hate the command line, like I do, you can download a GUI wrapper for the Windows version of HYMN at http://stilleye.com/hymn.net/

Re:"Lossy" FUD

[danielsfca2]

actually have good enough ears to tell the difference.

Sometime when I figure out PlayFair I'll set up a blind test for you and you can prove it. I'll send you an e-mail or something.

A POS sound card/chip with $3 tinny speakers is not really conducive to testing this kind of thing.

My sound card is not a 'POS' and my speakers cost $100, thank you very much.

Re:one person at a time

[BarryNorton]

I think that was the point being made (and in a useful way, i.e. with the very argument I also use to explain this to people who neither understand the construction intuitively nor technically).

Is this better?

[AtariAmarok]

"In 1984, seems to me that the acronyum is HYMAW"

You can keep some meta data...

[CarrionBird]

If you bought the whole album them burn the playlist set up in the same order as the cd. If your ripping software supports CDDB or gracenote, then it will add the album info as if it was a original CD.

only works on whole ablums unfortunately

Re:Not necessarily

[kuma_act]

A couple of points: 1)A contract is an agreement that the parties have agreed has the force of law. This means that if one party has breached the agreement, the other party can turn to the courts for a remedy. 2) There is a doctrine called "material breach." There's a lot more to it than this, but for our purposes, it basically says "no harm, no foul." If the breach, in this case, using hymn to remove the DRM from the track you bought from iTunes, causes no actual provable damages, it is unlikely that a court is going to grant a remedy. Contract damages are never assumed and must be proven. What this means is that, assuming you are simply format shifting (more than likely legal under the old VCR case from the 80s... don't know the cite offhand) and not violating the copyright by distributing copies, the most Apple can do to you is cut you off from further purchases. They are unlikely to be able to prove any damages if you haven't provided that file to anyone else. However, if you have shared the file, you will get hit, as they will have both contract remedies for the breach, and their rights arising from the copyright violation. Bottom line: If you're going to use hymn to de-DRM these, it would be... unwise... to share the resulting files, as they still contain your authentication info, which can probably be used to track who released the file into the wild, and, as discussed above, can be used to establish actual damages and copyright infringement.

Re:I run ful time in linux, you insensitive clod

[chrwei]

so, people that use linux don't listen to music? or don't buy music? that's like, "there's no good business case for advertising smokes and booze to teens because they can't buy them anyway", opps... or "there's no good business case for advertising anything to kids because they don't have income".. ever seen a cereal ad? it's not for the money makers... Marketing is a tricky thing, and they already have iTunes on 2 very different windowing system, how hard can it be to add a 3rd?

Re:I run ful time in linux, you insensitive clod

[Phroggy]

iTunes depends heavily on QuickTime. They'd need to port QuickTime before they could port iTunes. Porting QuickTime would be non-trivial. Although, now that they've ported it to two other platforms (Windows and Mac OS X), porting to one more should at least be a familiar experience for them...

Once QuickTime is ported and works well, adding iTunes on top of it shouldn't be hard.

The Switch

[OPR33]

People usually have a decent reason for switching platforms --- but, my best friend switched to Apple for his laptop purchase because they gave him better financing than Dell!

Hymn is designed to limit DMCA exposure

[tepples]

It seems like only a small step to remove the Apple ID from the decrypted file, hmm?

Removing copyright management information from a copy or phonorecord of a copyrighted work is a violation of another part of the DMCA. The Hymn software is designed to violate as little of the DMCA as possible to get its job done.