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Crossplatform iTunes Sharing and Trading
An anonymous reader writes "As reported on Cnet
and others, an open source java iTunes client named ourTunes has been released under the GPL by a group of anonymous hackers. Unlike the Apple iTunes for Windows and Mac, ourTunes allows a user to queue up and save to disk the music shared by other users. Recent court rulings have held that developers of p2p file sharing software cannot be held liable for 'for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products.'"
developers of p2p file sharing software cannot be held liable for any copyright infringement
The dam is just about to break.
... I started to feel like the good old days of the internet.
Remember when the internet was full of freedom?
In light of the recent court decision, will Apple still be able to use the DMCA to bully Sourceforge into taking down the software?
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/20/174 8226&tid=141&tid=108&tid=3&tid=218
Shouldn't that be "weTunes" in order to use the pronoun in the subjective case?
can't you just smell the lawsuit..
not to mention the lashback of "realplayer" proportions.
fire the browsers for groklaw ans such.
kicking back and watching the show.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
the ruling was that they could not be held libal if there product had signicficant not infringing capablitys. Not that they could not be help libal
"It saddens us to see that yet more tools of a burglar are allowed to be released to the public. Thieves in the night will now have more tools to steal the food from artists' tables." - RIAA
There seems to be a handful of java DAAP clients that all look the same:
c ords: http://www.cdavies.org/applerecords.html
One2ohmygod: http://one2ohmygod.sourceforge.net/
jtunes4: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtunes4/
AppleRe
and yet another called "Get It Together"
http://www.deleet.de/projekte/daap/
They all look the same but have varying degrees of functionality.
Why do people have to come up with so uncreative names? Apple has the nTunes thing going, take a couple of minutes and make up your own naming scheme.
Since Rendevous requires the machines to be on the same network, this sounds like it is just beating around the regular local network file sharing. I wouldn't think there would be too many legal issues involved here unless someone magically manages to get this working over the internet.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
That's hilarious. Although I'm opposed to all Satan programs that take away our Christmas, I might learn to like this one.
If you blog it...
Wow. Talk about demonising the wrong entity here. The DMCA isn't Apple's fault. Apple just did what they had to in order to keep the labels from shutting down the iTMS entirely. If you hate the DMCA, say so, but don't blame Apple for it. Apple != Congress.
This article has pretty much convinced me that the folks running p2pnet are only concerned about piracy -- as in committing it -- rather than having an intelligent discussion about the real issues here.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
This, along with hymn, is now happily on my hard drive. I'll watch further progress eagerly, and if lawsuits result, well, too late to keep it away from me.
I'd advise anyone with any interest in the project to do the same...
The court ruling was not a blanket protection for anyone writing P2P software. The court ruled that in the case of the P2P clients they were shown, significant legitimate use prevented the creators from being held liable for copyright infringement. Read the fucking ruling before you make comments on it PLEASE.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
But this whole I-want-Apple-to-do-it-my-way thing is really confusing to me.
You can cry if you want to share or download your tunes in a different way. You can complain about the evil DRM software Apple uses in its proprietary format. You can moan about lack of options and the iTMS/iPod lock-down.
I just don't understand why everyone clicks the "Yes" on the user agreement. If you want it to work a different way, don't support it.
Seems like all these 'benevolent' iTMS hacks, reverse engineers and DRM stripping apps are getting held up in some sort of martyr-like light.
Aren't these things a violation of the agreement they made when they decided to use the software and download songs?
??
From the ourTunes home page ( ourtunes.sf.net: )
1) What is ourTunes?
ourTunes is the continuation of several open source projects designed to allow you to browse and download from other people's iTunes Music Shares?
2) Is this a Peer to Peer (P2P) program? Aren't those things created by Satan to steal Christmas from Baby Jesus?
It's not "really" a peer-to-peer program, because it doesn't allow you the opportunity to share any files or music.
3) Why am I not seeing any hosts? Is the whole internet dead?
There probably aren't any people on your network sharing iTunes music. ourTunes only allows you to view connections within your networks "subnet" (often the building you are currently in, maybe a little bit more). If you are running ourTunes from home, I'm sorry to say but you'll probably be pretty disappointed. It's really only a viable program where there are lots of people living on a fast network with good taste in music (*cough* college campus *cough*).
It allows you to share with other people on the same network! OMG. nothing to see here.
Come on, please don't moderate me to oblivion.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
This goes to show that the more you try to chase freedom away with a bunch of stupid intellectual property laws, the more it comes back galloping. You just can't beat freedom.
The internet is the last frontier of freedom. It is the lastest kink in the armor of a sick system that wants to take away your remaining liberties one by one. Don't let them take the internet away away from you. It is a global system and they can't control it with local laws. Do your file sharing stuff in a different country if you have to. Download it all and copy it all!
I guess WB might have a problem with that
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
You don't need Rendevous to use DAAP. Rendezvous makes it easy to find stuff on a local network, but all you have to do is point your DAAP client at the host sharing the music and you can play it. It's just http.
I just tried out the program at work, here and transfered some songs from our PC music server. works nice. Although, it doesn't resolve a local iTunes server properly. Oh well, it's not like you wanna download from yourself, per se....
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
An open source project has been released under the GPL that includes an innovative way to insure that artists and companies are fairly compensated, while keeping prices low and increasing distribution of little known but talented artists.
Oh wait, no. It's just another way for people to keep doing what they've been doing, just a slightly different way. With all the brainpower that exists out there, wouldn't it be nice to see it put toward solving the problems that exist rather than keeping on with the "I want therefore I deserve it for free" attitude that permiates our society?
because they are utterly clueless. .jar and then read some documentation.
Lose the
Isn't this just a slow version of iTunes pre-version 4.5 with MyTunes? I haven't downloaded it but i've been using myTunes to download music off of my school network for months. Its an amazing source of files(depending what network youre on).
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
I don't see a problem with ourTunes... I mean, iTunes itself allows sharing within the local area network, ourTunes does the same thing, it doesn't extend beyond the current capabilities of iTunes (except it's actually more multiplatform).. So what's wrong with it? It looks to me as though it's just a way to let everyone utilize those features of iTunes, not just Mac/Winduz people.. Soooo.. Anyone that'd sue them over that is pretty messed up... Or maybe I just need to research this more... But I don't see anything wrong..
I have my music on an old G3 in the basement, and want to play it over the network from my powerbook.
As it stands, I can listen to what ever I click on, or in the default order - but no custom playlist or random order.
Again, DRM and 'copy-protection' annoys the casual user, without providing any return.
But there's a way you can enjoy free music downloads without getting into trouble. Listen to the legal music that many unsigned and independent artists provide as a way to promote themselves. Find out how in my article:
-
Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
If you downloaded such music instead of infringing copyright on the p2p networks, we'd make short work of the RIAA. You'd start listening to bands that aren't signed with RIAA labels, and the RIAA would have no cause to complain because no one's copyright is being infringed. The RIAA labels would wither away because no one is buying their music anymore, and a lot of deserving artists would get the exposure they deserve.Here's a page that I found out about just a couple days ago and haven't added to the article yet. etree offers a page of Bit Torrent Downloads, all of them TradeFriendly.
If you feel as I do that more people need to read my article, you can help by linking to it from your own website, your web log, or from message boards. Be sure to email the link to all your friends who use P2P!
Request your free CD of my piano music.
The 9th Circuit court ruling is that software developers *can* be held liable,
a) if their software did not have significant non-infringing uses, OR,
b) if the software developers are in a position of power or control over the specific infringing activity and have a right and ability to stop the infringing activity AND had knowledge of the specific infringing activity OR
c) the software developers provide material aid (such as providing computer servers) in commiting the software infringement and had knowledge of the specific infringing activity.
The 9th Circuit did not want to expand copyright law to include parties which merely produced technology with significant non-infringing uses, who had no way of preventing the piracy that did take place, and did not provide any material aid to any piracy once the piracy become known to them.
The decision (as a few others pointed out) did not give blanket immunity.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
The recent court decision protecting Grokster from liability for its users doesn't protect all P2P systems. Grokster is protected because it doesn't maintain a central list of available resources (including copyright violations), and it doesn't lock out specific users, so it can't actually enforce restrictions on copyright. That's up to the users themselves. It's like the phone company, which isn't liable for callers threatening people with assault, blackmail, or engaging in conspiracy, or even copyright violation.
The decision backed decentralized P2P, power to the people, as a legitimate forum, even when illegitimate communication uses it. Now that people make broad, selfserving interpretations of that decision public, to protect their illegitimate systems, we'll see another lawsuit and decision showing that centralized systems like Napster are not protected. We can flirt with disaster by abusing the grey area, producing an overly broad decision the next time in a court not quite so committed to justice as in the Grokster decision.
--
make install -not war
http://sourceforge.net/users/whizziwig/
lead developer.
Then it would have to be call "EveryonesTunes" or in the South [USA] Y'AllsTunes.
Haven't looked at the source, but I don't think it would be too hard to [i|I]nternet enable this application.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Well, I've got the answer to these problems, but I'm afraid you don't deserve it for free.
That would be nice, but you'll only do it after you kill all the corporate lawyers, lobbiests, and everyone who gets a paycheck (or bonus, or stock options) _before_ the artist's check gets cut. Its not a technical matter, but a human one.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
To run on Linux: .jar archive)
$ java -jar (name of
Of course, if you don't want to run in the terminal, you can create a launcher that does just that from the menu.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Try, "java -jar OT41.jar"?
- Kevin
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
"Recent court rulings have held that developers of p2p file sharing software cannot be held liable for 'for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products."
It sounds like the laws pertaining to these rulings will change to be in favor of copyright holders.
I just don't understand why P2P networks, clearly created to pirate copyrighted materials, are NOT held responsible. While I believe that P2P is great, and is beneficial to people. I don't think people should lie to themselves. They're made to get commercial music, porn, and software. Period. Saying that the network that provides this infrastructure is not at least partially to blame seems silly. I liken it to "aiding and abetting a known fellon."
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Songs that are legally purchased with iTMS and shared using Rendezvous (iTunes or other) wouldn't be able to be played by other people unless they were authorized.
Nobody has cracked the encryption to date. They have found ways to unencapsulate the file from being encrypted but unless your machine is authorized for the songs they are worthless. Copy the songs till your heart is content, you can't use the files. I believe this model will still enable iTunes sharing to continue the way it is.
I am actually very upset that the original way iTunes shared music was changed. You used to be able to give your friends your IP address and they could connect to your iTunes music (by default out of the box).. but then a TON of sites went up where you could register your IP address of your iTunes library and it would pull down your list of songs and have it searchable to use much like Napster. This obviously lasted long enough till the next incremental iTunes release came out and "fixed it" so sharing worked only on the local network.
You're absolutely right. Freedom is more fundamental than profit, and Cooperation is more important than copyright. Copyright enthusiasts will probably bitch and moan here about "stealing" and the fate of creativity, but the facts are that people were creative long before there was copyright, and they'll continue to be creative after it's gone. And for those who've been suckered into the idea that copying equals theft, relax. If using information without paying for it is theft, then all the people who've ever watched a DVD or played computer games at their neighbor's house instead of buying their own copy are just as guilty of theft as the software "pirates" - and that likely includes most everybody. Just watch, though - with the advent of nanotechnology soon companies will be incorporating DRM into everyone's brain, and you'll have to pay everytime you want to watch anything. Go ahead and laugh, but you know they'd do it given half a chance and the technology.
You can't use it to browse internet shares, i.e. you can only use it on an internal network with existing iTunes shares. Good for college campus, but not much else. It will be useless for the vast majority of people.
Ads? What ads?
What, you hate java apps because you don't know how to run them?
Stop being such a fucktard, it's like saying that computers don't work because you can't find the power button
Then iTunes comes out, providing EXACTLY that. But were the complainers happy? Nope, instead they stab Apple in the back and devise ways to get Apple's product without paying for it.
Way to show your appreciation folks!! Is it really any wonder why the likes of the RIAA wants to hunt you down??
Apps like this aren't motivated by free speech, this is all about free beer. I just wish some of you would be honest about that.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I've been thinking a lot about what a song is worth, and the only conclusion I can come to is ... nothing.
Before the birth of the recording industry, what did it cost to listen to a song? Nothing. It may cost something to go to an event, a concert or opera, but to hear a song being sung cost nothing. The singer sang, you listened, and it cost you nothing.
So the recording technology shows up, and the recording industry is built up. The recording industry exists solely for the purpose of transporting the song from the studio to my speakers. So all the trucks and equipment and so on incur costs, and that's what I pay for. But not for the songs themselves.
What's a metallica song worth? Nothing, I've already heard them all. Going to a Metallica concert might be worth 50 bucks. Maybe buying the bobblehead dolls and Metallica Pop Tarts is worth a few bucks. I can see a 5" plasic disc in a case with liner notes and photos having value. The music recorded on that disc, however does not.
To download off the internet, it's reasonable to expect to be compensated for bandwidth. But I can't see the songs themselves having any intrinsic value. A Van Gogh painting has value because there's only one of them. A photograph of one has nothing. Similarly, watching the artist perform has some value, but a snapshot of their performance (a song recording) doesn't.
I must be missing something, but I can't think of what. Music is worth nothing. Artists don't profit from "music", they profit from performances and mercahndizing. The only ones who profit selling "music" are middlemen and distributors who are increasingly irrelevant. Therefore, the service they provide may or may not have value, but the "music" itself does not.
A friend I chat with online is in a band, and they've been moderately successful, and opened for some fairly big artists and are completing their first album. He'll DCC the songs to anyone who'll listen to them. Why would he do this? Because they themselves have no value.
If you say that music has value, it makes no sense. Because according to the industry, all music has the same value. A song according to Apple is worth 99 cents. But music is subjective. I wouldnt pay 5 cents for a band I don't like, I might even pay more for one that I do - heck, I already have by spending 20 bucks for a disc with 10 songs on it.
Music is a personal expression, just like a thought or opinion. Thoughts have no monetary value.
Music has no monetary value, and just look at all the handwaving and idiocy that's occuring because of societies need to attach a price tag to everything.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
In windows and OS X you just click on the jar and it runs like it was an application, no command line needed.
.zip and unzip away.
As someone already said the command you want is:
"java -jar OT41.jar"
I have seen various settings for linux desktops to do the same thing.
The nice thing is this single 300k app works on any platform and has the full source inside of it. Rename the file to
I'll be right over with an external Firewire/USB2 combo drive, just give me a minute to run over and buy him a Firewire card in case he doesn't have one already. BTW, I'll buy dinner, you guys like Chinese?
I don't need no estinkin'
Jeepmeister
"In hindsight, I think the answer of "Penguins?" would be better suited. "
Dilemma though - wouldn't Cmdr. Tux and forces be likely to sympathize with the OS geeks seeking safe-haven from the DMCA? I foresee a complex web of underground partisan intrigue. Casablanca South.
"Where were you last night?"
"That's so long ago, I don't remember."
"Will I see you tonight?"
"I never make plans that far ahead. "
The distribution of wealth in this country is rather bogus. Artists and entertainers are the highest paid people, while doctors and scientists SAVE PEOPLE. To me, downloading music for free is my way of redistributing the money in the correct place (even though i am not a doctor) ;)
How about Programmers?
It's the inappropriate use of certain words that condemn groups of people.
Russia was never a Communist state. They were Socialist. The media mislabeled them and Communism has a stain on it for the rest of history. So, is there something synonymous between being a programmer and a hacker? Yes.
However, are people who make 'questionable' applications (like good worms that destroy bad worms) going to be ostracized in the future because of their non-corporate or anti-corporate actions, or simply because no corporation they are attached to didn't react faster to a market/solution?
No sig for you! Come back one year!
Aren't these things a violation of the agreement they made when they decided to use the software and download songs?
Where are you going to get music? You can buy the CDs, you can download them from a Windows-based service, or you can download them with iTunes. That is, in reality, you don't have the kind of choice of contracts that you might get in a free market.
So, why are people rebelling and breaking their agreements? Because they feel that those agreements have been forced upon them and therefore feel they are not ethically bound by them (even if there is a small legal risk in doing so).
Not really. I happen to be one of those people that gets a paycheck before the artist (I do studio and live work - but for small local artists and at reasonable prices). There's so much great music that never gets heard because of distribution problems. Where is the open source micropayment system? Where's the plugins to media players that would help people find new music?
They may or may not exist, but they don't get front page attention on Slashdot. Instead we get something that if it catches on will be used to spread the latest UshLudicKast5 song across campuses, along with a whole bunch of people patting themselves on the back for their "freedom," which largely consists of taking away other people's freedom.
The artists I work with have the right to put whatever conditions they want on their music, or to sell that right to some corporation. Freedom is choosing whether or not to agree to those conditions, not disagreeing with them and taking anyway.
But oh look, I've already been labeled as a troll.
Yessir, the cat is out of the bag! No more distibution monopoly for you Mr. RIAA!
Recording Industry Association of America, meet Buggy Whip Manufacturers, Sheet Music Publishers, and novelists. Mix and mingle, you all have a lot to talk about.
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
Somebody mod this guy Redundant for using the word Redundant twice, then mod me Redundant for using it one more time than that. If the worst should happen and I use the word Redundant again, then any child responses to this message shall inherit their own mod of Redundant.
And... one after that.
3:53pm. Right-o.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Is it really any wonder why the likes of the RIAA wants to hunt you down??
You got it backwards, chupacabra. We are hunting the RIAA down. And We won't let up. If you can't put chains on it, or put a fence around it or defend it with a police state, I got news for you: Like the air that we breathe, once you relase it, it belongs to nobody and everybody.
If you don't believe me, go ask the kid on the sidewalk in Hanoi or Rio who's selling MS Office right now for less than five bucks a copy. Go ask the millions of people who are using a free copy of Adobe Photoshop or MS Windows. You can't stop it.
If you guys really don't want the ugliness, head over to here. Then take the zap button, and drag it to your bookmarks. Clicking it when on an it.slashdot page will make it 100% more readable.
Also check out Jesse's other bookmarklets if you like that one. Or try this page if you're into that sort of thing.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated in any way with the aforementioned sites. I'm just a huge fan.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Limewire's DAAP implementation is actually working - you can share your downloaded files with other
people's iTunes on the local network.
I couldn't get ourTunes to even try and open the multicast socket, lets hope they get their act together sooner.
Don't go silently into that peaceful night
The article has been getting 2000 hits a day steadily since march and has been Google's #1 hit for legal music downloads for a whole year, as well as in the top ten for the much more popular search query free music downloads for several months.
I report the article's statistics in more detail here. I haven't updated it for a while but will do so shortly.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Glad to see your knowledge of Thelemic law is up to that of your Constitutional.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Show me what has been lost when a file is transfered where there was no sale to be had in the first place. Show me what has been stolen.
You cant.
Comparing to theft of an object does not count as its not the same.
Driving the car has reduced its value.. It is not an accurate comparison.
The school pledge was a promise you made. Again, not the same.
No promise was made when the RIAA put out a song. Nothing was reduced in value by my usage.
If you honestly think those are even remotely fair comparisons, then you are a moron.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's all well and good, but this software only allows you to share regular MP3 and AAC tracks and not tracks from the iTunes Music Store.. so the RIAA have little extra to worry about as people can just continue to go on Kazaa, Shareaza, Acquisition, Allofmp3, or whatever and get their illegal music. It doesn't affect the iTunes Music Store dealie at all.
One of the tennets of freedom is the right for people to be able to decide how what they create should be used. Linus used that right to place Linux under the GPL, Theo uses that freedom to choose the BSD license. Just because you disagree with the license offered with a product does not give you the "freedom" to ignore the license and take the product anyway, nor is the fact that it's impossible to stop file-sharing make it "right." SCO obviously disagrees with the GPL, but how many people here support their claim that they have the "right" to Linux?
If you don't like the terms (be it CD, DRMed file, carved stone tablet), fine, don't buy it. I guarantee that if you choose to look around, there's talented musicians who aren't associated with any major music lable who would love you to listen to their recordings. Musicians' freedom includes choosing what terms they want to distribute their creations under, or selling that right to someone else. If you want to fight the system, respect them and seek out the alternatives, don't gloat about the gigabytes of commercial stuff that the latest product lets you aquire.
anyway, between the two of us, we've got over 140GB of unique mp3s... can you fit all that?
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Circumvent the managers at the RIAA by letting your software music jukebox manage your favorite artists. This requires a central database listing creative works and the artists who actually made them so that you can donate automatically to your favorite artists.
problem: telling some site what kind of music you have my get you sued as you declare to have illegal music.
solution: give partial hash code (checksum). Site returns say 200 potential hits. You verify for yourself if you have have a copyrighted song 'belonging' to the site. You discard the 199 misses and you use the info about the song to compensate the listed artist directly. This can be done anonymously: "I love your (unspecified) work here is a donation of 20 cents". Artist uses statistics to figure out how to compensate those who helped him with popular creations if the donations rise above thousands of dollars.
So you spend say 300 dollar per year to (automatically) compensate your favorite artists directly without confessing a crime as your jukebox figures out compensation anonymously and you can also donate manually, even though you do not have any works of arts of that artists in your possession, making the system a black box, meaning that donations do not directly indicate illegal possession.
Why pay for distribution? Let's circumvent the RIAA.
--
Dennis SCP
I know late in the thread, no one will read, so will post it again at another yro article about music another day.
First, have a definition of 'Monopoly'
THEN, tell me where Apple has a monopoly on anything?
iTunes? Not hardly.
Digital Music Distribution? Nope.
MP3 Players? Not it.
Operating Systems? No, that's someone else.
Sorry, antitrust law just doesn't apply here. It may be quite asshole of them to jerk around with the way it works specifically to break other stuff, but I don't think it's "illegal." In order to abuse a monopoly, you have to have one first.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
It's great that there is a free (as in speech) iTunes. But will it work with my free (as in beer) iPod??
One2ohmygod: http://one2ohmygod.sourceforge.net/
and
another called "Get It Together"
Both are lines (and songs?) from the Beastie Boys. Funny group these programmers/hackers are. And yet, isn't the new Beastie album the sourse of much DRM controversy?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
iRATE's database is basically a big list of URLs, one for each available MP3 file. I think there are something like a hundred thousand tracks available. The database also has each user's ratings, that it used for its collaborative filtering calculation.
At least when iRATE started out, most of the tracks came from the Internet Underground Music Archive, which hosts thousands of bands. It was a popular site long before iRATE came around. So you can imagine that IUMA is heavily loaded, so whenever iRATE gets a track from a heavily loaded server, the download can be slow.
Fortunately a lot of work has been put into recovering from failed downloads. When I first used iRATE, way back during 0.1, I downloaded over a 56k modem and many of my downloads failed. But the developers made it work much better even for modems.
The download speed becomes less annoying after you've downloaded a couple dozen songs, because you then have a variety of tracks to listen to while new tracks download.
BTW, iRATE's homepage is Google's #1 hit for the query irate.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Dell had the same thing happen - faulty batteries. They *were* causing problems.
How about roasting Kyocera for exploding cell phones?
Apple used to take a *LOT* of flak for the PowerBook 5300 battery issue. In fact, there are probably still a few morons on here that blame Apple for that even though it was the battery manufacturer's fault.
Well phrased! You covered aptly just how much that pro-Hitler, puppy-murdering Apple monopoly hates freedom.
:-D
They just hate it so much; the thought of freedom makes them puke. Their evil, hateful, apocalyptically-greedy position in the once angelically-pure music industry only serves to annihilate the helpless masses' freedoms. In fact, it makes me cry to just think of a world where people can't ignore license agreements whenever they feel like it
Thank you for clarifying this issue so precisely
karma: ouch!
developers of p2p file sharing software cannot be held liable for any copyright infringement
Until the INDUCE act comes along.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
You sir...
best.. troll.. ever!
Itunes let you play music from any another computer on your subnet. Turn "sharing" on in the preferences box in itunes.
I use this to play music via my ibook in the kitchen. The music is on my desktop. Wirelessly to boot.
Itunes even finds the music shares automagically through zero conf (rendezous).
Why is this news?
Shrink-wrapped "by breaking this seal" license agreements are the bullshit tactic of the decade. They write all sorts of looney right-waiving illegal garbage into them, like clauses that forbid you from writing negative reviews of their products (McAfee did this). If you think license "agreements" have any moral bearing on the use of the information they proport to "protect," then you're crazy.
[beavis]Is this a god-dam?[/beavis]
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
"oh... snap"
then after seeing how quickly the queue downloaded (I had assumed real-time-play speeds... thank you, space-efficient m4a files!)
"oh sh**"
Well, this party won't last long... but I guess it was only a matter of time. Apple can easily help to "rectify" this with a speed-limiter on the upstream side.
"- heck, I already have by spending 20 bucks for a disc with 10 songs on it." You just disproved your whole thesis with this statement near the end of you post. Recordings have entertainment value. There's no question about this. The problem is that the cost remains artificially high because copyright holders have not passed the savings of lower cost distribution methods along to consumers.
Michael said "Recent court rulings have held that developers of p2p file sharing software cannot be held liable for 'for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products.'"" Well, the Grokster decision simply re-applied the Sony-Betamax et al. analysis. Grokster and other p2p software authors cannot be 'presumed' liable for the infringement of others using the software IF the software (or other product) has a substantial non-infringing use AND the software vendor has no way to limit or control the infringing use. If the evidence adduced by MGM, etc. showed that all or nearly all of the use of the Grokster software was infringing then under existing precedent the Grokster authors COULD be liable for the infringement of the end users. In this recent case the plaintiffs simply failed to meet that burden. Not being picky, but accuracy seems important in these instances.
Yeah! Down with "Da Man"! Death to copyright!
Oh wait, what's that you say? The GPL is based on copyright law?
ALL YOUR SOURCE ARE BELONG TO BIG BIDNESS!
Didn't RTFA, but I wonder how they plan to enforce the GPL and stay anonymous....? Why didn't they just release it to the public domain and be done with it...? Any license for a work that is posted anonymously seems pointless to me...
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Freedom my hairy ass. This isn't about freedom. It;s about greed and selfishness. It's about wanting the world and not wanting to pay for it. It's about trying to get a free ride. It's about being a freeloading leech on the ass of society.
Please don't confuse "freedom" and "getting stuff for free". They are not the same.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
> Then iTunes comes out, providing EXACTLY that.
.mp3, .ogg, .flac, etc. All of these things are perfectly legal things for me to do.
No it didn't. When I buy a CD I can play it wherever I want. I can copy it to my MD player, I can rip it to
I will buy music over the Internet when someone offers the following:
1. CD quality or better.
2. Unencumbered by technological measures, although something on the lines of SCMS would probably be acceptable, it just isn't possible to implement in open source tools. While I haven't exactly been 100% pure in not copying CDs, they ain't going to starve either. I'm not one of these freaks with thousands of CDs but I do have a pretty good stack. When the existing Copyright laws and general public morality cease to be good enough to keep the artists fed there isn't a technological measure that can be devised that is going to be good enough to fix the problem; we are boned.
3. Pricing for an album's worth of music lower than buying a CD. For a single the current average price of $1 is acceptable.
Democrat delenda est
In iTunes, you can change the default location that iTunes stores your music library. Set it to be ~/Sites/mymusic/ (or whatever you want to call it) as your music library folder in iTunes. Make sure iTunes preferences is set to copy new mp3s into your library. Then, turn on music streaming in iTunes. Finally, turn on Apache (one click in the sharing preferences.)
There you go. iTunes automatically copies and organizes new music on your machine into your Sites folder to make what basically amounts to a web site available to others on your network. People on your network can stream your music if they want via iTunes, and if they like it, they fire up their browser, go to your machine (http://1.2.3.4, by default it shows you the available folders as links) and dig down to find their download.
Easy. Why install software to do this kind of thing when the tool are already sitting there waiting to be used?
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I am surprised OurTunes is getting so much attention, as it is simply a quick edit of MyTunes and is VERY limited in functionality compared to the much more mature Get It Together (also written in Java and tested in Windows, Linux and OS X).
A group of computer enthusiasts have begun a protest at the RIAA headquarters. Many of them have been seen doing "touchdown dances" and making obscene gestures towards the RIAA headquarters building.
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
But what does that have to do with this alleged monopoly?
Please tell me how ANY business model can compete with FREE distribution.
...
Oxygen bars, bottled water, tanning salons, parking stations...
Quality, convenience, features, gimmicks,
That's absolutely right! It's your duty as a human being to protect your god-given right to do whatever you want with a product that you spent your own personal time and effort downloading for free. Apple thinks they can tell people what they can and can not do with their free software and that's just outrageous.
Developers have no right to tell users how a free product can and can't be used. Why, just look at Linux, a shining example of true freedom! It comes with no license restricting its usage at all! Why, anyone at all can do whatever the hell they want with it -- they can even include it in their own software and sell it without releasing their source!
Oh wait...
Hmm, you Linux-based robots better watch out...
karma: ouch!
It's nice to see the idiot that posts intentionally incorrect info about communism has + points and the AC that posts good info doesn't. Sigh, that's just the way the idiot moderators here work.
I used to piss and moan about how I wanted to buy music online and for a reasonable price, and I refused to use Napster (may those hypocrites rot in hell). Now I buy from iTMS. And I *still* think these open clients are a good idea and that Apple's restrictions on how you can share your music using iTunes are just daft.
Look:
1. They already have code in there to keep you from playing the music on an unauthorised computer.
2. You can use AFS, CIFS, HTTP, FTP, or any number of other client-server protocols (this is ALL client-server) to share the music.
Locking down iTunes from sharing over a WAN or from downloading over a LAN doesn't do anything to protect Apple, or the artists, it just makes things inconvenient for people like me who really DO buy our music and play it on licensed computers. Why shouldn't I be able to connect to "homebase" and drag a playlist over in iTunes using their well designed (except for the abominable Metal look, but it works well) GUI?
Does this actually copy the mp3s/accs or does it just re-encode?
Your sarcasm falls short because the GPL is a completely different matter. First, you do not have to accept the GPL to use GPLed software, unlike the licesnes I was referring to. The only time you have to accept the GPL is if you distribute the software. The only point of the GPL is to encourage software freedom despite the copyright law. If copyright didn't exist the GPL would be irrelevent. It is also important to take into consideration the goals of the GPL vs a typical software license. It seems to me that what the GPL tries to do is a much nobler goal than is the case with your typical EULA (which the GPL isn't - it's merely a distribution clause), which is to lure you into agreeing to betray your neighbor by denying him/her a copy, or to not write a negative review of the software, and so on.
\Du"ress\, n. [OF. duresse, du?, hardship, severity, L. duritia, durities, fr. durus hard. See {Dure}.]
1. Hardship; constraint; pressure; imprisonment; restraint of liberty.
2. (Law) The state of compulsion or necessity in which a person is influenced, whether by the unlawful restrain of his liberty or by actual or threatened physical violence, to incur a civil liability or to commit an offense.
Signing a contract and then saying, "hey, I'll be inconvenienced if I have to hold up my end of the agreement!" is not the same as being forced under duress. Otherwise, we could all go and lease cars and then flip off the dealership! "I had no intention of paying tens of thousands of dollars to drive your car! I'll just motor around for free!" Rent apartments and squat! "Pay to live in your place? Your rent is so high it's unconscionable!"
Your benefit from agreeing to iTMS' terms of service is... drumroll please... the service of listening to music. If you want to hear the music performed by a star and distributed by a label, well you need to pay those involved in bringing it to you. Otherwise you are a thief.
All of this pseudo-Libertarian bullshit does a poor job of hiding the simple fact that you want things without paying for them. There is no unalienable right to use or take another's stuff simply because you want it.
So, if you only buy the original 10, you're skipping the equal rights ammendment, the end of slavery and the one which gives women the right to vote!?
You're either nuts, or you should read the rest of the constitution...
Why are they releasing this tool anonymously?
What i am talking about is that it wasnt worth my money to purchase the 'right to listen'.
I didnt mean to imply it was not worth my time to listen to, only that if i was forced to pay, then i wouldnt be listening.
And dont start with the 'steal a car' line, it isnt the same concept, even though the RIAA would like you to belive it is.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Oh, the GPL is a completely different matter. It's the good kind of license; people shouldn't illegally break that license because it promotes good values, unlike those other, evil licenses.
Though isn't distributing Linux a way of using it? I'm sure Webster would agree, so you would only have to accept the license if you want to use it in a certain way.
Apple didn't used to restrict that particular feature of iTunes until a bunch of websites popped up helping users abuse it. Then the RIAA yelled at Apple, and Apple had to modify it slightly to prevent people from turning iTunes in to a P2P service. Apple simply says now that if you want to use that feature of their free application, then you have to agree not to try to turn it in to a P2P service.
Apple's license restrictions are fair, and Apple has the right place restrictions on how their free software is used in a particular way, just like Linus gets to dictate when and how someone may use Linux in a particular way.
But of course, nobody's holding a knife under your throat, threatening to crush your baby daughter's little head if you don't click 'Accept'. If you feel it's unreasonable to be restricted from distributing Linux without releasing your modifications, then you're allowed not to use it, and you're allowed not to use iTunes.
If you feel, as I do, that being denied of the right to write a bad review is absurd, then there's an even better solution to flagrantly breaking the license -- just don't use it!
karma: ouch!
The FSF party line: "Without copyright the GPL would be unenforceable. It would also be unnecessary".
We only use the GPL simply because the I"P" slavers can't break the GPL without breaking their own law (well, actually they can: they can get so powerful they write new laws i.e. software patents, but that's another story...).
Most FSF core members would be quite happy for people to "violate the GPL" if it meant that noone could ever stop us passing on information as we see fit ever again. But while copyright law exists, so must the GPL.
"without copyright law the GPL is unenforeceable. it is also unnecessary". We are quite willing to let people break the GPL PROVIDED WE DON'T HAVE TO FOLLOW THE RESTRICTIONS THEY PRESUME TO OPPOSE ON THEIR SOFTWARE IN RETURN.
The GPL only restricts you if you obey copyright law. We would rather people didn't.
Oh, the GPL is a completely different matter. It's the good kind of license; people shouldn't illegally break that license because it promotes good values, unlike those other, evil licenses.
Yes, that's exactly what it is. Licenses, like laws, can be very good or very bad, depending on their intention. Fighting against bad laws doesn't mean that you're opposed to laws in general. The same can be said about licenses.
If you feel, as I do, that being denied of the right to write a bad review is absurd, then there's an even better solution to flagrantly breaking the license -- just don't use it!
This is sound advice - "just stay away from such licenses" - but you and I know how easy it is to just click through a typical license agreement. Very few people actually read them. What if you accepted the license to some benign-looking software only to discover later that they owned your firstborn child? (maybe not that extreme, but you get my drift) Some kinds of licenses are bad for society and should be illegal. Nobody, careless or otherwise, should be able to just click-away their freedom. The McAfee license is an example of this. Their license in effect violates the 1st Amendement to the constitution.
Argh. Emotional where issues of intellectual freedom are concerned.
s/OPPOSE/IMPOSE/
eh.. how about "not in some way that presumes I am a crook."
This would also be my perferred way to pay for games.
Quite frankly, I am *pretty* sure that I, or my roommate, have paid for every game I have played that wasn't free.
Can I make the same assertion about music? Only kind of. Back in the day I did some napsterizing, but all of that was experimental. That is, I never napsterized anything that I wanted to "own" but I did do a lot of pick a song, check out the playlist of the user that had that song, download things that looked interesting. Can't say that I listened to much, if any of that more than once.
My roomate is into audio production and I am into writing. We naturally have these conversations about theme and content. So somewhere I think I *still* have nine versions of "little bunny foo foo." They are all *quite* terrible.
In its heyday Napster was very much the Star Trek experience of "computer, find me citations on (x)" querying, even if it was just music.
And honestly, I don't know that I have scrubbed out every reference to every song that was so fetched. I also think that several other people had access to the one computer as it was a house resource for brief period of extremity.
I say all this because if there had been a way to take the song tracks that I had already fetched and use them as a key to a payment system. I'd have done that on several occasions.
The way iTunes etc work, you pay your money and then you take your chance.
Given god like powers, or the money and title to make things different I'd do the following.
1) offer a large catalog of music (in fact every title I could, no exceptions) for free download at "good quality" (at least 128bit mp3, possibly more).
2) provide an app with a big drag-and-drop target (etc)(sort of a Big Red Button). When you take the free title and apply it to the app, it sends of a dime or two to The People Who Deserve Money(tm).
2a) the app would then let that computer download "really high bitrate" versions of that same song. Yes, it is only the one computer that is so authorized, and no, the good copies are not DRMed to be frozen to that box or anything like that. I wouldn't even bother to brand the high bitrate songs as comming from that computer.
2b) even the high-bitrate titles from 2a could be dropped onto the Big Red Button (on a different computer) to send money to those who deserve to be paid.
2c) using the Big Red Button will also get you money off credits for songs containing that version of that title on full CD purchases from the attached online store.
3) provide the old napster structure of search and share, and wire it up to automatically carry the free-quality songs freely.
4) treat the persions who pay for the very-high quality tracks not to spread them around, as the "good quality" tracks are available to everyone.
5) generally treat the customers as nominally honest and dignified humans.
5a) the very-high quality tracks are suitable for burning of CDs and the people are encouraged not to share these, and the napster-like applicaiton would be "resistent" to sharing these version, but they are not blocked from doing so by DRM or "playlist burn counts" etc.
So the p2p system removes my cost to distribute. The people who are "Causal Copiers" will be given all the music they want (a-la radio) and those who want more are going to get more by paying money. Marketing is automatic and quite rich, the whole "persons who have this song also have these" is implicit. Money is to be made at the low and high end. The "illicit feeling" is removed from the transaction. And most importantly, you know exactly what you are getting with every purchase, so quality must be good and there will be no "the rest of the album sucked" or "this wasn't what I thought it was" problems because there is no risk to the purchaser.
It could be done cheaply and it would work.
(Consider... Napster is the only reason that I ever bought Green Day... 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
I have relatives with Windows 98 who want to use iTunes, but the iTunes software says it won't install on their operating system. That they need at least Windows 2000 to install it.
ourTunes won't help, as it limits connections to a local network, and they are the only ones on their local network.
Apple refuses to answer their questions as to why their operating system is not supported.
They want to pay for music files, but both iTunes and Napster 2.0 require Windows 2000 or above. So should they use P2P file sharing network programs that run on their Windows, and write the RIAA a check for $1.30 for each song they download?
Why are the older Windows systems shut out of the legal music sharing deals? Are their money no good because they use an older operating system?
If ourTunes accessed the iTMS network like iTunes does, it could be their solution to buy songs via ourTunes. Yet nobody sees this as a possibility, and older Windows users are shafted by the legal music download industry.
They cannot afford to buy a new system to run Windows 2000 or above, and yet, they can afford 99 cents to $1.30 per song over the Internet. So who is going to help them?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
"Oh, that's just splendid. Congratulations on destroying all the hard work Apple, the Mother Theresa of computers, has done for the world simply because it dared to love music. Now we'll have to pay $100 a song!"
I was actually arguing almost this exact same thing just last night, although I phrased it in a slightly different way. What I came down to is, essentially, art, as well as science, are inherantly not-for-profit ventures, in a model like that of "fine art" (painting, sculpture, etc). To attach a commodity-like value and artificial scarcity to a reproduction of any sort of information is just unnatural; it is effectively the PEOPLE who create that information that you should be paying for, as they are their time and effort is ultimate cost of creating it. (Materials cost, etc, aside).
That thought got me going a bit. Fine artists do art for the love of it, and just try to make a living from what they do. (Though of course, nobody would mind somehow getting rich off it either). Likewise, good scientists simply love science, and usually have to beg for funding to support their habit... er, research. People make intellectual pursuits because they want to: the only reason money becomes involved is because those people need it to live while they chase their intellectual dreams.
Cleaning toilets is something nobody wants to do, so they demand recompense for it. Same with hauling your garbage, flipping burgers, and any number of other thankless, boring jobs out there that will eventually be done by robots. Even things much more high-level like farming or business management - you can't exactly say "nobody wants to be a farmer" or "nobody wants to be a manager", but given the option of working a job like that or of being able to go on permanant paid vacation, most people would take the vacation.
Art and science, on the other hand, are different things. If we had robots and miracle replicators that took care of all our material needs, and nobody needed to work, money was obsolete and everybody was on permanant vacation, people would STILL do art and STILL do science strictly out of the love of what they do. These are not things that need monetary incentive to be done, because even if people did not need money, they would still be done anyway.
Thus I believe that in an ideal society, information would be left as it naturally tends to be - free, both as in speech and as in beer - and there would be a separate, strictly economic method of supporting artists just enough to allow people the leeway from paying work that they need to pursue the arts and sciences.
Information released into the public (you may still keep secrets of course) should not be constrained in any way. I don't think many people here will argue about that in principle; that information, as they say, "wants to be free". Rather, people will argue that that information has value and thus it's creators deserve compensation; or more specifically, that without economic support in their endevors no one will be able to pursue such intellectual things.
That I agree with, but I don't think the answer is in forcing artificial scarcity on information and making it behave like a physical product. Instead, to reap what in such an open system would be all of society's benefits, all of society should fund the initial endevors. Further profit could be made by GOOD artists and GOOD scientists from donations by people who appreciate their work, what you might call "honestly overpriced" reproductions (basically a cheap free gift with your donation), and commissions by wealthy benefactors who want an original piece (or original research) to their liking - just like in the fine arts. But people need the leeway to take a stab at it to begin with, and for that you need some sort of financial safety net.
Yes, I am essentially talking about some sort of government welfare (more commonly known to the intellectual crowd as "grants") to support the promotion of arts and sciences. Not a lot, mind you - nobody should be able to say "Hey, I could make a killing on free govt being an artist!" But it should be just enough to live a frugal life off of, or enough that you can take some time off your day job to pursue an interest in the arts and s
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Recent court rulings have held that developers of p2p file sharing software cannot be held liable for 'for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products.'"
Be very careful -- you are in a land mine here. Do not try this at home -- get a GOOD technology lawyer, and follow his advice to the letter.
Much to the contrary, care needs to be taken if you want to avoid liability. Napster and Aimster cases remain good law. Only if you absolutely divest yourself of any centralized control of the software can you benefit from the wonderful dicta in Grokster. The slightest pimple of centralization can swing a case from an assured defense to a massive victory.
And even moreseo, the fact that the 9th Circuit has taken this view may not help. I have no doubt that RIAA would be thrilled to bring up a case under similar facts in the 7th and let Posner revisit (and effectively relitigate) Grokster.
Well, I'm sure I wouldn't do something unprincipled like running a encrypted tunnel through the Internet to access my friend's music. That would be wrong and deprive artists of money. Cough.
I was going to reply to his comment but you said it better :-)
Throw off the chains of opression, Komrades!
Ahh, and as usual, a completely un- user-friendly interface in open source software. I'd venture to say that more information architects and world-class designers need to get involved in open source for it to be a viable option. There's a lot of well-designed Mac open source, a lot of crappy too. But it's always far better than the other platforms' interfaces.
there are many many utilities that will allow you to save anything you play through your computers speakers..
1. This won't allow you to play "protected" songs bought through itunes.
2. If your machine is already on the local network then its trivial to copy the music files from computer to computer..
More mature? Only a single release, requiring the end user to fiddle with a startup script instead of just packaging everthing up as a jar file?
ourTunes "just works", which is the way a mature product ought to behave.
You don't seem to get it, I wasn't going to pay for it either way.. thus no sale was lost.. no sale was ever pending.. none.. zero...
Nor did they lose the ability to sell the product to another person, as nothing was stolen or used ( i.e. no depreciation )..
Once again for the slow witted : NOTHING WAS LOST, not a sale nor an object.. NOTHING
Why is it so hard for people like you to understand this?
I DO agree that with the *current* legal system, if the free distribution was not permitted by the copyright holder, then yes, copyright
infringement *may* have occurred.. But you have to get past the industries misrepresentation of reality and understand that nothing is
missing, nothing was stolen, and no potential revenue was lost.. Think for yourself for a change.. might do you some good not to just fall
inline with the rest of the sheep.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I almost sent you my band's site, but saw the "reciprocal link" needed. Nothing like advertising your google bombing on slashdot, eh?
Comment removed based on user account deletion