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iTunes 4.6, DRM, and Hymn
fluffy writes "Although the recent iTunes 4.6 upgrade refuses to play music decrypted with Hymn, there's already a trivially-simple workaround, demonstrated within hours of the iTunes release, which still preserves the 'fair use' intent of the tool. What move will Apple take against Hymn next?"
And what happens at the next update? And the one after that?
If you don't like the DRM, buy a version without it. Or whine about the cat & mouse game you're going to keep playing.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
except that groups like the riaa on riding apple's rear to ensure music stays, in their view, "secure"
if apple didnt fix flaws, the riaa would pull the rug out and effectively close iTMS and kill the iPod. does apple want that? how would iTMS users react?
apple's just doing what it needs to remain in business, and honestly - at least apple had the guts to tell the riaa (in a direct manner) why their past ventures werent working, and what they could do to fix it. IMO, their "DRM" is the most relaxed out there anyway, especially with the a huge hole still open (in the form of burning a file to CD, the rip it back to mp3)
Downloaded tracks from iTunes are DRM'ed so that only the user who bought them can play them. Hymn is designed to get rid of the DRM, so that (for example) you can play your files on a Linux machine. However, it leaves in your user ID so to prevent piracy by making files easily traced.
The latest version of iTunes refuses to play files that contain a user ID but no DRM - even if the user ID is your own. Hence, a fix is needed.
Man, you're a whiner.
No hotkey support regardless of focus. I want to change songs while coding without switching to iTunes, damnit (and no thanks, I don't need any 3rd party mini-app)
Use the Dock.
Location of iTunes library file not changeable (and in users' homedir).
Mine is on a server. Try LOOKING at the preferences.
No watching of the library folders.
Try LOOKING at the menu bar. It's called Consolidate Library...
Yeah, it's not automatic, but it is a one step process.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
True, but is it a requirement that they have to give back ALL their changes given that the license doesn't require it?
Remember, they did not *have* to release darwin as free software. Yet they did. This is kind of like critizising someone who gives money to the homeless, but decides to keep some for themselves.
The open source comminuty can be exceptionally snotty in this regard. A corporation helps out the community, then some people in the community turn around and istead of saying, gee thanks, they say, "But I want ALL your ip! You are an evil company!".
And taking and not giving back is perfectly in keeping with open source principles, and even some free software licenses like BSD. If it were not, it would be explicitly forbidden in the definiton of free software or open source!
It's not in line with copyleft, but copyleft is not everything.
First, it makes it look like they are combating piracy. It looks good on paper when they go to tell the RIAA how they have been fighting piracy "we disabled the latest version of Hymn, but a workaround was found quickly." So long as they are doing what they can, the RIAA won't complain.
Second, it prevents someone from the RIAA ascertaining what percentage of tracks shared are the iTunes version nearly as easily.
Think about it. If you leave the ID tag in there, the RIAA can download a bunch of files from P2P networks and very quickly and easily determine what percentage of them were purchased from the iTMS. Apple doesn't want this at all--if that number ever does become significant, they don't want the RIAA coming to them and saying "20% of all songs being shared over P2P networks were originally purchased on the iTMS..."
Unlikely? Sure, especially since m4a files are still relatively rare on p2p networks (though the number of them is growing), but Apple doesn't want it to ever be an issue.
If there is an ID tag that is unique to decrypted files and can be quickly scanned for, they can ascertain this percentage without any difficulty in a selection of downloaded music. Otherwise they have to compare the decrypted stream to the decrypted stream of the original for each individual song, which requires identifying each individual song and then matching it with the original--a much more drawn out process than scanning for the presence of a tag.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
With the DRM in place it's like Apple has a hand loosely gripping my nuts. That hand might give me great pleasure or it might suddenly squeeze so long and so hard that I beg for the surcease from pain that only death can bring. Anyone sane would get out this situation if they could. H-Y-M-N spells freedom for my nuts.