Cracking iTunes' DRM with JHymn

What will Steve Jobs say? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:31 · Score: 3, Funny

Probably "Send the lawyers. Have him killed immediately."

Re:What will Steve Jobs say? by phaln · 2005-01-28 12:00 · Score: 1

Nah. I highly doubt Jobs will really do much. Hymn and FairPlay have been out long enough that unless people flock to it en masse, there's gonna be silence for the most part.

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SNACKS ARE AWESOME
Re:What will Steve Jobs say? by Smoodo · 2005-01-28 19:33 · Score: 1

Steve might say, let's run a query on our sales database and find all combinations of people who purchased say: ~900 songs 2 iPods 1 iPod Photo 1 G5 1 G4 Powerbook. I'm under the very naive assumption that this is a unique pattern for customers, but it's an interesting and funny idea to me. :)

You know... by FireballX301 · 2005-01-28 11:32 · Score: 5, Funny

At this point, I've decided to get out of the game. No IRC-crawling, no Kazaa, no DRM-breaking.

It's much easier to use the five-finger discount.

Re:You know... by Coneasfast · 2005-01-28 11:43 · Score: 1, Insightful

It's much easier to use the five-finger discount.

I know you're joking, but that's just plain stealing! you're physically taking property from the store without paying for it. at least if you download it illegally, nobody loses anything (assuming that you wouldn't buy it otherwise, i know i don't at the high prices that some of these CDs sell at)

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Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Re:You know... by Zork+the+Almighty · 2005-01-28 11:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

But the penalties for real stealing are much less than fake stealing.

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In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Re:You know... by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 11:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

In other words, it's harder to rationalize stealing from a real store than it is to rationalize stealing from an online-only store.

It's got nothing to do with either law or morality. It's just got to do with how far you're willing to delude yourself. Is that it?
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

You completely missed the point. The point being: it's less of a headache to walk out of a store with a CD than it is to deal with DRM, and if you get caught stealing a CD, the punishment isn't as severe.
Re:You know... by moonbender · 2005-01-28 12:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

In other words, you like to take other people's words and give them a totally unrelated spin.

It's got nothing to do with either law or morality. It's just got to do with posting flamebaits and being smug. Is that it?

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Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Re:You know... by ravenspear · 2005-01-28 12:13 · Score: 1

In other words, it's harder to rationalize stealing from a real store than it is to rationalize stealing from an online-only store.

Exactly how is it stealing from iTMS? Were details published on how to hack into Apple's servers and download the tracks stored there without paying for them?

Didn't think so.
Re:You know... by MikeXpop · 2005-01-28 12:33 · Score: 5, Funny

That's because the RIAA gets revenue if you steal it from a store. If you go to your local strawberries and steal the last London Calling, they're going to have to buy more. To the RIAA, it's indistinguishable from a normal sale. The only one who gets screwed in that case is the insurance company.

Remember kids, stealing music helps the artists!

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Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-01-28 12:33 · Score: 1

at least if you download it illegally, nobody loses anything (assuming that you wouldn't buy it otherwise, i know i don't at the high prices that some of these CDs sell at)
That's called criminal rationalization. You could do the same thing for a CD in the store: The store will just write it off as a loss, and recover the money as a tax break so they aren't losing anything either.

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D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:43 · Score: 0

Without breaking into the building and lifting the equipment how do you "steal" from an online store? You are so full of it, it's coming out of your computer.
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:45 · Score: 0

actually its much cheeper to get caught stealing music the 5 finger way than using filesharing apps. remember how much RIAA wants per song transfered over a P2P app!
Re:You know... by Zakabog · 2005-01-28 13:31 · Score: 1

This is always so annoying. When you steal from a brick and mortar store there is materials and money lost. The store has to cover the cost (their cost) of the CD. The store loses money and if enough of this happens they either go out of business or increase the cost of their CDs (to cover the money loss to theft.) When you download a song online there is no loss except loss in your bandwidth (till the song finishes) and loss in your hard drive space. All of that is on your end. To assume someone would have purchased an album just because they downloading a song from it is ridiculous.

Think of it this way, in Star Trek they have replicators. Now lets say you downloaded the pattern of atoms to make a Porsche online and used that to turn a pile of garbage into a Porsche 911 Turbo and drove that thing around (never EVER selling it, only turning it back into garbage when I was tired of it.) Would you call that stealing a Porsche?
Re:You know... by Spy+Hunter · 2005-01-28 13:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

Actually, it does have to do with morality. Stealing CDs is morally different (note I didn't say better or worse) than downloading MP3s, because CDs are physical. Stealing physical property deprives the owner of its use. Pirating digital property does not.
From the point of view of the RIAA, downloading MP3s is worse than stealing CDs because it implies you are participating in the global piracy rings called P2P services, and probably committing thousands of copyright infringements automatically as people download files from you. While stealing CDs is bad, it doesn't scale the way P2P does.
From the point of view of many Slashdotters, downloading MP3s is better than stealing CDs because they believe the concept of enforcing artificial scarcity for intellectual property is misguided when in reality there is no such scarcity. Stealing CDs is still bad, because CDs are physical objects and thus scarce by nature.
By now you probably think I side with the Slashdotters. Actually lately I have been leaning toward the RIAA (slightly). I can see that enforcing scarcity on IP does provide incentives to produce it; thus encouraging the production of more and higher quality IP (i.e. Hollywood movies, big-name computer games). Without that enforced scarcity, many of the incentives (i.e. $$$) go away, and it is hard for me to see how IP of the quality we have today would continue to be produced. Maybe Windows could be replaced by Linux, but the LOTR movie trilogy, Doom III, World of Warcraft, etc are not like Linux. I would be very sad to see a world which could not produce them.

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main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Re:You know... by mOdQuArK! · 2005-01-28 14:08 · Score: 1

The store will just write it off as a loss, and recover the money as a tax break so they aren't losing anything either.

That's stupid - tax breaks only reduce the amount of the loss a bit, they don't eliminate it entirely. Real stealing costs people money, period. They might have theft insurance, but their premiums will go up over time as well.

Real stealing & copyright infringement can't be compared, except by people who are living in such an alternative reality that they really, really, want copyright infringement to be the same thing as true theft.
Re:You know... by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 14:16 · Score: 0

I'm sorry that you find little things like property annoying. I'm sorry that you find it annoying that you're not allowed to just, you know, take.

You know the part that baffled me? The part that absolutely left me with my jaw hanging slack? It was this part: "When you download a song online there is no loss except loss in your bandwidth (till the song finishes) and loss in your hard drive space." That was the part that just blew my mind. The idea that you could be so massively narcissistic that you fail to even acknowledge other people's losses and instead acknowledge only your own opportunity costs. "I stole this, but I could have used my time and resources to steal that instead, so really I'm only hurting myself here."

This one little sentence of yours was so carefully constructed, and so blindingly insane, that I can only conclude that you were trying to make a joke.

Unfortunately, the world is filled with impressionable people. It's entirely possible that somebody might come along and read your joke, fail to see the absurdity of it, and get fooled into believing something that is obviously false. So for those people, I say this:

Of what do you deprive someone when you steal his property? Three things: his right of self-determination over his own property, the revenue he would have earned by selling you what he had to offer, and finally his right to choose whether to sell you a copy of his work.

Stealing isn't just against the law. Everybody knows it's against the law, and despite the fact that depressingly few people seem to give a damn, nobody argues that it's not against the law. But more than that, it's a violation of fundamental civil rights: the right to self-determination, the right to sell one's work, the right to choose who to do business with. These aren't small things. They're huge and important things. And the fact that you're not bothered by them because you don't personally know the people who are being harmed tells me one thing, and one thing only: that you're a deeply selfish person who has no sense of self-respect whatsoever.

You can take your ridiculous "if life were like a television show" analogies and blow them right out your ass.
Re:You know... by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 14:18 · Score: 1

Like people who, I don't know, write or paint pictures or compose music or make movies, maybe? Those kinds of people? People who create instead of just consuming other people's creations?

Let's flip this on its head, shall we? Morally and legally, stealing somebody's physical property and stealing somebody's creating property are exactly the same thing. The only people who could possibly argue that they're different are people who really, really want to take other people's work without paying for it.
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:28 · Score: 0

Think of it this way, in Star Trek they have replicators. Now lets say you downloaded the pattern of atoms to make a Porsche online and used that to turn a pile of garbage into a Porsche 911 Turbo and drove that thing around (never EVER selling it, only turning it back into garbage when I was tired of it.) Would you call that stealing a Porsche?

Maybe not, but it is still clearly stealing from Porsche. They put their time talent and effort into figuring out that configuration of atoms and should be allowed to assign a value to that (not just on their own behalf but with equal validity on behalf of those who simply invested in this project).

In your example, you said that you would voluntarily sacrifice (admittedly temporarily) your pile of garbage to obtain a Porsche. I doubt that such a price would be enough incentive for the Porsche people to continue to do this work (which as we all can see has some benefit to all of us, even those of us who merely use it as a "dream" vehicle) and certainly would not have prompted them to do this work in the first place.

If you only value a Porsche 911 Turbo slightly more than a pile of garbage, then you only deserve a Porsche 911 Turbo worth slightly more than a pile of garbage.
Re:You know... by mOdQuArK! · 2005-01-28 14:56 · Score: 1

Let's flip this on its head, shall we? Morally and legally, stealing somebody's physical property and stealing somebody's creating property are exactly the same thing.

Your flip is a logical failure. Morally, they are NOT the same thing. Legally, greedy people WANT them to be the same thing (and keep trying to redefine reality so that they are treated the same).

The only people who could possibly argue that they're different are people who really, really want to take other people's work without paying for it.

BS. Or people who believe who in real capitalism, where you get paid for providing desired goods or services. Creating something for someone else is a service. You should get paid appropriately for that service _when you deliver the service_. To demand to get paid _every_time_ someone makes a copy of that creation, even though it doesn't require any additional effort on your part, is just greedy.

The only people who could possibly argue that they're the same are people who think they should be able to control what others do with their own physical property, all in the name of forcing those people to give them money that they wouldn't have been willing to give otherwise.
Re:You know... by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 16:00 · Score: 1

You say they're not the same, but I don't recall giving you the power to tell me what my moral system should be.

And as for calling people who demand that the law recognize their God-given property rights "greedy," that's just you being a dumbass.
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 16:02 · Score: 0

Way to go, mods! Give him an "overrated" because you're terrified of how persuasive he was. That way his opinions are silenced and you don't have to deal with the wrath of metamod.

Kickass.
Re:You know... by kesuki · 2005-01-28 16:18 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually, they don't know it's stolen, until someone asks a retail clerk about where the last copy of London Calling is, and the computer indicates the store has 3 copies on hand, and a quick inventory realizes that a 5-finger discount has liberated said store of 3 copies of London Calling. I say 3 copies, because many stores down to a single copy will automatically reorder a copy, so as to avoid loss of sales due to out of inventory issues. This of course may hinge on unsold copies in a warehouse somewhere owned by said company, or a store with computer inventory records of 4+ copies of said title, which may invoke a redistribution of unsold copies to locations more likely to sell the merchandise etc... but the point is, the RIAA doesn't get additional revenue beyond the revenue they would have gotten for the cd just sitting in a warehouse somewhere until and unless demand dictates that the company orders aditional copies... and in the case of music, backorders are usually only performed on custormer request, at additional charge, and only when said warehouses/other retail locations have exhausted supply.
But yeah, 5-finger discount has a lot lower risk/reward ratio vs digital piracy. let's see, $50,000 per song, or 5 days community service per CD stolen*... hell yeah 5-finger discount all the way!!
*= unless you're in california, and the 3-strikes law applies to you. then 20 years to life... but that's california, and you need to have commited 2 felonies and been convicted too.

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https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Re:You know... by mOdQuArK! · 2005-01-28 16:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't give a damn about your moral system until you try and impose it on me, e.g., use the government to force me to pay you money to do stuff with my own private property that I would ordinarily be able to do for free.

As far as "God-given property rights" are concerned, even if I weren't agnostic, I'd dearly love to hear you quote the Scriptures which define ideas as property, especially since a great deal of the Scriptures emphasize getting their own message distributed as widely as possible.

Patent and copyrights don't have _anything_ to do with private property, and have everything to do with greedy people who have a greatly-self-inflated idea of the worth of their own ideas trying to force people to give them money they don't deserve.
Re:You know... by mkldev · 2005-01-28 17:00 · Score: 1

As a general rule, most stores say that if their inventory shows less than three of something, the real number is very likely zero. This can happen because of shoplifting, but more commonly is caused by human error---when the scanner doesn't pick up the number and the person keys it in manually and punches in the wrong number (rarely if you're using UPCs, but common with store-generated numbers that often lack check digits), when someone miscounts the number of items on the shelf during inventory, when a cashier sees two similar items and rings them up by scanning one twice, etc.
*sigh*. The whole idiot-proof thing and underestimating the ingenuity and/or persistence of idiots comes to mind.

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120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 17:19 · Score: 0

You have a very similar writing style to the parent. Are you two related per chance ;-)
Re:You know... by Ohreally_factor · 2005-01-29 00:12 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Way to go, mods! Give him an "overrated" because you're terrified of how persuasive he was. That way his opinions are silenced and you don't have to deal with the wrath of metamod.

It's an abuse of the mod system and it wouldn't be hard to fix. Just make it impossible to mod "overrated" anything which isn't rated at all. But you know how on top of things Slashdot is. We'll see Longhorn and Duke Nukem Forever long before we see this fixed.

What's troubling, and yet so typical for slashdot, is that the moderator both lacked the intellectual capacity and the intellectual integrity to argue the point. Totally lame.

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It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Re:You know... by MP2030 · 2005-01-29 01:39 · Score: 1

IF they're legally the same why doesnt the RIAA sue you for shoplifting. QED
Re:You know... by InvalidError · 2005-01-29 02:17 · Score: 1

> Stealing physical property deprives the owner of its use.

Does this imply that one can intelectually steal physical property or physically steal intellectual property as well?
Re:You know... by m50d · 2005-01-29 02:26 · Score: 1

No, in other words real stealing hurts people, wheras online "stealing" probably doesn't. If you're a utilitarian, then that's purely morality - real stealing is immoral, wheras copyright infringement isn't.

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I am trolling
Re:You know... by m50d · 2005-01-29 02:29 · Score: 1

I see a huge moral difference. Stealing someone's physical property deprives them of it. This is unfair on them and bad. Copying someone's painting does not deprive them of it. It will still look just as good to them, because it's still the same fscking painting. They still get just as much enjoyment out of it. It's just that you now have a copy you can enjoy too. So how are they "exactly the same thing"?

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I am trolling
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 03:58 · Score: 0

According to Merriam-Webster, property is the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing.

Clearly, once someone actually releases their art, music, whatever, they no longer have the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, or dispose of it --- the creator gave up those rights. It's a misnomer to call this stuff property. What they DO have is the exclusive right to copy it.

Burglary is not genocide, arson is not rape, copyright infringement is not theft.
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 04:06 · Score: 0

From another of Leo McGarry's posts:

Go buy something else instead, rather than complaining that the thing Apple's selling isn't what you want.

Good advice. Go post in other public forums, rather than complaining that Slashdot's moderation system isn't working the way you want --- a system that you don't have to pay for to use, by the way.
Re:You know... by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-29 05:49 · Score: 1

Same reason they don't press charges for burglary or embezzlement or mail fraud. Because different types of stealing are covered by different laws because they differ in the details. Theft through breaking and entering: burglary. Theft from one's employer: embezzlement. Theft by committing fraud through the mail: the aptly named mail fraud. Theft by the unlawful copying of somebody else's property: copyright infringement.

Each one is a crime, the severity of which varies in proportion to the severity of the theft. Each one can result in fines or jail time.

Also, I don't think "Q.E.D." means what you think it does.
Re:You know... by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-29 05:55 · Score: 1

You got this absolutely right ...except you got a few words mixed up. Let me fix.

"No, in other words real stealing hurts people visibly, whereas online stealing only hurts people that we don't know in ways that we can't see."

The "utilitarian" thing is dead wrong, of course -- even if you weren't wrong in your first sentence, that's not what "utilitarian" means -- but you were almost right on the other thing.
Re:You know... by Gob+Blesh+It · 2005-01-29 06:06 · Score: 1

What are you babbling about?
Re:You know... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 06:11 · Score: 0

Oh shit, pwn!
Re:You know... by InvalidError · 2005-01-29 13:12 · Score: 1

I have been fighting off a pretty bad cold for nearly a week and this is apparently giving me some mild hallucinations... I apparently hallucinated the period before "Stealing" and the capital letter one word to the left - at the time of writing, I really thought I read "Physically stealing physical property(...)", doh!
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-01-29 13:20 · Score: 1

Your flip is a logical failure. Morally, they are NOT the same thing. Legally, greedy people WANT them to be the same thing (and keep trying to redefine reality so that they are treated the same).
They are the same thing. It's breaking the fundamentals of capitalism you are consuming without contributing.
BS. Or people who believe who in real capitalism, where you get paid for providing desired goods or services. Creating something for someone else is a service. You should get paid appropriately for that service _when you deliver the service_.
Everytime you listen to a song you receive a service, I'm sure the RIAA wishes it had a system to charge you for each individual listening.
To demand to get paid _every_time_ someone makes a copy of that creation, even though it doesn't require any additional effort on your part, is just greedy.
Claiming to have a right to something you didn't pay for is greedy.

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Re:You know... by mOdQuArK! · 2005-01-29 14:24 · Score: 1

They are the same thing. It's breaking the fundamentals of capitalism you are consuming without contributing.

No they aren't. You don't appear to know what the "fundamentals of capitalism" really are. Clue: law of supply & demand. People will pay for goods & services when they think they're worth it. They won't pay for them if they don't think the goods or services are worth it. Important point: getting laws passed to MAKE people pay MORE than they would otherwise for a good or service, or to make people pay for a service they are not directly receiving, is _NOT_ capitalism on matter how much you try to redefine the term.

Everytime you listen to a song you receive a service, I'm sure the RIAA wishes it had a system to charge you for each individual listening

Not sure what you're trying to say here, except you seem to be confusing the service of playing a song for someone to listen to, or providing a copy of the song on a piece of media, versus the service of actually creating the song.

Claiming to have a right to something you didn't pay for is greedy.

Sorry, you seem to be confusing ideas with real private property again. If you buy a real product, you have a full moral right to do anything you want with it (that doesn't harm someone else of course) - including the right to make copies. If you come up with an idea of your own, you have a full moral right to be able to make a product based on that idea.

It takes greedy people to say: "not only should we get money when we sell a product, but we should get money over and over every time that product is copied, even though we didn't actually provide the service of copying!" And other greedy people say: "I don't care if you came up with the idea on your own, I came up with it first (or bought it from someone who did), and I have more money than you, so I can stop you from using your own idea."

This is not capitalism. This is greed.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-01-29 15:19 · Score: 1

You don't appear to know what the "fundamentals of capitalism" really are. Clue: law of supply & demand
The fundamentals of capitalism is ownership of property, and the ability to protect property. Supply and demand is a term to describe how to most efficiently create/distribute goods and services. Property is a legally defined term by goverment. The only reason you can claim to own the land you are on is because you have a piece of paper that the goverment recognizes gives you certain rights to that land. The reason artists can own creative works is because they are granted rights by the goverment for those works. Claim of ownership on anything is just a claim, and the only power of that claim is your ability to protect it, whether by force, or through social contract
Not sure what you're trying to say here, except you seem to be confusing the service of playing a song for someone to listen to, or providing a copy of the song on a piece of media, versus the service of actually creating the song.
You confuse performance with service. A service doesn't have to be done live by a person (a computer/robot can provide you with a service), a service is receiving anything of value that is not a good.
Sorry, you seem to be confusing ideas with real private property again.
Probably the easiest way to understand the importance of intellectual property is to look at trademarks (which is a form of property protection).
All your arguements would apply to trademarks as well (not tangible, use doesn't prevent others from using, etc). It's easier to recognize why we protect trademarks, imagine going into a store where all the soda cans were labelled Coca-cola, or every store was called Wal-Mart. It would be impossible for the consumer to confidently purchase anything, and would greatly impact the economic growth of the country. So we decided through goverment that trademarks should be legally protected with certain rights and restrictions.
Certain rights and restrictions were also given to other intellectual properties in the form of patents and copyright, to promote the progress of science & the arts.
I don't agree with the implementation of patents and copyrights (I would prefer a 10 year limit with the requirement of yearly registration so people don't sit on them), but I don't disagree morally with ultimate recognition of intellectual property.

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Re:You know... by mOdQuArK! · 2005-01-29 17:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

The fundamentals of capitalism is ownership of property, and the ability to protect property.

Your definition is partial - it doesn't include compensation for the act of providing services. The more general definition is to apply the law of supply & demand to "things of value", which includes both property (by the commonly understood definition) and services.

Property is a legally defined term by goverment.

Technically, but I think most people would refuse to accept it if the government something like the color "red" as someone's private property. It might be LEGAL, but that doesn't make it really "property" by a moral, society-beneficial or even common-sense standard.

I think that most people would accept the basic idea of property as something that can be counted or measured. They also understand that this implies that only one person can have a piece of property at a time - if someone else gets the property, then the original person doesn't have it anymore. Even "intellectual property" law doesn't try to apply real property conventions to "ideas", since the people drafting the laws knew that would never fly. Instead, they've set up a bastardized system of a special "legal status" of being a copyright or patent holder as legally-defined property, and let people buy & sell those.

The recording industries have been using extensive propaganda to try and get people to confuse real property with "ideas", but if you start showing people examples of how "intellectual property" law lets people they don't know arbitrarily stop them from doing whatever they want with their own private property, almost everyone except the most die-hard "intellectual property" fanatics get annoyed. People who work out solutions to thorny problems, try to sell a product or service based on those solutions, then get slapped down by bozos abusing the patent office also tend to get annoyed with the so-called "intellectual-property" laws. The main reason some people LIKE intellectual property laws because they see a way where they force people to pay for stuff that people wouldn't ordinarily want to pay for.

You confuse performance with service.

I'm not confusing anything - a performance _IS_ a service, with the expectation that if the service pleases the audience, they will compensate the performer somehow. A song on a CD is NOT a performance - it is a hunk of plastic whose value has been increased by encoding something on it which can be converted to pleasing sound waves.

Probably the easiest way to understand the importance of intellectual property is to look at trademarks (which is a form of property protection).

No, trademarks are an intended form of FRAUD protection - to prevent people from fraudently selling product or services associated with another person or company's. They were never intended to be a "product for sale", although a few people have been abusing the trademark laws that way.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-01-29 18:47 · Score: 1

Technically, but I think most people would refuse to accept it if the government something like the color "red" as someone's private property. It might be LEGAL, but that doesn't make it really "property" by a moral, society-beneficial or even common-sense standard.
Yes, "property" is only what the people agree upon whether its via social contract or goverment. The drafters of the Constitution recognized that there is value to the protection of ideas for the overall benifit of society and chose to treat them as property.
What intellectual propery does is allow people to further specialize in "idea only" activities. You can unbundle the performance from the song, and you allow somebody who is a talented songwriter to enrich society by just writing songs even if they aren't a good performer.
The main reason some people LIKE intellectual property laws because they see a way where they force people to pay for stuff that people wouldn't ordinarily want to pay for.
People will always pay the lowest amount. Using your logic, laws against car theft only exist to force people to pay for something they wouldn't normally pay for. Most people would just borrow a neighbor's car and not worry about their own if it was legal.
Certain things cost more to make the first copy and additional copies are trivial. The problem is how do you recover the money for making that first copy? You can't sell the first copy of a movie for $100M, and as you pointed out people will choose the cheapest solution (downloading/copying somebody else's). If there were no way to recover that money, then those kinds of films wouldn't be made, and we'd end up for better or worse, with just a bunch of low budget "indy" movies.
The closest anybody has come to an alternative system for intellectual property distribution was Stephen King's "The Plant." Unfortunately it showed that once the initial "buzz" went away, people went back to their greedy ways (consuming and not paying) and he stopped releasing chapters. The only reason it worked initially was name recognition.
A song on a CD is NOT a performance - it is a hunk of plastic whose value has been increased by encoding something on it which can be converted to pleasing sound waves.
It is a service, like I said, a human being doesn't have to be there for something to be a service. Movie Phone is an information service, yet there is no person telling you the information. It is a recording, but it is providing you with something value added same as a CD.
No, trademarks are an intended form of FRAUD protection - to prevent people from fraudently selling product or services associated with another person or company's
A trademark is owned, has a very real dollar value, it is a property. Yes it is used for fraud protection, but that doesn't mean it isn't intellectual property. If you can use something and prevent others from using it, it is property, especially if there is a quantifiable dollar value attached.

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Re:You know... by mOdQuArK! · 2005-01-30 07:29 · Score: 1

The drafters of the Constitution recognized that there is value to the protection of ideas for the overall benifit of society and chose to treat them as property.

If you actually read some of the founder's comments about the Constitution, they were greatly conflicted about whether to put copyright & patent laws into the Constitution in the first place. In the end, they decided to try a utilitarian approach: allowing SHORT-TERM monopolies for the goal of advancing the Arts & Sciences. Note that nowhere in their language is the statement, paraphrased or otherwise, that "ideas are property". It is simply a mechanism that they thought might encourage publishing of new ideas, a mechanism which has been shown in the long term to be abused and fundamentally flawed.

People will always pay the lowest amount.

No, most people will pay what they think is fair for a good or service. Most people also figure that things like CDs are a _product_, not a service, and that they can do anything they want with it (barring harming others) after they have purchased it and it has become their own personal property.

Using your logic, laws against car theft only exist to force people to pay for something they wouldn't normally pay for.

Ooh, blatant way to misrepresent my fundamental arguments. Cars are REAL property, so your statement is irrelevant - private property laws are still good, and conform to common sense. Ideas are NOT real property, so only greedy people expect payment for use of ideas.

Certain things cost more to make the first copy and additional copies are trivial. The problem is how do you recover the money for making that first copy?

Well, society which just have to evolve a different business model than selling ideas as products, won't they? Most REAL capitalists understand that if somebody tries to make a business using an unsuccessful business model, they will be out of business quickly (witness the .com busts). The _only_ reason that ideas-as-products can be a successful business model is because greedy people have got the laws passed to help them force it down peoples' throats. I sure wish I could get laws passed to force people to give me money I didn't work for.

It is a service, like I said, a human being doesn't have to be there for something to be a service.

And you would be wrong. Partially because you are misinterpreting what is being provided as a service in your own examples.

With the CD, the service being provided is that of making the copy.

Movie Phone is an information service, yet there is no person telling you the information.

With your Movie Phone example, you are being provided the service of being connected with a database of interesting information. The _information itself_ is NOT the service - once you have that information, you can scribble it down & or carry it around in your head & use it without expecting to ask permission or pay the people who compiled the information in the first place every time. Of course, if there were a way to enforce it, I'm sure the "intellectual property" proponents would think it would be perfectly reasonable to try and make you pay money for the privilege of telling anyone else that piece of information.

A trademark is owned, has a very real dollar value, it is a property. Yes it is used for fraud protection, but that doesn't mean it isn't intellectual property. If you can use something and prevent others from using it, it is property, especially if there is a quantifiable dollar value attached.

Still doesn't meet the common-sense rule of being REAL physical property, since the "owner" of the trademark can use it an infinite amount of times without
"using it up".

Which comes full circle back to pointing out how "intellectual property" laws have turned into a bunch of bullshit ways for greedy people to get money. Trademark violations are cases of FRAUD, and should be treated as such instead of property.
Re:You know... by m50d · 2005-01-30 10:00 · Score: 1

Define harm as loss of pleasure and then it becomes clearly utilitarian. How else would you define harm? And tell me how online "stealing" hurts anyone.

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I am trolling
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-01-30 12:42 · Score: 1

In the end, they decided to try a utilitarian approach: allowing SHORT-TERM monopolies for the goal of advancing the Arts & Sciences
Which I agree with that approach, I am not saying I agree 100% with the implementation. I would prefer shorter term monolopolies and requirements of registration fees.
No, most people will pay what they think is fair for a good or service
If there are grapes for $1c each (a fair price), and some free... most people will choose the free ones. People are maximizers.
Ideas are NOT real property, so only greedy people expect payment for use of ideas
So your arguement comes down to "I don't think it's really property". While I have explained (and you have agreed) that property is what is defined by social contract. Property comes out of agreement, and our society has agreed that ideas are property for a limited time.
With your Movie Phone example, you are being provided the service of being connected with a database of interesting information.
You do the same when you play a CD, you have a small database of music you are accessing everytime you listen. When you play a song you are getting something, if what you get is not a good then by defintion it is a service.
Still doesn't meet the common-sense rule of being REAL physical property, since the "owner" of the trademark can use it an infinite amount of times without "using it up".
Property doesn't have to be real, property can be anything we decide it to be. We as a society define what is and isn't property, and how ownership is determined.
Trademark violations are cases of FRAUD, and should be treated as such instead of property.
How can you commit fraud with something that is public domain. Without IP a logo is just a piece of art I can use however I see fit, maybe I like to put the logo on my products, since nobody owns the logo, nobody can stop me from doing what I want.
Personally I'm glad society recognizes ideas as property. Intellectual property is important to the development of our economic system, it allows product differentiation and it promotes investment in ideas, things that are key to the progress of capitalism.
What most people lose sight of is that intellectual property protects the little guy as well as the big guys. The big corporations would have way more power than they do right now without copyright/patents/trademarks. An independent band puts out a CD, a big company can take that CD, flood the market and not compensate the original artist, how is that for an alternate business plan? I'm sure you would love it if instead of buying small companies, Microsoft or EA could just take the software and leverage their greater marketing and sales channels to dominate the market.
Even "real" property nowadays contains alot of IP. You think AMD would be in a strong position if Intel was making Opterons? The actual silicon production is rather trivial compared to the design work. Intel would be able to out manufacture and out market AMD into nothingness.
IP promotes competition, it promotes innovation, just because it doesn't work 100% doesn't mean we should abandon the entire idea, we just need to adjust the rules.

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Re:You know... by mOdQuArK! · 2005-01-30 16:38 · Score: 1

If there are grapes for $1c each (a fair price), and some free... most people will choose the free ones. People are maximizers.
The sellers are maximizers as well - so your example is not realistic. Buyers will try to find the best value they can. Sellers will try to sell as high a price as they can. The balance is where you find the maximum societal benefit of true capitalism. If there is a lack of balance, then you do not receive maximum societal benefit.

So your arguement comes down to "I don't think it's really property". While I have explained (and you have agreed) that property is what is defined by social contract.
I agreed that the government has some legal terms for property. I did _not_ agree that those terms as applied to "products of intellect" are necessarily correct either by moral or common-sense standards. I further believe that people with selfish interests have perverted the original intent of the laws related to "intellectual property" (originally intended as a legal experiment to see if they would provide a net benefit to society) to the point where the laws are causing more harm to the society than good.

Property comes out of agreement, and our society has agreed that ideas are property for a limited time.
There was no agreement. The law-writers working under the direction of special interests have made it possible for greedy people to get money without working for it. The "average person" either didn't know about those laws, or figured it wouldn't affect them so didn't protest it. Now, with technology providing such broad distribution possibilities, many people ARE discovering that there are laws which prevent them from using their own private property as they see fit. This limitation is only stunting the growth of our society, all for the benefit of a small number of special interests.

When you play a song you are getting something, if what you get is not a good then by defintion it is a service.
Incorrect. When you play a song on your player, you are using your own property - there is no "sale of services" involved. You are only receiving a service when somebody else is making an effort on your behalf. I suppose if you used somebody else's player to play the song, then you are receiving the service of being allowed to use their property, but the basic concept still holds - the mere act of playing a recorded song does not constitute "a service".

How can you commit fraud with something that is public domain. Without IP a logo is just a piece of art I can use however I see fit, maybe I like to put the logo on my products, since nobody owns the logo, nobody can stop me from doing what I want.
You've got to stop confusing information with real property. Trademark law was originally intended to combat FRAUD, and that's all it's good for, although it might've become perverted under the influence of special interests. Trademarks are just symbols; they are not REAL property (in the common-sense understanding of the term).
Fraud implies the use of disinformation. In the case of trademark violation, it involves building an association yourself or your product with the public persona of another entity by using the symbols that society commonly associates which that other entity. There are no property issues involved with misuse of trademarks - it's just a case of a scam artist trying to trick people into believing something that isn't true.
As far as your "example" is concerned, as long as you aren't using that logo to pretend you are associated with the logo's originator, then there should be no issue of fraud. With today's trademark rules, however, if you use the logo _at all_, the entity "owning" that trademark will use that as an excuse to stop you, even if you didn't do anything which would confuse your identity with that of the logo's "owner".

What most people l
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-01-30 18:22 · Score: 1

Sellers will try to sell as high a price as they can.
Yes that is what the RIAA and MPAA are doing.
When you play a song on your player, you are using your own property - there is no "sale of services" involved
You purchased a license to use somebody else's property. You can use the physical portion any way you like, but you did not purchase the rights to the information portion, therfore you do not have the rights to do whatever you want with it
There was no agreement. The law-writers working under the direction of special interests have made it possible for greedy people to get money without working for it
You mean the law makers we elected, under the rules we agreed. As long as most people agree ideas can be treated as property, then they will be. You can work to change the terms of the contract (change the law, or amend the Constitution) if you get enough people to agree with you. Like I said, property is only what we define as property. There are also people who believe that people shouldn't be able to own land who have the same ability to redefine property. Personally, I prefer keeping rules that promote people's creativity and keep a stable economy.
In the case of trademark violation, it involves building an association yourself or your product with the public persona of another entity by using the symbols that society commonly associates which that other entity.
Except you can't use things that are public domain as a tradmark, and if there are no IP rights, everything is public domain. There is no fraud unless special rights are granted for exclusive use, and your arguement is that such rights should not be granted to ideas.
With today's trademark rules, however, if you use the logo _at all_, the entity "owning" that trademark will use that as an excuse to stop you, even if you didn't do anything which would confuse your identity with that of the logo's "owner".
I can't think of a situation where you could use a trademark and not have it confused with the original entity.
I'm not seeing how that helps society or the "little guys" at all.
The fact that big companies can't just directly clone everything interesting they see is how it is helping the little guy. Whenever a big company buys a small company the little guy won.
Most people would figure they'd have to figure out another way to make a buck
Ah so programmers, writers, songwriters, inventors, everybody who focuses on creating ideas should just figure out different ways to make a buck. I'm sure this world would be a better place without those jobs. If somebody comes up with an idea, they have they contributed to society and a system should be in place where society recognizes and rewards their contribution. In your model there is no reward, society just takes the contributions.
Considering what kind of "product" Microsoft & EA provide, I highly doubt they'd be able to leverage diddly-squat - since they wouldn't have been able to make the grotesque amounts of money that they did if it weren't for the artificial monopoly granted to them by the "intellectual property" laws.
Fact is they exist now with tons of money. If you drop IP you have to take into account the state of things as they are now, instead of trying to cobble together some hypothetical dream world. Though in that world a company like IBM that also received cash in other ways would dominate. I'm sure that would be all the better.
I prefer a society where if I come up with a unique innovative idea, I have the time to develop and capitalize on it, rather than my idea being taken by somebody else who has more money and more contacts for them to capitalize on it.
You're going to have to look outside of the software industry for examples of where "intellectual property" laws have helped the little guys against the big guys.
You mean like the example I gave about AMD and Intel?

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Re:You know... by sakshale · 2005-02-01 06:37 · Score: 1

As far as "God-given property rights" are concerned, even if I weren't agnostic, I'd dearly love to hear you quote the Scriptures which define ideas as property, especially since a great deal of the Scriptures emphasize getting their own message distributed as widely as possible.

As a Christian, I do NOT agree with the parent post's assertion about "God-given property rights", but I find that I can not let your statement pass unchallenged.

I challenge you to demonstrate to me that there is a "great deal of emphasis" on "getting the message distributed as widely as possible" in the Scriptures. Many churches may have that emphasis, but the majority of the Scriptures are simply stories, histories and meditations.

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For every problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious and wrong.
Re:You know... by mOdQuArK! · 2005-02-01 18:14 · Score: 1

Kind of lost interest, although it was engaging for a while.

Suffice it to say, I believe that you are arguing from a position of what already exists, and whether it is worth changing (and by how drastically), whereas I am arguing from a position where I believe that intellectual property laws are interfering with the normal use of private real property (and that it was & is a bad idea to begin with).

Since we have strongly differing opinions on the overall benefit of intellectual property laws, I doubt we'd ever convince each other of our arguments, however I enjoyed the discussion. Thanks.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-02-03 07:12 · Score: 1

I too enjoyed the thought provoking discussion.
I think we both agree the system isn't working as it is. The difference we have is more philisophical, whether we need to change the system, or if the system is fundamentally flawed.

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Re:You know... by Domo-Sun · 2005-02-06 05:22 · Score: 1

I've read all of your arguments, and they are shoddy. You keep equivocating property to IP and anything that has the word property in it. Different forms of property are treated differently.

They are the same thing. It's breaking the fundamentals of capitalism you are consuming without contributing.

So then, are you steeling when you breathe air? You're consuming without contributing. Someone is not getting paid for the service of free air. It's a crime wave!

And your theory that even after buying a CD, listening to that CD is a "service" is absurd and equally absurd to suggest that people be compensated every time one listens to CDs they own. A million people can listen to a million CDs and no effort is being expended on the part of the musician, nor distributer.

And use a line break.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-02-06 07:23 · Score: 1

You keep equivocating property to IP and anything that has the word property in it.
Perhaps you should read the discussion I had with mOdQuArK. We had a long discussion about the issue. Ultimately we agreed that our disagreement came down to the philisopical view of the best way to treat ideas to serve society.
One of the keys is that we as society define what property is. Ideas can be defined as property, they can also not be defined as property, it depends on the stance of society. If tomorrow the laws changed to eliminate copyrights, ideas cease to be property.
There are in fact people who claim you cannot own undeveloped land. The claim to undeveloped land is that you put 4 stakes in the ground, you did not create it nor do anything special with it. You have the ability to sit on it forever, and prevent anybody from using it to advance the cause of society. However we have as a society determined that you can own land, whether or not you developed it.
Society defines property, if you don't like the current legal definition, change the law
Different forms of property are treated differently.
Yes, intellectual property is treated different, that is why unlike your car you can only own a patent for 20 years, or own a tradmark under certain provisions.
So then, are you steeling when you breathe air? You're consuming without contributing. Someone is not getting paid for the service of free air. It's a crime wave!
No. Because nobody contributed air to the resource pool for society, nobody needs to be compensated. Ideas are a unique contribution to the resources of society, they are something that didn't exist before, but upon their creation they are added to the resource pool of society which advances us. Through trade people are compensated by receiving resources from the pool in accordance with what they have added.

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Re:You know... by Domo-Sun · 2005-02-06 08:27 · Score: 1

Perhaps you should read the discussion I had with mOdQuArK.

Like I said, I already did.

And I will only say a few things. Just because something is a law does not make it justifiable, and a laws existence does not indicate absolute sanction by all members of society. I know that most people would laugh at your suggestion that someone should be paid every time they listen to their CDs.

And I don't care what the law says or how you mutilate the definition of Capitalism, when I play a CD, I'm the one paying for the electricity, not the original performer. The original performer is not being over worked and nor should they be paid for my playing the CD that I own. In fact, they don't even need to be alive.

You can keep your IP to yourself, or you can submit it to the public, but when you do, you relinquish some of your rights to the public. There should be a fair compromise, and eventually you work should enter the public domain, but ultimately the Government and society owns your work once you submit it. In fact, the Government may even steal your Idea if it decides it's to the greater good of the world.

Why don't you use line breaks.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-02-06 09:04 · Score: 1

I know that most people would laugh at your suggestion that someone should be paid every time they listen to their CDs.
CD is just a compromise, since they can't charge you everytime you listen to a song, they charge you alot to have unlimited listenings. I was proposing an alternate payment method, rather than paying $15 for a CD you can pay a small amount everytime you listen to a song. Ultimately that would be a closer model to charge based on how we use things. If you listen to a song only a few times, the companies get only a small amount of money, if you listen to it alot, they get alot.
Years ago people would have laughed at a per-song model for selling, so a 1 cent per play service isn't out of the realm of reason, as we become more connected.
There should be a fair compromise, and eventually you work should enter the public domain, but ultimately the Government and society owns your work once you submit it.
I agree that is why I am against extensions of copyright, and in fact think that as the speed of change has increased, the time given for copyright and patent protections should be reduced to 5-10 years. Also, such protections should require yearly registration/taxation, so people don't sit on ideas without developing them for society.

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Re:You know... by Domo-Sun · 2005-02-07 10:16 · Score: 1

Years ago people would have laughed at a per-song model for selling, so a 1 cent per play service isn't out of the realm of reason, as we become more connected.

It is out of the realm of reason, especially today because it is easier to record and copy, making the cost of re-performance and distribution next to nothing, and because there is no logical reason why I should pay to hear a recording again and again to a purchased CD, which are exorbitantly priced to begin with.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-02-07 13:15 · Score: 1

there is no logical reason why I should pay to hear a recording again and again to a purchased CD, which are exorbitantly priced to begin with.
That's why it is proposed as an alternative. Instead of buying a CD with 15 songs now people are buying the one or two songs they want. If you extend that why should somebody pay the same amount for a song they listen to once, as they do for one they listen to 100 times?
Companies can switch to single use licensing, rather than an infinite license model. You could have wi-fi enabled player where you log into a service (like a cell phone call) which you buy individual plays that stream from a database. The music companies would get to charge people each time they listen, and people would only have to pay for each listening.

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Re:You know... by Domo-Sun · 2005-02-08 06:39 · Score: 1

That's why it is proposed as an alternative. Instead of buying a CD with 15 songs now people are buying the one or two songs they want. If you extend that why should somebody pay the same amount for a song they listen to once, as they do for one they listen to 100 times?

People shouldn't have to pay anything for a song they don't want, but sometimes they have to, when you consider the production cost and distribution limitations of CDs and the simple fact that you can't please everyone with a CD compilation.

The situation you are describing of artificial scarcity doesn't have those limitations and therefore it is unreasonable to charge for those limitations anymore.

Maybe with a monopoly on technology you can force them to pay-per listen, but the reality is that there is no market for people who want to pay for songs they don't want to listen to, or for songs that can be listened to only once. Why should people be forced to pay each time when it costs the author nothing per listening.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-02-08 15:42 · Score: 1

Why should people be forced to pay each time when it costs the author nothing per listening.
It does cost something, there is an initial cost that needs to be recovered. The question is how do you distribute those costs over a large enough body, per CD compilation, per song, per listening.
The technology exists for people to not pay for songs they don't want, or to pay less for songs they don't like as much, and more for songs they love. I don't want to pay $15 for a CD and license songs that I won't listen to, nor do I want to pay .99 cents for a song I only will listen to a few times. Using a per-usage model match my payment to my usage, if I enjoy listening to a song alot, I would be happy to pay $5 or more.
What such a model would do is focus artists on making a few quality songs, rather than 1 or 2 quality songs, and the rest filler to justify a $15 price tag.
Back to the original point of IP protections, ultimately any model requires some sort of protections to recover the costs. So long as those protections are limited (ie 10 years) such that they don't interefere with progress I have no problems. I do have problems with the current system, I just don't think we need to trash it completely.

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Re:You know... by Domo-Sun · 2005-02-11 02:39 · Score: 1

Why should people be forced to pay each time when it costs the author nothing per listening.
It does cost something, there is an initial cost that needs to be recovered.

Of course it costs something to make music, you're not entitled to recover that cost through any means you desire, but that's not what I asked. You're changing the subject again.

The question is how do you distribute those costs over a large enough body, per CD compilation, per song, per listening.

And the answer is that you don't do it via pay per listen. That would be incredibly unfair and totally unreasonable.

The technology exists ... Using a per-usage model match my payment to my usage, if I enjoy listening to a song alot, I would be happy to pay $5 or more.

The technology exists to sell air, and while that would create jobs, it would be wrong.

The point is that you shouldn't have to pay repeatedly to listen to a CD when it costs nothing to replay except electricity, which is the responsibility of the listener. Paying each time per listen would result in more than $5 for songs you listen to frequently and would also give the artist too much compensation that they don't deserve. Since replaying a CD is such a burdenless thing, I see nothing wrong with everybody replaying their CDs however many times they please.
Re:You know... by servognome · 2005-02-11 03:56 · Score: 1

And the answer is that you don't do it via pay per listen. That would be incredibly unfair and totally unreasonable.
How is it unfair, I find it more unfair when I have to pay for a song that I never listen to, or pay the same price for a song that I listen to once, as opposed to one I listen to 500 times. A per listening is fair in that it approximates payment for usage.
Paying each time per listen would result in more than $5 for songs you listen to frequently and would also give the artist too much compensation that they don't deserve.
So its up to you to decide what compensation artists deserve? If you really enjoy a song so much you would be willing to pay more money. If I listen to a song 1000 times, at 1 cent per listening, that is like 50 hours of enjoyment at a cost of $10. That seems pretty fair, plus if copyrights were restricted to 5-10 years, after that period I would have to pay nothing. Also, the per listening method saves you money on the songs you only listen to a few times, so it's not so much of an economic burden to explore new songs, if you listen once and don't like it, it only costs you 1 cent to try it out.

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Re:You know... by Domo-Sun · 2005-02-11 08:15 · Score: 1

And the answer is that you don't do it via pay per listen. That would be incredibly unfair and totally unreasonable.

How is it unfair, I find it more unfair when I have to pay for a song that I never listen to, or pay the same price for a song that I listen to once, as opposed to one I listen to 500 times. A per listening is fair in that it approximates payment for usage.

As I said already, the artist can be adequately compensated and long dead. There is no burden on the artist when I play my CD repeatedly. And again, cost of production and distribution make it unfeasible to sell an individual CD for each song. That would be like wanting to pay for only the parts of a concert that you liked.

Paying each time per listen would result in more than $5 for songs you listen to frequently and would also give the artist too much compensation that they don't deserve.

So its up to you to decide what compensation artists deserve? If you really enjoy a song so much you would be willing to pay more money.

In a sense, the market place decides, and hopefully a fair compromise is reached. If people don't like your music they're not obligated to buy it. And I don't think that paying per listen is fair because it costs the artist nothing for my CD to repeatedly play a track. I would never be willing to pay for that.

Also, the per listening method saves you money on the songs you only listen to a few times, so it's not so much of an economic burden to explore new songs, if you listen once and don't like it, it only costs you 1 cent to try it out.

I don't think you should have to pay for any song you only listen to once, with the exception I listed earlier. You can listen to, (even record) the radio; go to your local record shop and hear samples, even on the net. That's how it should be.

hope he doesnt get used by cintyram · 2005-01-28 11:32 · Score: 1

dvd jon went had to go thru a lot of hell for what he did; ~ram

Re:hope he doesnt get used by El+Gordo+Motoneta · 2005-01-28 11:54 · Score: 2, Informative

"dvd jon went had to go thru a lot of hell for what he did"

Dvd jon proved to us that we have a right to use our purchased media in whatever way
we see fit as long as we don't break copyright (or other) law.

EULA? what EULA!? I'm copying music from my computer to my mp3 player, then
on to another computer, all for my personal use, in the privacy of my home.
No law broken here.
Re:hope he doesnt get used by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:45 · Score: 0

hope he doesnt get used

Used? Sorry you didn't get the FP, but you did manage to make no sense.
Re:hope he doesnt get used by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:09 · Score: 0

I hope they catch that asshat. He was dumb enough to talk about his many I-pods, MACs, and over 900 songs. They can probably cross reference all that shit and nail him. Good Riddance!
Re:hope he doesnt get used by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:52 · Score: 0

The dumb person would be the one of you who failed to notice that DVD Jon wasn't the interviewee.

Slashdotted Already! by djlurch · 2005-01-28 11:34 · Score: 1, Troll

The project site is: http://www.hymn-project.org/jhymndoc/ It has already been slashdotted.

Re:Slashdotted Already! by Spy+der+Mann · 2005-01-28 11:58 · Score: 1

The project site is: http://www.hymn-project.org/jhymndoc/ It has already been slashdotted.

As predicted by the RIAA agents. Well done, boys! *evil chuckle*

Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:34 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Manual for the Modern Slashdotter

Golden Rule: You must base your worldview entirely on Slashdot headlines. You must ignore the innaccuracy and editorial shortcomings of the Slashdot staff. You must buy into the groupthink of the comment threads. This is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE.

- Post the lamest, most obvious, and most unfunny jokes imaginable. They will be modded up "+5 Funny." Even Malda couldn't stand it any longer and made Funny mods not count toward karma.

- Everything involving Linux is flawless and perfect.

- Anything involving Mozilla is flawless and perfect. Ignore that Mozilla marks security flaws as "confidential" and keeps them secret. Ignore that this is something Microsoft is endlessly bashed for. Ignore that Firefox has had several severe security flaws, especially for a browser used by so little of the market (1% according to Google Zeitgeist).

- Whenever someone has a criticism of the current moderation system, refer to Taco's "future moderation system."

- You must lean left. You must obsess over George W. Bush and make Bush jokes whenever possible, no matter how irrelevant to the topic. In political articles, you must upmod anti-Bush comments and downmod independent or pro-Bush comments. Use the "Overrated" moderator whenever possible. Remember, Taco is going to fix this in "the future moderation system."

- Use the term "FUD" religiously in everyday conversation. When someone puts out something that disagrees with your worldview, call it FUD matter-of-factly as a way to dismiss the points it raises. Demonization is far easier than debating the issues.

- Whenever Linux Torvalds says anything, it is newsworthy and infallible. Linus does not make mistakes. When he says he doesn't bother looking at the source code of competitors like Solaris [slashdot.org] because he's not interested, herald it as the "wonderful attitude of Linus" even though such a comment coming from a Microsoft employee would get flamed as an example of their arrogance and closed-minded attitude.

- Believe articles like "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China," based entirely on the idea that Microsoft is evil because Windows is used by the government there. Ignore the fact that China has its own custom Linux distribution called Red Flag Linux. Slashdot is unbiased and holy.

- Ignore that Slashdot is corporate-owned, by a company called OSTG that employs Rob Malda and makes money off selling OSS products. Ignore the conflict of interests in running a "tech news" site that coincidentally posts articles critical of competitors. Ignore that if Microsoft owned a tech news site that did the same, it would be criticized for it.

- Pretend that Linux is ready for the desktop, even though it took you two hours to set up your soundcard, mouse scroll wheel, and 3D card. Ignore that the real reason you refuse to acknowledge that Linux sucks on the desktop is because you don't want to diminish your sense of accomplishment in getting it up and running. Make sure to confuse this sense of accomplishment with the feeling that you have "more control" in a Linux system compared to a Windows system.

- Pretend there's nothing wrong with endless submissions accepted from Roland Piquepaille, who makes several thousand thanks to Slashdot linking to his blog that links to the original article, rather than Slashdot just linking to the original article and cutting out the pointless middle-man. It's okay for Malda to shrug it off as though Slashdot should never consider ethics or morals.

Please redistribute this at will.

Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:42 · Score: 0

OMG! You're right. I've been misled all of this time. I'm so glad to be free of the brainwashing! I can't believe I was so gullible to actually believe that Open Source works. I'm going to burn my computer, by a new Packard-Bell, and load Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2. I'm going to do my American duty. After all, Open Source is run by a bunch of communists anyway... *runs away humming happy tunes* jk :)
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:57 · Score: 0

I made my original post to prove a point: most people on Slashdot are zealots for the causes they support. They are quick to bash opposing viewpoints, but slow to recognize the flaws in theirs.

As for me, I'm a Mac user, so I am in a much better position than Linux zealots. Why? Our platform actually works.
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:58 · Score: 0

You forgot the first rule:

Ignore diatribes that have nothing to do with the original post!
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:01 · Score: 0

Yes, there is some truth in those statements.

But it reminds me of what my friend said when he came back from a Republican convention... "Man, there wasn't any Democrats at that convention. How come?".

Or my sister when she came back from Mass at a Catholic church... "I didn't see one Mormon there! What's up with that?".

And I guess at a place where lots of FOSS people visit, you will certainly find pro-FOSS attitude... how shocking!
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:02 · Score: 0

Wow, someone is hurting. Would you like a hug?
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:25 · Score: 0

... Zell was there.

I loved Air America Radio's coverage of the convention... the song that one show used as the theme song at one point was "Little Lies" by Fleetwood Mac.
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:26 · Score: 0

Zell's a fucking idiot.
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by mattyrobinson69 · 2005-01-28 12:30 · Score: 1

and what about linux doesn't 'work'?
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:40 · Score: 0

Best post i've seen in years on slashdot
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:47 · Score: 0

Revision 2 additions:

If you do not agree with any of the above, whine about it and cite it as "groupthink". After all, if someone doesn't agree with your perspective, it must because they're following the flock. Not like you, you're an independent thinker.
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:56 · Score: 0

Yes, because the right-wing doesn't groupthink at all just to fit in.

I looked at your site, and it seems you're just another right-wing blowhard. The left has its idiots alright and I'm no fan of either side, but for you to automatically assume you're flawless, well, that's beyond being just idiotic.
Re:Manual for the Modern Slashdotter by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:31 · Score: 0

As for me, I'm a Mac user, so I am in a much better position than Linux zealots. Why? Our platform actually works.

Ahhhh your a Mac user!
I guess that explains your inability to install the latest distros.

Why don't you go home now and double-kiss your Mac to download the latest DRM infested pop trash that will sound so groovy and chic when you turn your iTunes visualiser to fullscreen as you use your cappuccino laden voice to dictate your latest haiku to Word for Mac, all about how Steve Jobs is sooo cool and how great it is that you must pay over $300 to listen to your music on your stereo.

It is important to scream how Mac OSX is a reduced, hole ridden, bright, beautiful, and powerful version of UNIX in response to this comment.

I'm off to do all you can do and more.... for less!

How long? by maotx · 2005-01-28 11:34 · Score: 1

And when will the suing start?

--
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.

I love this shit by Lisandro · 2005-01-28 11:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

I hope stuff like this teaches companies no one wins with DRM. Not themselves, as they're made look incompetent when DRM is cracked ("Protected CDs" rippeable pressing CTRL?), and certainly not their customers.

If it's digital, and the end user can see / hear it, it can be copied. Perfectly. Deal with it, and make it interesting to buy instead of pirating.

Re:I love this shit by Simon+(S2) · 2005-01-28 11:37 · Score: 2, Informative

"Protected CDs" rippeable pressing CTRL

That was shift.

--
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
Re:I love this shit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:38 · Score: 4, Informative

"When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content."
-- STEVE JOBS
Re:I love this shit by jxyama · 2005-01-28 11:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

i see your point to a degree, but it's also a fact that no matter how good the product is, no matter how low the price is, no matter how compelling the offerings are, some, non-negligible amount of people will "pirate," and think nothing of gaining personal enjoyment (or worse, profit) at the expense of others, including creators, right holders, distributors and above all, respecting/paying consumers.
i don't know the proper way to deal with it. but i can see why DRM is being used. i don't think it's as black and white as, "it'll never work, so just quit it."
Re:I love this shit by Lisandro · 2005-01-28 11:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Given. So why bother a paying user if your product is going to be pirated anyway? It's a battle you can't win; you might as well accept it as a price of doing buisness. I've been saying this for games aswell, where "no-cd" patches are simply necessary in order to play the game without it becoming an annoyance.
You just can't keep digital media from being pirated. It's as simple as that. Try a different aproach.

For example, i like buying CDs. I like having a nice, pressed, shiny CD with a good looking booklet. I like buying books, and i like buying DVDs.
I also download a lot, even though i usually end up buying what i really like. I would buy a lot more, but the thing is, music/dvds and even books are still way too expensive. Why not lowering the price, knowing that you'll still make a profit? (no, i don't beleive $20 for a CD is reasonable)
Re:I love this shit by Antonymous+Flower · 2005-01-28 12:23 · Score: 1

In support of and in contrast to your point: Half-Life 2. It sold like mad. If people believe in a product it will succeed. However, it also had DRM. I'd say it worked for them, too.
Re:I love this shit by Lisandro · 2005-01-28 12:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

Half-Life 2 sold like crazy because it was probably the most overhyped game in recent times. It also was a good game to boot, but i know quite a few people who didn't buy it because of their hatred of Steam. And i'm one of them.

It was pirated the same; in fact, there was a NO-STEAM a day after release. So you could argue it was less of a hassle for pirates to play it than it was for some users from what i've read :)
Re:I love this shit by jxyama · 2005-01-28 12:43 · Score: 1

> you might as well accept it as a price of doing buisness.
can the consumers also accept that DRM is the price of the convenience? frankly, i don't understand these "just because i can break it, i will break it" attitude. the mild DRM imposed by iTMS poses no problems for most users (otherise, you can't explain how iTMS has sold over 250 million songs in less than 2 years) yet was necessary for apple to convince the labels to let them sell music online.
if you have problems with the DRM, don't buy it. if you want to crack it, yeah, that's cool with me, i don't really care. but i don't see why we need to get up and arms about it - CDs don't play in a tape player, even though both mediums contain the same music. should we crack the CDs so it will play in a tape player too?
Re:I love this shit by ArbitraryConstant · 2005-01-28 13:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

"If it's digital, and the end user can see / hear it, it can be copied. Perfectly."

The act of stripping the DRM puts the user in a different legal position. I think the industry's threshold is the point where users must go to significant lengths to get around it. For projection that, for example, is based on a CD that autolaunches DRM software, users can reasonably argue that they didn't even realize there was protection (they use Mac or Linux, or have autolaunch turned off or something).

I don't think you can really get significnatly better (read: harder to copy) than FairPlay on a general purpose computer. Until you can (eg, DRM hardware is standard), the industry will probably allow the current situation to continue.

--
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Re:I love this shit by Lisandro · 2005-01-28 13:06 · Score: 1

Well, it depends. Don't forget that those are the people that will pay for your product; you don't want to piss them off much. iTunes and DVDs are two examples of (relatively) harmless DRM protected digital media. It's interesting that both have been cracked too. To be honest, i never understood why iTunes become so sucesful. If i had to venture, i'd say it was more due to the iPod than anything else. Others didn't did as well - DivXs, for example.
Re:I love this shit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:17 · Score: 0

CDs don't play in a tape player, even though both mediums contain the same music. should we crack the CDs so it will play in a tape player too?

Yes! We should. Here's one way to do it.
Re:I love this shit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:22 · Score: 0

So why bother a paying user if your product is going to be pirated anyway

Because the "bother" moves the line between paying user and pirate so that there are fewer casual pirates. People form a spectrum, not two endpoints. Lowering the difficult and penalty (including social ones) for piracy makes more people pirates. Raising the bar results in fewer pirates.
Re:I love this shit by t3hl33t · 2005-01-28 13:22 · Score: 1

Or just put them in a Mac... works better.
Re:I love this shit by marcinjeske · 2005-01-28 15:01 · Score: 1

"iTunes and DVDs are two examples of (relatively) harmless DRM protected digital media."

For DVDs, one word: Region Coding. As someone who likes to watch foreign films not available in the US, region coding makes me mad... luckily, some foreign DVDs use the Universal Region 0, but even that doesn't work in many US DVD players... (my iBook plays them... but I have come across PowerBooks and other comps that want to change the region first.)

(For those not familiar with region coding, it divides the world into 9 regions, 0 thru 8, and assigns a region to each DVD player and DVD disc. The regions have to match for the disc to play in a given player. North America is Region 1, Europe Region 2, and so on... the only exceptions are Region 0, which is theoretically unrestricted, and the availability of "region-free" DVD players.)
Re:I love this shit by Lisandro · 2005-01-28 15:09 · Score: 1

Region codes are a PITA, but 99% percent of standalone DVD players can be made region free with a secret remote key combination. And a lot of DVD players for PCs can be made region-free aswell, updating firmware. In that sense, it's relatively harmless.

None of the above is stuff DVD makers want you to know, but's all legal. Google is your friend!
Re:I love this shit by marcinjeske · 2005-01-28 15:28 · Score: 1

Yeah, I am aware of the possibilities, but it involves messing with your hardware, and potentially breaking something that the warranty won't cover...

picture this scenario... you are at a friend's house, you pop in the movie you brought to watch, and the DVD player displays a fire-and-brimstone message about how this DVD is not allowed in this region. Next you tell your friend: "Hold on a second, I'm going to surf the web to find some obscure key-combination the manufacturer doesn't want you to know, then I am going to feed it into your nice shiny new home theater system, modifying the built-in software, so that we can watch this movie I brought." They are going to say: "... how about we go to Blockbuster?"
(BTW, this happened to me two weeks ago with a Region 0 DVD.)

It's all messy and inconvenient, just like DVD rippers, iTunes DRM-strippers, and software anti-piracy measures. It's now technically pretty easy to remove these restrictions... but you still have to jump through hoops.
Re:I love this shit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 18:20 · Score: 0

Which is why some people still use tape. I've seen no benefit to some DVDs over tape other than "you don't have to rewind!"
Re:I love this shit by g-doo · 2005-01-28 18:55 · Score: 1

Obviously, piracy can never be stopped entirely. That's not their goal. They want to reduce it as much as possible, and most of the non-nerd population are not constantly worrying about DRM.
Re:I love this shit by shark72 · 2005-01-28 19:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

"So why bother a paying user if your product is going to be pirated anyway? It's a battle you can't win; you might as well accept it as a price of doing buisness."

Accepting it is not the same as not taking measures to reduce it. Ask any retailer; they'll tell you that there's always going to be a certain amount of shoplifters, but rather than simply give up trying to fight it, retailers put anti-shoplifting measures into place. These, too, can bother paying users, but retailers have evidently done careful analysis to understand that it's worth the tradeoff. Case in point: Costco (or whatever your local club store is) has chosen the route of inspecting your reciept on the way out, rather than just simply giving up and "accepting" shoplifting. Perhaps Slashdot users know better, but I doubt it. It's a complex situation that cannot be resolved with simple bromides such as "piracy will happen, so give up on DRM."

"I also download a lot, even though i usually end up buying what i really like. I would buy a lot more, but the thing is, music/dvds and even books are still way too expensive. Why not lowering the price, knowing that you'll still make a profit? (no, i don't beleive $20 for a CD is reasonable)."

Huh? CDs haven't been $20 in years, and prices have been falling rapidly. The average price of a new CD dropped 4% last year, to $12.95. The record companies are way ahead of you on this one.

I've lost you on the "knowing you'll still make a profit" part, though. The record industry gets by with pretty shitty margins in general, and many CDs lose money.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:I love this shit by zonker · 2005-01-28 20:48 · Score: 0

what should get you more up in arms (asuming that it isn't asian foreign movies that you are talking about) is that north america and much of asia use ntsc as the standard whereas the rest of the world uses pal. this is a battle you can neither fight nor win.

thankfully if you are playing dvd's on a computer it handles the translation w/o any messy extra equipment or special dvd player or tv...

--
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Re:I love this shit by latroM · 2005-01-28 21:44 · Score: 1

. For projection that, for example, is based on a CD that autolaunches DRM software, users can reasonably argue that they didn't even realize there was protection (they use Mac or Linux, or have autolaunch turned off or something).

IMHO "restrictions" would be a better word then "protection". Only a very small number of people benefit from Digital Restrictions Management. For others it is just something restricting what they can do with the art they have bought. "Protection" really is one of the words the big media wants you to use. DRM is for their "protection", not yours.
Re:I love this shit by aliquis · 2005-01-28 21:46 · Score: 1

I've thought about that one, especially when the PSP arrived and where going to use AES encryption. I suppose you could even encrypt each copy of the software for each piece of hardware. On the other hand as long as the hardware can reach it you can probably decrypt it with the hardware and encrypt it again for another device. Or? What if the keys are in the chips and the software is "streamingly" decrypted when needed?

Say my computer used my GPG-key, you made a piece of software and downloaded my public key, encrypted your software for me and sent it. (But I can still decrypt it and encrypt it for another person, but aren't there any way to make that part "impossible" or atleast to hard?)
Re:I love this shit by TheRaven64 · 2005-01-28 22:40 · Score: 1

I stopped playing Half Life 1 as a direct result of steam - it was invasive and a whole load of hassle, and I was too lazy to reinstall and then upgrade to the latest steam-free version. I didn't buy Half Life 2 for the same reason.
The original Half Life (pre-steam) was incredibly convenient. If I'd deleted it, I could just grab a copy from a friend's machine (without having to go through the process of installing all of the patches). If I upgraded / reinstalled Windows then I could just keep my Half Life folder. When I first ran it, it would ask me for my CD key, and after entering it I was in exactly the same situation I was in if I'd done a full install. With steam, I have to jump through all sorts of hoops. When I first installed it, it insisted I download several hundred megabytes of data even though I already had Half Life and Counterstrike correctly installed.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:I love this shit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 01:42 · Score: 0

Precisely! They want to get piracy back where it belongs: underground, where only geeks and nerds know how to do it. When Joe and Jane Six-Pack start downloading music, they're hoping they won't bother cracking the DRM, or even know it's possible.

That was the big problem with Napster: it brought piracy into the mainstream, so that anyone could do it.
Re:I love this shit by Ilgaz · 2005-01-29 02:14 · Score: 1

Yes, I must add something about Toyota's suscess too. It sold like mad you know.

Why? This explains: http://www.crimedoctor.com/autotheft2.htm

In fact, Toyota must thank to those thiefs. If they didn't steal, it wouldn't sell at all.
Re:I love this shit by m50d · 2005-01-29 02:32 · Score: 1

Because it's completely unnecessary. If I won't copy it, I won't copy it. If I'm going to copy it and give it to a friend, I'm going to copy it and give it to a friend if I have to write the cracking program myself. So it's pointless from their point of view, but annoys me. So why do I need to accept it?

--
I am trolling
Re:I love this shit by m50d · 2005-01-29 02:35 · Score: 1

Indeed it was. And at that point they've lost, because once the pirated version is better than the original, which do you think people are going to use? I like epic, a lot, but I still tend to use the pirated versions of unreal tournament until the patch that removes the cd check comes out. If a game always has a cd check, I'll tend to always use a pirate copy just because it's a hassle to find the cd. And when nice games come out with no copy protection, I do my best to buy them immediately.

--
I am trolling
Re:I love this shit by InvalidError · 2005-01-29 02:39 · Score: 1

In the RIAA/MPAA's dream world, they would manage to stop unlicensed reproduction with DRM. In the real world, DRM only managed to slow down casual copying - at least up to now.

Personally, I do not buy into new technology until I have an interoperability guarantee... like DeCSS and derrivative works before buying my first DVD.
Re:I love this shit by ArbitraryConstant · 2005-01-29 05:32 · Score: 1

"IMHO "restrictions" would be a better word then "protection". Only a very small number of people benefit from Digital Restrictions Management. For others it is just something restricting what they can do with the art they have bought. "Protection" really is one of the words the big media wants you to use. DRM is for their "protection", not yours."

"Restrictions" are policy. "Protections" are mechanism. They don't refer to the same thing. For example, Apple could loosen or strengthen the restrictions in iTunes without changing the protection technology they use.

If you can suggest a synonym for "protection" that has a negative spin, I'll consider using it.

--
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Re:I love this shit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 07:17 · Score: 0

"Or just put them in a Mac... works better."

Linux works even better, because someone at the RIAA might actually know how to write similar programs for the Mac, but Linux doesn't have any end-to-end DRM systems. It's all to easy to grab the decoded audio at one of many points between the hard drive and the sound card.
Re:I love this shit by wolrahnaes · 2005-01-29 07:25 · Score: 1

"Because the "bother" moves the line between paying user and pirate so that there are fewer casual pirates."

How does this hurt the casual pirate? The casual pirate doesn't rip their own stuff, they just go to {Insert Favorite P2P Net} and download something that has been ripped by a group of pirates who are basically professionals.

That's the thing about P2P that guarantees the failure of any DRM system. Once one person manages to rip and share a popular title, it's all over the internet within days.

--
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Re:I love this shit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 08:35 · Score: 0

You can't put anything on a CD and have it auto-execute with OS X, there's nothing like autorun.inf.
Re:I love this shit by falconwolf · 2005-01-30 20:07 · Score: 1

I also download a lot, even though i usually end up buying what i really like. I would buy a lot more, but the thing is, music/dvds and even books are still way too expensive. Why not lowering the price, knowing that you'll still make a profit? (no, i don't beleive $20 for a CD is reasonable)

What some of the smaller labels are doing is allowing free downloads because they know that some of the downloaders will turn into paying customers to get better sound quality. Some of the major artists, though I'm not sure I think U2 is one band doing it, are also pressing to have free downloads for the same reason. Now only if they'd release stuff on reel to reels, I loved my quadrasonic, and scratch resistant lps.

--
Should there be a Law?
Re:I love this shit by falconwolf · 2005-01-30 20:18 · Score: 1

if you have problems with the DRM, don't buy it.

There's one very good reason I am against DRM, the way some DRM is set up is that it doesn't allow fair use or copying. If fair use and making backup copies were allowed. along with providing methods people with handicaps could use, I wouldn't have a problem. Though I don't recall his name, look at the Russian programmer who cracked Adobe's eBook format to allow disabled to have the book read to them when they couldn't read it. If Adobe had made this possible themselves he wouldn't of done it.

--
Should there be a Law?
Re:I love this shit by falconwolf · 2005-01-30 20:32 · Score: 1

For DVDs, one word: Region Coding.

Agree 100%. Maybe 1/4 of the movies I watch are foreign, mostly Chinese, French, or German. If I liked it at the theatre I may get it on dvd when it comes out. That may not present a problem now, but I'm hoping to study abroad in Brazil in a couple of years. When I do region coding will present a problem. About the only work around I know of is by having two dvd players for the powerbook I hope to take with me.

--
Should there be a Law?
Re:I love this shit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-02-02 03:30 · Score: 0

It is possible to protect digital content, but only if the keys that can unlock the content are locked in hardware. And that hardware needs to self-destruct upon a physical breach. Stuff like that (the IBM 4758, for example) is really expensive.

Of course, even if you cryptographically lock the channel all the way to the speaker, someone could still tap the signal there, but that's not worth the effort for a music file that costs a dollar.

What is that old saying... by TiggertheMad · 2005-01-28 11:35 · Score: 4, Funny

'If you encrypt it, they will come...'

--

HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!

Why crack it? by Sheetrock · 2005-01-28 11:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD. It seems like a lot of hassle to set up an account, buy the music, download the music, crack the music, then convert the music to get to the same end result.

Admittedly, without the thrill of "fighting the man", but in this case "the man" is giving you virtually everything you asked for (inexpensive music you can try before you buy with the ability to download exactly what you want and make mix CDs, which you could then rip as well without needing this tool.) Now Apple is going to have to crack down again.

What does this win us? The music industry can point to this as another example of why the restrictions need to be in the hardware and the hardware manufacturers are already in their pocket as far as the next generation of motherboards are concerned. Thanks to the pirates, those of us who buy the stuff again have to pay with further restrictions.

--

Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.

Re:Why crack it? by TLLOTS · 2005-01-28 11:40 · Score: 2

Actually DRM is steadily becoming more common on CD's today as well, so your alternative isn't truly anymore viable than just downloading it and removing the DRM components. At least downloading it you get to choose what songs you want, rather than buying a cd with two good songs and sixteen crap ones.
Re:Why crack it? by garcia · 2005-01-28 11:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD. It seems like a lot of hassle to set up an account, buy the music, download the music, crack the music, then convert the music to get to the same end result.

I wasn't aware you were able to get custom made mix CDs at stores with tracks numbering in the 100s of thousands. Cool.

Obviously iTunes is popular because some people don't like to spend $13+ on an entire album when they only want one song. They want to make their own mixes and still not have DRM on them I guess.
Re:Why crack it? by BlurredWeasel · 2005-01-28 11:42 · Score: 1

Because I have an ipod and I love it and just put music on it. But when I'm at home, I want to listen to music on my linux media center. As soon as itunes comes to linux, I'll stop cracking my downloads.
Re:Why crack it? by Macadamizer · 2005-01-28 11:44 · Score: 1

Exactly. Have the posts on here rip on the RIAA, saying they must change their distribution system or die, that they must give the users access to cheaply downloadable content.

Then iTunes comes along, and now we have access to cheap, downloadable content. Has that stopped (or even impacted) file sharing in any significant way? Has that stopped people from STILL complaining?

If this is the standard reaction -- if someone comes up with something, we'll crack it and still figure out a way to get it for free -- then I can totally see why the RIAA and others are pushing for more and more restrictions. Look, iTunes gives you what you want, and it still isn't good enough. Why should the RIAA and others believe that ANYTHING they do will ever be good enough?

--

"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:44 · Score: 0

Or people just like stealing, especially if their credit sucks so much they can't buy anything.
Re:Why crack it? by ParadoxDruid · 2005-01-28 11:45 · Score: 1

Admittedly, without the thrill of "fighting the man", but in this case "the man" is giving you virtually everything you asked for... (emphasis mine)
This is exactly the problem. The customer is the one (potentially) paying the company money-- if they want customer support, they would provide what customers want, not "virtually" what they want. That intentionally-included lack of desired functionality is the whole concern.

--
This statement is solely an opinion. Kindly take it as such in all cases.
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:46 · Score: 0

A dollar a track is cheap, but not nearly cheap enough, unless you got raw uncompressed (or at least, lossless) audio files.
Re:Why crack it? by Macadamizer · 2005-01-28 11:50 · Score: 1

Well then, what is the right price? What price would you pay where it would be worth it to you to own a legal copy of a song?

--

"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Re:Why crack it? by nagora · 2005-01-28 11:55 · Score: 1

If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD.
What CD are you talking about? The one with half a dozen obscure blues songs and a bit of Humphery Littleton? Oh, look! It doesn't exist.
You dickhead, the point of iTunes is the ability to buy single tracks. If I wanted whole CDs worth I'd buy them, since they're cheaper and higher quality. Only a retard would buy entire albums on iTunes, DRM or not.
What does this win us?
It wins us nothing, it just stops us losing. You know: losing the rights that we have to listen to a song anywhere and forever, regardless of future whims of hardware and firmware. Christ, why don't you just post all your money to the RIAA and be done with it, you grubbly little patsy.
TWW

--
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:Why crack it? by darnok · 2005-01-28 11:56 · Score: 1

> Then iTunes comes along, and now we have access to
> cheap, downloadable content. Has that stopped (or
> even impacted) file sharing in any significant
> way? Has that stopped people from STILL
> complaining?

I think what happened is that the RIAA made such a fuss about prosecuting "pirates", nailing 12yo kids and grandmothers in the process, that they've built up a huge amount of bad feeling towards them. Worse, while doing that, the RIAA member companies (who exist to *market* product in a form that people want to buy it) apparently did nothing to try to service the digital music buying market at all; Napster et al stepped in to fill this hole, and got nailed out of existence by the RIAA who still didn't provide a viable alternative.

Bottom line: the RIAA had a chance to build and control the digital music distribution market while it was in its infancy and standards hadn't yet developed, and they totally blew it. In ESR-speak, it's already transitioned from a cathedral to a bazaar, and won't ever be going back.

At this point, even if record companies started releasing 1c songs with DRM protection, people would be cracking them (a) because they can, and (b) because they dislike the RIAA that much. For way beyond a critical mass of people, RIAA=bad.
Re:Why crack it? by kardar · 2005-01-28 11:57 · Score: 1

If someone wanted to start something, (i.e. cheap, downloadable content), cut out the middle men (maybe ./ could do this too :) - it couldn't happen. Not with the major labels, anyway. The major labels won't allow you to offer cheap, downloadable content that isn't DRM. It just won't happen.

iTunes doesn't give you everything - although it is a workable format. If you could set the price of the tracks lower, say 50 cents or whatever, and, as an artist, cut a deal with iTunes yourself - this would be much closer to the ideal.

We're still dealing with the major labels here, at least for the most part. Pretty traditional stuff, more or less - of course, with some exceptions.

Seriously - no one should be afraid of releasing multimedia content without any controls on it. It makes no difference. People will copy, people will share, it's just a fact of life. Forget about it - focus on your music, focus on getting a good deal with the distributor, and everything will be fine.

By far the biggest problems any artist is going to have to face are the managers and agents constantly taking a cut, the monolithic labels, the expensive producers, and his or her own ego. Not file sharing; not cracking of DRM.

DRM-free is the key to success! Geez, you could even charge MORE for it!
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:57 · Score: 0

Another post without swearing!
Congrats!!!

Once again your backup plan takes care of it though.
Re:Why crack it? by Mononoke · 2005-01-28 11:58 · Score: 1

That intentionally-included lack of desired functionality is the whole concern.
Just exactly what "lack of desired functionality" is there in this case?

--
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Re:Why crack it? by Tarous+Zars · 2005-01-28 11:59 · Score: 1

I have purchased a bunch of Songs from iTunes. I like that i can preview before I buy and that I only have to buy what I like. A few months ago I had to reinstall my OS. I backed up everything important, including my iTunes songs, But it never really crossed my mind that I should deauthorize my iTunes account before erasing my computer. When I reinstalled my OS and iTunes I realized that I would have to use another iTunes authorization to listen to my music.

Sure it was my mistake, but not being able to listen to my music on one of my computers because it slipped my mind to deauthorize before I reinstalled sucks. I use jHymn just to make sure I can listen to iTunes on all of my computers. If something happens to one of my computers, I can still listen to my music.
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:00 · Score: 0

As the grandparent said, if you really want to circumvent the copy protection, you can just burn a CD, and rip that to MP3s. Sure, it just means more effort to get the same final result, but ensuring that the deterrent is there (however minor) is enough to get the RIAA folks to agree to distribute through iTunes.
Re:Why crack it? by Macadamizer · 2005-01-28 12:00 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, you are probably right. Which means that if the "pirates" (for lack of a better word) are never going to stop, then the RIAA, MPAA and other organizations aren't going to either.

Personally, if I were offering tunes for a buck, and a bunch of folks said even if it were a penny they wouldn't pay, just out of spite, I would not only not lower my prices to a penny, but I would double, triple, or even quadruple (or whatever-tuple) my efforts to take legal action against everyone.

I hope that doesn't happen, but I bet it will...

And in case you haven't noticed, I don't think the RIAA is exactly reeling from all of the negative publicity over there legal activies, except here on Slashdot, the EFF and similarly-minded websites...

--

"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Re:Why crack it? by returnoftheyeti · 2005-01-28 12:01 · Score: 2, Informative

The biggest draw of Itunes is that is is instant gratifaction. You hear a clip, you want the album, you get it NOW!
No driving to the store, hunting through overpriced bins, etc... And after you purchase that music, and saved it to your fileserver, you want to be able to listen to it wherever, whenever. So rip the DRM out of it and play it on your MP3 player, your Linux box, your toster, whatever.
Plus, My g/f just bought an album off of ITunes for $10. Some obscure band that she just had to have a copy of their album. You think my local Worst Buy stock that album. I doubt it. Amazon.com had it for 17.99, plus a week for shipping. Of course the first thing she asked me was to put it on her USB thumb drive so she could listen to it at work. I told her se couldnt, because she could only listen to it on Itunes, and of corse she cant install Itunes at work. So I learned to use Hymn and ripped it to MP3 and she annoyed her coworkers all day playing New Age Goth music
Re:Why crack it? by Junior+J.+Junior+III · 2005-01-28 12:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why crack it? Why not just buy the CD and rip it?

1 - Because the CD probably has DRM on it too, these days.

2 - Because even if you get a non-DRMed CD, eventually, someday, downloaded music may become the normal way to buy music, and CDs will go the way of the vinyl LP.

Either way, you're going to need a way to get rid of the DRM so that you can listen to your own music as you see fit.

--
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Re:Why crack it? by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2005-01-28 12:07 · Score: 1

Wasn't that stardate 1173?

HAND

--
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Re:Why crack it? by bogie · 2005-01-28 12:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

" If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD. It seems like a lot of hassle to set up an account, buy the music, download the music, crack the music, then convert the music to get to the same end result."

Why should I buy an entire CD when I can buy the two or three songs I want via a brillant interface that's better than any other online music service? And its not a hassle. One-time setup of account, 99c a song and a quick run of Jhymn is hardly a hassle.

"but in this case "the man" is giving you virtually everything you asked for (inexpensive music you can try before you buy with the ability to download exactly what you want and make mix CDs, which you could then rip as well without needing this tool.) "

So circumventing Apple's DRM one way is okay but another way isn't? Wow, great logic. Let me ask, if I record to a tape from my audio out of a DRM file is that illegal as well? If the end result is the same what's the difference? Who is being harmed when the end result in a unencrypted file in EVERY SINGLE CASE. What because your taking the extra step of going DRM-CD-RIP and someone else goes DRM-RIP your method is somehow better for Apple? In what way? Why are you even suggesting Burning and Ripping? Are you one of those people who upload all of your Itunes music to P2P? Oh no wait, that's what you Apple defenders are constantly accusing us paying customers of doing.

"What does this win us? The music industry can point to this as another example of why the restrictions need to be in the hardware and the hardware manufacturers are already in their pocket as far as the next generation of motherboards are concerned"

Or they could point to the built in loophole of ripping from CD which rendered Apples DRM useless from day one.

"Thanks to the pirates,"

Excuse me? Pirates? Who? The people who PAID APPLE for each and every song and use a program which ONLY works if your the one who purchased the music in the first place? Yea those bastards!

The Pirates are on P2P sharing songs they never bought. The people using this tool aren't pirates. Get it straight already. And get over your holier than thou, how you dare use a product in a way other then intended attitude. You've benefitted more from reverse engineering and people using products in ways not intended then you could possibly imagine.

--
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:14 · Score: 0

Playing my purchase music on my squeezebox.
Re:Why crack it? by MightyMartian · 2005-01-28 12:26 · Score: 1

I'd say probably around 50 cents American for a compressed song. The songs I've downloaded from legal services suck big time on quality, considering I like to play this stuff on my stereo, and not on some shitty little portable player where one doesn't have much expectation of whiz-bang-pow sound.

Most mp3s I downloaded from Kazaa (don't do this any more, being a good citizen now) sounded fairly good on my stereo.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Why crack it? by Dragoon412 · 2005-01-28 12:28 · Score: 4, Informative

But your implication is that the RIAA is actually asking what people would want to pay for music. Apparently they aren't.

These are people who make a business running artists into the ground. The cartel has effectively monopolized the music industry, shooting themselves in the foot in the process.

Think about it: what's the RIAA's big justification for the high cost of CDs and the reason they financially destroy so many artists? They claim they have to take a big risk on artists, as it's expensive to produce, tour, promote, etc.

Who said rockstars need to have their every whim catered to? Who drove the cost of music videos through the roof? Who demands artists pay $20,000/hour for some "big name" producer to hit a few buttons in Pro Tools? Who demands artists pay thousands an hour for studio time? Who created this bloated, overinflated, cookie cutter music market where it's ridiculously expensive to get exposure? Who helped create the radio station conglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinity? Who created this situation where it's prohibitively difficult for non-affiliated artists to get more than small, local exposure?

The whole point, is the industry is solely responsible for this situation they're in. They flat-out lie in press releases. They slander their own customers, and treat them like criminals. They charge too much for a lackluster service, and now we're supposed to feel sorry for them? When's the last time the industry showed any good will towards its customers?

No, the RIAA isn't listening; they're oblivious and out of touch. No one wants DRM. Yet they insist on it. We want more reasonably priced music, but they won't give that to us, either. Yet they've created an environment where it's exceedingly difficult to be exposed to music that isn't being actively pimped by them! And now we're supposed to bend over and take it in the ass while they use one law to make an end-run around another and screw us out of our rights?

[b]Fuck them and the horse they rode in on[b/].

The truly stupid thing about this is that iTunes already provides a mechanism for doing what JHymn does - burn a CD, re-rip it. Problem solved. All JHymn does is streamline the process a bit.
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:28 · Score: 1, Informative

One reason for removing the DRM is so you can use devices like this and this. iTunes is already in an encoded format that these devices can play, its just the DRM that is preventing it.
Re:Why crack it? by laughingcoyote · 2005-01-28 12:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

No per-track at all. A flat-rate or collective license model would work. The collective-license model would work best, since in that case, they could simply allow P2P to operate legally. The users would, in that case, absorb the costs of bandwidth, distribution, and manufacturing of the CD's if desired. All the labels would have to do is sit back and collect the money.

Of course, given that, they could no longer -control- distribution. Might that be the reason for the resistance to something which in every other way is pure profit for them?

However, a flat-rate model would also work. And I'm not talking "RealRhapsody"-I'm talking a per-month flatrate for downloadable, burnable, DRM-free content, with EVERYTHING available, not just whatever few labels they can get to sign on, in (within reason) a format of choice-perhaps choices between .mp3, .flac, .ogg, and a raw uncompressed format.

When they offer that (provided the fee isn't astronomical), I'll have my credit card ready. Until then, I'll keep right on downloading. And by the way, guys-DRM is trivial to break.

--
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:21 · Score: 0

Why should I buy an entire CD when I can buy the two or three songs I want via a brillant interface that's better than any other online music service?

Because the CD gives you the moral and legal right to do whatever you want with the audio data, within fair use. The iTunes Music Store does not. You agree to a contract stating that you will not defeat its DRM.

Looks like you have a choice: buy the CD, which has a bunch of tracks you don't want but has no restrictions. Or save some money and buy only the tracks you want, but with restrictions.

It's called a trade-off. Life is full of them. You can't always have your cake and eat it too. (in this case, you can, but in doing so, you're being immoral)
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:26 · Score: 1, Insightful

I bought my wife an iBook a couple of Christmases ago. As it happened, the hard disk went south on that baby. It happened slowly and I was able to back it up before the hard disk died completely. I had a fair number of iTunes songs on that disk that I would have been pissed to have lost.

Oh -- except that even though I have a backup of the drive, I still can't play the music on my other system: a linux box.

This incident taught me a valuable lesson: de-DRM-ify your music immediately, then back it up!
Re:Why crack it? by gordgekko · 2005-01-28 13:33 · Score: 1

> 1 - Because the CD probably has DRM on it too, these days.

Really? Because you know most CDs don't have DRM, right? I'm not disagreeing with you but exaggeration doesn't build your case.

--
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:53 · Score: 0

"They flat-out lie in press releases."
Can you provide just one example of this: a flat-out lie, in a press release, directly from the RIAA?
Re:Why crack it? by curious.corn · 2005-01-28 14:06 · Score: 1

New Age Goth? Care to give info on group/album?

--
Mi domando chi Ã il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Re:Why crack it? by Don+Negro · 2005-01-28 14:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

Who demands artists pay $20,000/hour for some "big name" producer to hit a few buttons in Pro Tools?

Dude, it's the grossly underpaid engineers who hit the buttons on Pro Tools.

The "big name" producers usually sit on the couch and go "I don't know, what do you think."*

*Yes, there are exceptions, but not many.

--
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
Re:Why crack it? by Sloppy · 2005-01-28 14:39 · Score: 1

If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD.
I understand this point of view, but one possibility is that someone might simply change their mind, after the sale. Normally, with multimedia, that is something that you can do. For example, if you bought music on vinyl, then later bought a car and decided that you'd like to listen to your music there, copying it to tape was easy.
And that vinyl example is actually pretty close to one of the most likely problems that someone is going to have with DRM files: there are so many devices that just can't play them, or play them conveniently.
I think a lot of people have been doing business with the iTunes Music Store without thinking about the future consequences. I have thought about them, not being naive about DRM issues, so I've chosen to not do business with Apple in this form. I'll keep buying CDs instead. But I'm .. oh, what's the nicest way to put this? I'm particular about such issues. Most people aren't.
For a non-nerdy layman, the future restrictions that come with DRM may not be immediately apparent. Most people don't even see it as a freedom-related issue at all -- until the problems actually crop up, and by then, it's potentially years too late and the naive person may have already invested a lot of money into a large music collection. Heck, even here on Slashdot, a lot of people talk about Apple's DRM as being particularly light and not egregious.
If someone encounters these problems later, I suppose we can say "tough shit, they should have thought about that before they switched from CDs to DRMed files." Maybe a little destruction of people's investment in collections, will teach them to think a little more carefully in the future.
But another point of view is that any vendor that sells DRMed content, is acting in bad faith with their customers. I don't know what to feel about that. It's hard to tell if there's really "informed consent" on the DRM issue yet. When I hear people defend Apple's DRM, I think they're damned fools and don't really understand how nasty DRM is yet. But that's just my opinion. It's also clear that at least some people do know better, so if they buy into DRM systems prior to them being cracked, then they unambiguously deserve what they get.
Now Apple is going to have to crack down again. ... The music industry can point to this as another example of why the restrictions need to be in the hardware and the hardware manufacturers are already in their pocket as far as the next generation of motherboards are concerned.
As for the costs of this overall thing happening, though, I don't see it as a big deal. We don't know the terms of Apple's deal with the record labels, so it's not really clear whether or not Apple really has to do anything. Maybe they do maybe they don't. But if they are required to crack down, then this crack down expense is something they've always known was going to happen. It's just not reasonable for a player, this early in the DRM war, to expect to not have to fight and budget for it. And as for the music industry, they don't really have anything to point at, because this incident doesn't actually harm them in any way.
Thanks to the pirates, those of us who buy the stuff again have to pay with further restrictions.
That's something that sometimes happens, but I don't see what this particular incident has to do with pirates in any way. Save those comments for the Kazaa stories. ;-) Those are the fuckers who are giving the fight against DRM a bad name. But the crackers themselves, heck, they're the good guys.

--
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Re:Why crack it? by Dragoon412 · 2005-01-28 14:39 · Score: 3, Informative

Yes, I can.
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:55 · Score: 0

Look in Black's Law Dictionary under "contract of adhesion." Morally, there is no contract when there is no opportunity to negotiate the terms, and its ability to even be legally enforced is questionable (Specht v. Netscape).
Re:Why crack it? by returnoftheyeti · 2005-01-28 15:42 · Score: 1

ITs Collide - Chasing The Ghost.
I think she called it goth, and I think it was listed on Itunes as New Age. As to what it actually is, who knows
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 16:26 · Score: 1, Insightful

"If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD. It seems like a lot of hassle to set up an account, buy the music, download the music, crack the music, then convert the music to get to the same end result."

If you read some of the comments in the hymn source code there is an explaination why it was developed. The jist of it is that the crack was developed to show how worthless DRM really is when it comes to protecting content. As for hassles, it a bigger hassle to get the CD. You have to either goto the store and buy it order online, and you end up paying for song you don't want. If you want to use the CD with portable you have to rip the songs. It's less of a hassle to setup and account, buy, download the music, and run hymn on it which leaves you with a standard unprotected AAC file. Using the CD as you suggest takes alot longer than using iTunes and hymn. DRM keeps honest people honest while providing only a slight challenge to those who want to pirate the content. DRM actually gives more incentives to get a pirate copy because you can do anything to the pirate copy, no asking for permission.

"Admittedly, without the thrill of "fighting the man", but in this case "the man" is giving you virtually everything you asked for (inexpensive music you can try before you buy with the ability to download exactly what you want and make mix CDs, which you could then rip as well without needing this tool.)"

I am not sure how inexpensive iTunes is. When they start selling losslessly compressed tunes for 99 cents I consider it. Your paying a buck for a track that's lossy compressed and at a substainually lower bit rate than a song on a CD. Why would I want to burn a CD, rip, and degrade the quality even more?

"Now Apple is going to have to crack down again."

Apple seems to have given up. The only way Apple is going to defeat hymn is change the DRM and/or the file format, creating a big hassle for them and their users. Even then I suspect their victory will be short lived. They can try and win in court, but the source code has been out for a while so I suspect that would go about as well as the DVD-CCA's attempt at stopping DeCSS(which is still widely avaliable. The Gallery CSS Descramblers comes to mind. Thank to Dr. David S. Touretzky, Computer Science Department, Carnegie Mellon University).

"What does this win us? The music industry can point to this as another example of why the restrictions need to be in the hardware and the hardware manufacturers are already in their pocket as far as the next generation of motherboards are concerned."

No one said you had to buy one. You get to vote with your wallet what technology you buy into. As far as embedding DRM in the hardware goes, look at modern game consoles. All the major consoles have DRM that prevents the console from playing games that have been copied or altered. In every case someone has found away around it. There are hacks one can perform on the Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube that will bypass these protection systems. Game consoles are very closed and proprietary compared to a PC. Before any hardware DRM can be used it has to have away to recognise protected content and find the rights associated with said content, which usually mean something in the file. For example, someone might find away to alter the rights assigned to given peace of protected content and it only takes one hacked copy. The point is there is no such thing as a secure system. DRM as technology is fundamentally flawed. The only reason DRM has been as successful as it has been is because it's been propped up by laws and even that hasn't stopped determined people from cracking it. The content industries best hope is to give people more incentives to buy the original than to get a pirated copy. These mean they need to quite punishing the people who do buy the original with ineffective DRM schemes that serves only to fustrate legit consumers.
Re:Why crack it? by fingusernames · 2005-01-28 17:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

Who said rockstars need to have their every whim catered to? Who drove the cost of music videos through the roof? Who demands artists pay $20,000/hour for some "big name" producer to hit a few buttons in Pro Tools? Who demands artists pay thousands an hour for studio time? Who created this bloated, overinflated, cookie cutter music market where it's ridiculously expensive to get exposure? Who helped create the radio station conglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinity? Who created this situation where it's prohibitively difficult for non-affiliated artists to get more than small, local exposure?

Uh, the people who paid, still pay, and continue to pay for it? Big-evil-corporations exist because people pay them money. Nobody needs music on CDs/records/tapes, or encoded in mp3s. Nobody has a right to it. The only rights involved are those of the creator and of those to whom he delegates his rights.

Nobody forces an artist to sign a contract with a big label. They do it of their own free will, generally because of greed. They aren't content with having their "real" jobs, playing at local venues when they aren't working to pay rent, perhaps growing popular through word of mouth. They want to "hit it big" and think they need the power of an agent/label/distributor/so-on. Such is their right.

That a work of art should have protection against copying was an obvious and fundamental enough concept that our ancestors enshrined it in the Constitution of the United States as an explicit obligation of the Congress to enforce, over two hundred years ago, when music was sold via lyric sheet. The mental product of your fellow man has value, and is worthy of legal protection. Regarding DRM, finding some clever way to open a vault and remove the gold within makes it no less theft. Finding clever ways around DRM to extract the protected work within makes the act no less theft.

Nobody has the right to music, or software, cable TV or for that matter health care. Something that requires the labor of another is not a right. To believe otherwise is to believe that others must labor uncompensated (see: slavery) for oh-so-special you. If you don't like the price being charged, if you don't like the terms of the sale (usage restrictions), don't buy it, and don't steal it. Something that is worth stealing is worth protecting. You know that, they know that.

It's very simple. If enough people cut restricted/expensive music out of their lives entirely, the market will adapt.

Larry
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 17:08 · Score: 0

Because the CD gives you the moral and legal right to do whatever you want with the audio data, within fair use. The iTunes Music Store does not. You agree to a contract stating that you will not defeat its DRM.

Says you. In my value system, the right of fair use trumps the iTMS terms of service.

It's called a trade-off. Life is full of them.

But some trade-offs are not necessary.
Re:Why crack it? by shark72 · 2005-01-28 19:25 · Score: 1

"Who demands artists pay $20,000/hour for some "big name" producer to hit a few buttons in Pro Tools?"

Really? If I buy Pro Tools I'll be as good as Quincy Jones or Nile Rogers? I was always under the impression that musical talent was unevenly distributed, and took lots of work and practice. Would it also be accurate to say that buying an expensive C++ compiler will make me write code as good as the highest-paid professionsals? Likewise, are highly paid programmers not worth the money? If, say, the record companies are suckers for spending crazy money on talented producers, are companies like Google also being stupid when they do what it takes to recruit talented programmers?

"We want more reasonably priced music, but they won't give that to us, either."

Are you sure? Music prices are freefalling. Looks like they're making an effort.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 19:53 · Score: 0

You are a moron. You've been brainwashed to believe "pirates" are destroying your way of life from being a good citizen. On the contrary, regardless of "pirates", there will always be DRM of some kind. DRM helps the cartels sell their music over and over in different formats. Essentially, they're selling DRM, not music. Isn't it too obvious by now that bootleggers have no trouble removing DRM? How many examples does it take for morons like you to understand? The entertainment cartels already understood, but they aren't willing to yield their control, not even a little.

Is it any wonder why the cartels keep selling the same oldies after every 5 years or each decade? If you believe you're paying for a license to access their music, then why do you have to pay for these classic hits and top oldies when you already paid for them? You should be able to show them your original cassette tapes in a store and get a free CD, or the next gen media/format, but that doesn't happen.

Keep blaming the "pirates" and be a good little dog of the entertainment cartels. Hopefully, they might throw you a bone, but don't stop drooling though.

Lastly, if you don't want DRM, don't buy DRM products. Why go out of your way to give them your money, and then whine and cry about how they're treating you?
Re:Why crack it? by TheRaven64 · 2005-01-28 22:46 · Score: 1

A flat rate model is nice in theory, but you fail to mention how artists are compensated. Do they each get an equal cut of this flat rate, irrespective of quantity, quality, and popularity of music recorded? If I record myself playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on one hand on a piano and make it available, am I also entitled to an equal share in this? Or should artists follow the open source model (something, by the way, that the FSF is against) and give away free recordings as advertising to persuade people and venues to hire them to perform live?

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Why crack it? by TheRaven64 · 2005-01-28 22:51 · Score: 1

Actually, all CDs have DRM, and always have. It's not very effective though. It's a single bit set which marks the CD as copyright, and a second one which marks it as original. When you make a copy of the CD with a machine or piece of software that complies with the specification, it is supposed to unset the original bit and leave the copyright bit set. Compliant copiers are then supposed to refuse to copy this copy.
Back when CDs were new and shiny, I recall one manufacturer (Sony, as I recall) `circumventing' this limitation by connecting a DAC back to back with an ADC in a CD copier. This produced a bitwise exact copy of the audio data (there was no noise or interference in the very short analogue phase), but because it went through an analogue path it was permitted.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Why crack it? by nagora · 2005-01-28 23:35 · Score: 1

You have effectively signed a legally binding contract.
You don't understand the concept of a legal contract, so perhaps you should choose not to talk shite about it.
TWW

--
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:Why crack it? by curious.corn · 2005-01-28 23:51 · Score: 1

Hmm, sounds like something I'd call industrial trip-hop (the guitars sould like Quake3's Operation Overlord). Doesn't sound bad...

--
Mi domando chi Ã il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Re:Why crack it? by laughingcoyote · 2005-01-29 00:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

Artists and such could follow such an open-source model. The FSF might be against that, but I don't work for them, and I have no problem with that concept.

Also, artists could be paid based on number of downloads. If a million dollars are available, and my song is downloaded 999,999 times to your 1 time of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I get the 999k and change, and you get a buck. It is possible to get pretty accurate statistics through random sampling, ask TV about Nielsen ratings. Networks can also be sampled more widely. Not perfect, but very close (and really, the imperfections would amount to no more then current clerical errors on cue sheets). As to where the money would come from, it would come from a "pool" from the flat rates paid, or under collective license model, under a tax on (media/bandwidth/CD burners/take your pick). That pool would be divided according to popularity (so no, your version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star does -not- weigh in equally with Nickelback's new single. Unless you get the same number of downloads.)

And of course, artists would still be able to perform live. There is certainly something about seeing Dave Matthews live that downloading a videotape of the performance doesn't even begin to capture, as is true of many other artists. Not everything can be digitized, but this model would be very fair to both producer and consumer for those things which can be.

And not everyone downloads this stuff. Some people prefer to go to Best Buy and purchase their shiny new CD/DVD/shrinkwrapped software package. Those people will not be going away anytime soon. But in the meantime, some of us don't. And every successful company in the world learns this-it's a cliche, but most cliches get that way because they're correct.

The customer is ALWAYS right.

When your customers say "We want this", you have several choices. You may find a way to deliver what they want, in the way they want it, at the price they want it, and make money. If you do this, your business will succeed. You may decide it's impossible, close up the shop, and go home to try something else. Or you may tell your customers that they're wrong, and try to push on them what they don't want rather than give them what they do. In that case, you should spend time researching bankruptcy lawyers, you'll need one pretty soon.

Currently, the "IP industries" are telling us-their customers-that not only are we wrong, we are thieves. I wonder, if I get into law school specializing in bankruptcy now, how soon I can graduate? There'll be a need pretty soon. Treating your customers like criminals is not, anywhere that I've seen, advised for someone who wants to run a successful business. And don't kid yourself that this is theft. This is an intangible. Theft is walking into the store and walking out with an item (a physical one) for which you did not pay. What's going on here is more akin to walking in and talking to the salescperson for a while, but not buying anything. You cost the company money, granted (they pay those salespeople, and they could've been selling to someone interested), but by the logic of the **AA's, that company should be able to sue you. For causing them-not real damages, but imaginary, potential damages.

--
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Re:Why crack it? by A+Drake+Man · 2005-01-29 00:46 · Score: 1

For the vast majority of the 250 million songs sold, "the man" is giving them EXACTLY what they want. Most haven't heard of hymn and is probably wondering why they would want to use that on their new Mac Mini with the iPod shuffle.
The problem is that those people who TRULY want completely UN'DRM'd music won't take a stand and refuse to buy from the iTMS. Companies respond when customers speak with their dollars. IF, instead of boycotting the iTMS, you purchase the music and un'DRM it, you're still sending the signal (by way of paying for it) that "This is EXACTLY what I want Apple!" Then you've just added your name to the list of hundreds of thousands of other sheep.
If downloadable music without DRM is the desire, then you should accept nothing less. Regardless of what statements you make after the fact, what programs you run, you're supporting the current system to do otherwise.
Re:Why crack it? by A+Drake+Man · 2005-01-29 00:54 · Score: 1

You should go here to find the solution to your problem. From there, you'll see that once you fill out the webform here you'll have your other authorization back to use.
It's a good point you made, I'm just glad that Apple considered this eventuality.
Re:Why crack it? by A+Drake+Man · 2005-01-29 01:00 · Score: 1

You didn't really need to learn to use Hymn for that :) Since you're recompressing from an already compressed format, you're doing no better than if you burned the CD then ripped the track back as an MP3. Hymn is really only an advantage if you plan on playing the file on a player that supports AAC.
Re:Why crack it? by A+Drake+Man · 2005-01-29 01:29 · Score: 1

If un-DRM'd music is important, then buying it and removing the DRM doesn't serve your case.
Wildly off-topic only margarinally :) related analogy.
You go to the movies, you get popcorn and you want butter on it. However, THIS theater doesn't offer butter (as a cost cutting move!) so you have to go without. It's really a shame though because this theater has those new X-tra-Comfy(TM) seats with the Mi-T-Grippe(TM) cup holders and the sound system? NOTHING less than Now-UR-Deff(TM) audio! The experience would be truly movilicious if they just had the gosh darned butter!
Of course, if you want popcorn you're not going to do without it, so you start bringing your own sticks. The first few times, they catch you and tell you to toss it, but you soon figure out that by melting it into a reservoir and attaching a hose to that, you can fit it comfortably under your clothes and they're None-The-Wiser(TM).
Meanwhile, the owner's thinking,"Gee, getting rid of the butter saved me TONS!" Does he care if you're sneaking in contraband dairy? No. Why? Because he's ALREADY got your MONEY.
If you want butter, (un-DRM'd music), then PAYING for, ah, not-butter? (DRM'd music) doesn't advance your cause. Sure, you have the instant gratification, but what if you were able to convince millions upon millions that DRM is a universally bad thing? The companies would have NO choice but to give the customer what they want.
On the flip side, even if I personally went to every house and used Hymn to remove the DRM from each one of the 250 million songs sold AND set up a utility that would un-DRM every song bought from now on, each purchase is STILL sending the signal that "I WANT DRM!!"
Re:Why crack it? by Dragoon412 · 2005-01-29 02:27 · Score: 1

Uh, the people who paid, still pay, and continue to pay for it? Big-evil-corporations exist because people pay them money. Nobody needs music on CDs/records/tapes, or encoded in mp3s. Nobody has a right to it. The only rights involved are those of the creator and of those to whom he delegates his rights.

You're making the logical leap of faith that just because people buy a product they want or need, that it equates to approving of what they do with the money. A good analogy would be Windows; I'm an avid gamer, as I'm sure many other Slashdotters are. I buy Windows not because I want to reward Microsoft for their sleazy business practices, but because it allows me to do something I enjoy.

Nobody forces an artist to sign a contract with a big label. They do it of their own free will, generally because of greed.

Or maybe they do it out of motivation for larger exposure? Maybe that artists has something to say, or wants as many people as possible to enjoy his music? Maybe he wants a chance to afford a better instrument, or access to tools he couldn't normally afford so he can experiement with his sound.

Regarding DRM, finding some clever way to open a vault and remove the gold within makes it no less theft. Finding clever ways around DRM to extract the protected work within makes the act no less theft.

First off, you're completely missing the point in that the people breaking the DRM in this situation A) already bought the product, B) have other, legal (though more cumbersome) means of circumventing the DRM, and C) are excersizing a right explicitly granted them.

Analogy time!

The government grants us the right to use public sidewalks. So, I'm walking to the corner store one day, and find one guy has decided to pile a bunch of junk on the sidewalk in front of his house. Now, technically, to be completely legal, I should turn around, walk to the crosswalk, and take the sidewalk on the other side of the street, but that's a pain in the butt; it's a block back the way I came from. So, I walk on the guy's yard, around the pile of junk, which is technically trespassing, but hey, it only takes a few seconds, and it's his damned fault for putting the junk there in the first place. Either way I wind up at the store. Either way I had to walk. But this way, it takes me the same amount of time it should have in the first place had that guy not tried to interfere with my right.

If you don't like the price being charged, if you don't like the terms of the sale (usage restrictions), don't buy it, and don't steal it. Something that is worth stealing is worth protecting. You know that, they know that.

It's been stated several times already, but you don't seem to be catching on: the people cracking iTunes DRM already purchased the music. Congradulations, you've bought into the RIAA's line of bullshit! You're calling people who just bought music thieves.

It's very simple. If enough people cut restricted/expensive music out of their lives entirely, the market will adapt.

Note that the industry, years running now, has been complaining about declining sales. Have you seen them do anything? They blame a scapegoat (piracy), and continue to do the exact same crap they have been. These idiots are going to keep doing what they're doing until the government slaps them around, or they go out of business.
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 02:46 · Score: 0

Sorry, but I call bullshit on this one. When I moved from Jaguar to Panther, I started with a fresh install of the new OS on a blank HD partition. Same thing as reinstalling the OS. I did not have to use another iTunes authorization.

Oh sure, my music came up unauthorized, but when I reauthorized my computer, I found I hadn't lost an authorization. The number of authorizations remaining stayed the same.

An Apple support rep informed me that the authorization code is tied to the computer's motherboard, not the OS, so you can't lose an authorization just by reinstalling.
Re:Why crack it? by Junior+J.+Junior+III · 2005-01-29 03:45 · Score: 1

That's an interesting and valid point, but even so, as long as you can remove the DRM, you can still get what you want out of DRM files.

You're right that it doesn't send the right message to the merchant, and ultimately legitimizes DRM music. Boycotting is a better solution, except that it means you might never get the music that you want.

So that leaves "piracy". There's plenty of legal ways to get music for free -- recording off the radio for private use without sharing, for example.

--
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Re:Why crack it? by g8oz · 2005-01-29 04:13 · Score: 1

Because the CD probably has DRM on it too, these days.

I have seen plenty of CDs with DRM. I have yet to see one that fazed my ripper of choice, CDex.
So your first point is moot.
Re:Why crack it? by gstoddart · 2005-01-29 04:51 · Score: 1

If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD. It seems like a lot of hassle to set up an account, buy the music, download the music, crack the music, then convert the music to get to the same end result.

I couldn't agree with you more. The only MP3s I have were ripped from my own CDs, and then used from there. I don't have any interest in buying music from itunes or downloading from the net.

I don't know if I'm a rarity in the music-listening public or not, but to me stripping DRM from those sources is completely irrelevant.

I'll probably buy an iPod-shuffle, because that's the format I most want -- a small light-weight player for sport which can have a load of music on it. Right now, that device doesn't require DRM'd music to play, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Guess I'm just gettig old. :-P

--
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:Why crack it? by Anonym0us+Cow+Herd · 2005-01-29 07:08 · Score: 1

Why crack it?

Q. Why climb a mountain?
A. Because it's there.

--
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Re:Why crack it? by sabat · 2005-01-29 10:14 · Score: 1

If I buy Pro Tools I'll be as good as Quincy Jones or Nile Rogers?

Perhaps not, but until Quincy and Nile start producing every album that's released, your point is pointless.

The guy's argument here is that many big-name producers are really just Pro Tools jockeys, and he's probably right.

Music prices are freefalling. Looks like they're making an effort.

I quote the article in full, below. A 4% drop does not qualify for "freefalling," nor does it seem like much of an effort. (I'm presuming this article is legit and not just an RIAA-sponsored smokescreen.)

$12.95 is too expensive for what you get on a CD. I'd be willing to pay maybe $1.99 for the average CD. $1.50 might be more reasonable, but I'd go as high as $1.99.

Report: Average CD Price Drops 4% in Q3 2004 to $12.95
Posted 15. November 2004 17:51

CD prices hit a new low in the third quarter of 2004, when the average retail price of a CD fell to $12.95, a 4% decline from the same period a year ago, according to data from New York-based market research firm NPD Group.

--
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Re:Why crack it? by shark72 · 2005-01-30 13:04 · Score: 1

We'll have to agree to disagree that the most sought-after producers are people of average talent who simply use ProTools. I believe that in music production as well as many other industries, the cream rises to the top.

The 4% drop last year was just the latest in a multi-year trend. Remember five years ago when new releases at $18 were common? That's almost a 33% drop since then, not even accounting for inflation. I was paying $16 for CDs in 1984; that would be about $28 in today's dollars. If only cars and clothes and food and rent had fallen as much!

"$12.95 is too expensive for what you get on a CD. I'd be willing to pay maybe $1.99 for the average CD. $1.50 might be more reasonable, but I'd go as high as $1.99."

Not going to happen, of course. The record company typically pays the factory north of a buck for the finished CD. A model that allowed for a price of $1.99 per CD would rely on everybody from the artist to the folks at the record store operating on a volunteer basis.

FWIW the average price was reported by NPD; they're a market tracking firm that covers a lot of industries. I use them for tracking data in the PC peripheral industry and their data is usually rock-solid. They get the pricing data not by talking to manufacturers, but by doing store checks. Their music arm is here. An older but more complete announcement, which has a nifty graph showing the price drop over the past few years, is here.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:Why crack it? by MadMoses · 2005-01-31 02:03 · Score: 1

I agree with everything you said, but not the following:

Regarding DRM, finding some clever way to open a vault and remove the gold within makes it no less theft. Finding clever ways around DRM to extract the protected work within makes the act no less theft.

First of all, copyright infringement != theft.

But even if we ignore that, your analogy does not hold true. If I buy gold protected by a vault, it's perfectly okay for me to find a clever way of removing the gold within and carry it wherever I want to, without asking for anyone's permission. If I buy a song protected by DRM, it should be perfectly okay for me to find a clever way of extracting the song within and use it on whatever device I want to, without asking for anyone's permission.

Why anyone would want to buy gold protected by a vault of which only someone else knows the combination, I don't know. Same with DRM.

--

Do not be alarmed. This is only a test.
Re:Why crack it? by fingusernames · 2005-01-31 05:15 · Score: 1

Perhaps the analogy wasn't so great. But the thing to keep in mind is that you are not purchasing the music. You purchasing a license to play the music, a license which comes with terms, to which you agreed by the act of purchasing. If you don't like the terms, then you simply shouldn't purchase it.

As for copyright infringement not being theft, that is debatable. Speaking from my background studying property rights in regards to the takings power (emminent domain) of government, the right of ownership in property consists of a "bundle" of rights. Taking one of those rights from the owner is, I believe, theft. You needn't take them all. It should be inarguable that one of the rights in intellectual property is the sole power to determine who may and may not have access to your property and under what terms. If the author decided that you should be able to listen only on the second Tuesday of May each year, it is his right to attempt to sell that for whatever price the market will bear. If you don't like the terms, you are free to not purchase it. You are not free to unilaterally decide to change the terms of purchase because you feel restrained.

Larry
Re:Why crack it? by fingusernames · 2005-01-31 05:48 · Score: 1

I highly doubt that you purchased the music. You purchased a right to listen to/play/perform the music, what we call a license. That license has restrictions to which you agreed by the act of purchase.

Look, you must understand that you have no innate right to the music. None. Every last right in that music belongs 100% to the author and then to those to whom he has delegated rights. The only rights you obtain in the work are those granted to you, under the terms granted. Just because it is only recently that authors have had the technical ability provided to them to sell more fine-grained rights in the work, via encryption and DRM, doesn't make that any less their right to do with their works. If you don't like the terms, do not buy it! If you and one hundred million of your friends do that, the industry would surely listen. But instead, you just have to have that new Britney Spears song! To play on your kewl portable music player. Your short term desire to listen to music is more important to you than the long-term goal of forcing change in the way music is marketed. If you and many millions of like-minded friends don't have the stomach for a long-term, years-long consumer revolt against purchasing music when the terms are disagreeable, then the market will not adapt, as you provide it no reason.

As for Microsoft, the fact that you value your short-term pleasure (playing games) more than the long term effect of denying revenue to Microsoft is of no matter. In the final analysis, you are rewarding Microsoft for their market behavior: you are buying their products. How your money gets into their bank account matters not. This is analogous to purchasing clothing made by slave labor is some third world country, contributing to the profit of the slaveholder, and then stating that just because you wanted to save $1.37 over the other, non slave-produced product, you in no way whatsoever support slavery. You want to have your cake, and eat it too. You can't do it.

Also, keep in mind that I am speaking of a legal principle here, inherent in the functioning of a free market economy: the protection of property rights. Given full disclosure by all parties, agreements must be respected and enforced. In the case of DRM and Apple, that is the case. There is a license agreement presented to purchasers prior to purchase, disclosing the terms of the purchase. However, in the case of DRM and CDs purchased in the store, where said CD has no disclosure, I would argue that the purchaser has, at minimum, a right to return the product when the product is not what was reasonably expected: unencrypted music. Likewise, purchasers of software with "shrinkwrap" licenses, not disclosed prior to purchase, should have an uninhibited right to return the software.

I am not entirely on the side of the Big Evil Corporations. I am however on the side of the owners of property, and believe that the terms under which that property is sold or licensed must be respected and enforced by law, whether criminal or civil. If the terms are odious, then the market will respond. Perhaps it will take many years, but it will respond. If the market accepts the terms, despite your personal disagreement, well, that's life.

Larry
Re:Why crack it? by MadMoses · 2005-01-31 06:24 · Score: 1

If you don't like the terms, then you simply shouldn't purchase it.

We can agree on that.

But, copyright infringement is not theft according to the US Supreme Court. So please stop calling it theft.

--

Do not be alarmed. This is only a test.
Re:Why crack it? by fingusernames · 2005-01-31 07:52 · Score: 1

According to the link:

This Dowling case clearly establishes that copyright infringement, is just that, infringement of copyright.

It is not technically theft.

Not "technically" theft. To delve into this (note, that page calls the ruling, at twelve pages, "kind of long" -- that statement shows that the author hasn't read many substantive SCOTUS rulings -- it is in fact a quite brief ruling, hope you read it), the SCOTUS ruling in Dowling, per the summary of conclusions, is very clear in that they did not find an intent of Congress to criminalize copyright infringement. They wrote: Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud.

Note two things. First, the Supremes were not devining some everlasting moral truth regarding copyright infringement and theft. Rather, they were interpreting Congressional intent as of approximately 1980, specifically as to whether a particular action can be considered theft in a statutory sense, in particular since the bundle of statutory rights associated with a copyright is more complex than simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise[.]" Second, that was 1985, an appellate ruling on a case heard originally in 1980.

The last ruling by the Supremes directly regarding the Second Amendment to the Federal Constitution (Miller) found that as the defendant (who did not show up in court) did not prove that a sawed off shotgun was in common use by the United States Army, Congress could ban its possession. That is the extant standard by which the Second Amendment
is officially viewed by the SCOTUS. Would you argue, however, that a ruling in the 1930s is the last word on the issue? There are many who quite passionately would not. Just as today it is unlikely that the Supremes would overturn a federal ban on so-called "assault weapons" based on that criteria (the U.S. Army uses them), likewise it is rather unlikley that Dowling would be the last word on the issue of copyright infringement and the criminality thereof. Congressional intent has changed over the course of 25 years. Copyright law has adapted, and Congressional intent to make circumvention of the protection of copyrighted works a crime is now law.

Further, I believe that taking something which is not yours, without permission, is theft, regardless of whether it is actionable under criminal or civil juris. Semantics matter greatly when one is in court. However, in a discussion of the morality of the issue, I believe that the larger meaning of the word theft is appropriate, and I shall assuredly continue to use it.

Larry
Re:Why crack it? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-31 07:57 · Score: 0

Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822.3.

Spock, eh?
Re:Why crack it? by Uncle+Kadigan · 2005-01-31 09:45 · Score: 1

There are two problems with your position.
First, you (and the RIAA) may call it theft, but that doesn't make it so. Theft involves taking something from another and thus preventing their use of it. If I take a copy of a song but leave the original unaltered and still in the possession of the original owner, that is not theft. It is copyright infringement.
You may argue that there is theft of the revenue that the artist (and the RIAA) would otherwise derive, and perhaps there is some of that. However, it is obvious that many people simply would do without, rather than pay for music that they aren't particularly attached to. On the flip side, many people will go out and purchase music once they've had a free sample and decided that they like it. I know anecdotally that this is very true for myself and for many of my personal acquaintances.
Second, it is very clear (from both the Constitution and related writings by the founding fathers on this topic) that copyright was intended to be secured only for a limited time, so that society would benefit from an intellectual commons. All creative works (be they music, literature, film, or whatever) build on what has gone before. Nothing is created in a vacuum. Since society's intellectual commons provided the environment for the fruit, it is altogether fitting and proper that the fruit's remains pass back to that environment after the owner has received the bulk of the benefit.
The time-limited copyright is used as a mechanism to provide incentive for artists/writers/composers/etc. Although SCOTUS thinks the current length of copyright is technically a limited period of time, most reasonable people would conclude that for practical purposes, it is not.
There is no reason an alternate mechanism could not be used. In earlier times, patronage provided an artist with compensation for work that was then available for all to enjoy (I'm obviously simplifying here). A system which might work today could be to charge a premium for new music, and a discount for older works. Very old works would enter the public domain, as once they did.
It sounds as though I'm wandering off topic a bit, but the preceding has bearing. You seem to treat copyright infringement as a morally absolute wrong. It isn't. It is circumvention of a system that was originally designed to balance the rights and needs of society with those of the individual. Many, if not most, people now feel that balance is shifted too far in the artist's and RIAA's favor.
My point is that this is not a moral issue. It is a matter of providing reasonable compensation to those who produce works while ensuring that society is also allowed to benefit. Many believe that our current method of achieving this is broken.
Perhaps this will help you understand why so many people do not feel that they are doing anything wrong when they share music.

Prevent filesharing? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

for iTunes song files laden, or 'crippled' as some say, to prevent filesharing.

or crippled files to prevent me from doing whatever I want with the files I BOUGHT, thankyouverymuch. I don't share, I don't pirate, but I demand total freedom when it comes to changing from one's format to another.

Re:Prevent filesharing? by newwind · 2005-01-28 12:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

Then it does not sound like you want to buy iTunes. Why would you support something that you do not agree with?
Re:Prevent filesharing? by xgamer04 · 2005-01-28 19:36 · Score: 1

prevent me from doing whatever I want with the files I BOUGHT,

I haven't RTFEULA of the itunes store, but there's probably a clause somewhere in there saying "you won't mess with the DRM", and if you live in copyright FascistLands (i.e. USA) it's illegal to remove that protection anyway. You can't really say that you "bought" the tracks, either, you just purchased a "licensing right" to listen to them under certain conditions.

--
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?

Re:DRM by Lisandro · 2005-01-28 11:43 · Score: 1

Relevant link here!

Nothing, just as he's done for months now by SuperKendall · 2005-01-28 11:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

When Hymn first came out (under a different name) they released iTunes 4.6 almost right away which would not see files that the old Hymn had converted - by recognizing one aspect of the converted files that was particular to Hymn generated files.

Hymn released a fix in short order - I think back in July? It was a long time ago anyway. And since that time, Apple has done nothing to shut down project-hymn.org. And multiple releases of iTunes since then have done nothing to stop these files from playing - which it cannot do because they are now identical to files that you rip from CD yourself with AAC!!

If Apple could or would do anything about Hymn, they would have done it by now.

Since sales on ITMS have kept going up, no-one really cares if you can break the DRM or not.

I'm not sure if Hymn still does it, but it used to even keep the ID of the owner in the file to make it impractical to share on P2P networks (as it could easily be traced back to the owner). I thougt that was a nice touch to show it really was not meant for piracy.

I use Hymn myself, no to crack my master files but to break them so I can share them at work. The annoying thing about iTunes sharing is that if another user is not authorized to play a song it halts and brings up a dialogue, making true random play over another users library impractical. Once a co-worker and I even went so far as to authorize each others computer to play our music so that we could listen to the libraries of the other.

I don't feel like using DRM cracks for this use is at all like P2P, since it's just streaming the song and not transferring it - plus lots of people discover music they might not have otherwise and it helps those artists out (which I feel P2P does as well, but it's a different and much greyer case).

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Nothing, just as he's done for months now by nightgeometry · 2005-01-28 11:55 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually itunes 4.7 breaks hymned files.

--
The best is the enemy of the good
Re:Nothing, just as he's done for months now by mrchaotica · 2005-01-28 12:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

When Hymn first came out (under a different name) they released iTunes 4.6 almost right away which would not see files that the old Hymn had converted - by recognizing one aspect of the converted files that was particular to Hymn generated files.

Hymn released a fix in short order

Yeah, it was really annoying that Apple did that -- the entire reason for that uniqueness was to discourage copyright infringement by putting up a big red flag saying "this song was came from ITMS." Combined with the fact that it (still, hopefully) leaves the Apple user ID the hope was that Apple would sue copyright infringers (like the RIAA, only with an accurate way to tell who's infringing). Instead, Apple forced them to remove the feature, which was stupid because it was in Apple's own best interests to have it there in the first place!

I wouldn't call it a "fix;" I would call it a "regrettably necessary workaround of Apple's stupidity."

I don't feel like using DRM cracks for this use is at all like P2P, since it's just streaming the song and not transferring it...

Just FYI, there are several programs (for example, Leechster) that allow people to download from iTunes shares instead of just stream. It's still not in the same league as Kazaa, since you have to be in close physical (or logical, in the case of VPNs) proximity to use it, though.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Nothing, just as he's done for months now by valkraider · 2005-01-28 13:33 · Score: 1

Just FYI, there are several programs (for example, Leechster) that allow people to download from iTunes shares instead of just stream. It's still not in the same league as Kazaa, since you have to be in close physical (or logical, in the case of VPNs) proximity to use it, though.

MyTunes and OurTunes
Re:Nothing, just as he's done for months now by CAlworth1 · 2005-01-28 13:37 · Score: 1

I don't feel like using DRM cracks for this use is at all like P2P, since it's just streaming the song and not transferring it

Actually, it is transfering it, just slowly. It is possible to use tcp dump or ethereal to catch every packet sent and make a song file from them - this is what the old versions of getTunes used to do. It is also possible to pretend to be itunes and download the songs that way, as the current versions of getTunes and myTunes do. iTunes acts like a http server, but one which requires very specific requests to get the music properly - some old versions of getTunes actually used either curl or wget to get the music!
Re:Nothing, just as he's done for months now by delus10n0 · 2005-01-28 17:27 · Score: 1

If you didn't strip your Apple tags, yeah..

JHymn can be set up to do so, and they even have instructions on their main page.

--
Not All Who Wander Are Lost

I just used JHymn by adamgee · 2005-01-28 11:44 · Score: 3, Informative

To churn through 10 GB of music I had either purchased through iTunes, or ripped myself using AAC (drinking the koolaid made me use AAC over MP3). All legally obtained. Why? TiVo desktop cannot play AAC/m4p files, only MP3. So I either spring $200+ for and airport card and airport express to stream my music to the stereo, or convert it to something more useable. Worked like a charm. I wouldn't have to do it if Apple/TiVo would get it together and let me use my music on the gear I already own.

Re:I just used JHymn by BurntNickel · 2005-01-28 11:57 · Score: 1

Not a bad idea if they could do that. Yet another excuse, err, reason to get a TiVo.

--
And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...
Re:I just used JHymn by dlelash · 2005-01-28 12:09 · Score: 1

I believe you can convert regular AAC to MP3 within iTunes, without needing any other program. It's only the Music Store files that are protected.
Re:I just used JHymn by edge_crumbler · 2005-01-28 12:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

This is EXACTLY why I want to use it too. I have just got a new mobile phone that does AAC and I want to play the tunes I bought off ITMS but I don't want the hassle of having two sets of music, one DRM free and the other not for my iPod.
Re:I just used JHymn by EnronHaliburton2004 · 2005-01-28 12:29 · Score: 1

I believe you can convert regular AAC to MP3 within iTunes,

I'm looking for that now...

There's an option to burn mp3s onto a CD (Edit: Preferences: Burning), and if you import music you can import as an MP3 (But it's twice the size as an AAC).

I don't see any option to convert your AAC's to MP3s on the HD.

Personally, we haven't had any problem with simply copying the AAC to another computer (Copy to portable storage/DVD, bring storage to friends house, copy to their computer).

--
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Re:I just used JHymn by anethema · 2005-01-28 12:52 · Score: 1

Correct.

--

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Re:I just used JHymn by Finque · 2005-01-28 12:52 · Score: 1

I don't see any option to convert your AAC's to MP3s on the HD.
You can convert anything iTunes can decode to anything iTunes can encode, with the exception of .m4p (iTMS) files.
Select any song in your library, Advanced - "Convert Selection to XXX" where XXX is your preferred converting method.
I routinely do it to lower those ridiculous 320kbps MP3s that seem to "crop up" everywhere...
Re:I just used JHymn by EnronHaliburton2004 · 2005-01-28 13:12 · Score: 1

"Convert Selection to XXX"

Hrm, all I have is "Convert Selection to AAC" ... the files are .m4a. Is that what you meant by .m4p?

--
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Re:I just used JHymn by anethema · 2005-01-28 13:16 · Score: 1

mp3s are NOT twice of AAC unless you encode at twice the bitrate. No AAC isnt twice as good as mp3 for sound quality, but it is better.

Anyways to solved your hdd problem, change your import settings to the mp3 bitrate/quality you want, then select the files you want, then right clikc (on pc?) and convert to mp3.

--

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Re:I just used JHymn by switcha · 2005-01-28 13:17 · Score: 0, Troll

if Apple/TiVo would get it together and let me use my music on the gear I already own.
Preach it brother! It's like those jerks at Subaru. My Outback won't take diesel, which is the fuel I prefer. I mean, I bought into their car, but who the hell are they to say how I use it? Sheesh. They need to get it together with the fuel companies and let me use the historically cheapest, and in my opinion (I drank the diesel), best fuel on the gear I already own.

--
You know what? ... A little club soda *did* get that out!
Re:I just used JHymn by valkraider · 2005-01-28 13:22 · Score: 2, Informative

In your "import" settings, change the import format to MP3 and then the "Convert Selection to" will also change to MP3. (Not very straight forward, and kind of annoying)
Re:I just used JHymn by Finque · 2005-01-28 13:24 · Score: 1

m4a is any music file you rip/convert/etc yourself. It's Apple's AAC file extension.
m4p is any music file you buy from iTMS. It's Apple's Protected AAC file extension.
Re:I just used JHymn by RatBastard · 2005-01-28 13:26 · Score: 1

Along with what everyone else has said, you don't need an Airport card to use the Airport Express. It plugs into your netwirk and works out of the box. Well, mine did.

--
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Re:I just used JHymn by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:30 · Score: 0

GOD you're such a dumbass. Change the format in your preferences, dunce.
Re:I just used JHymn by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:51 · Score: 0

Which version of iTunes do you have? I think JHymn was designed to work with 4.6, but since I have iTunes 4.7.1, I had to log in to iTMS for JHymn to obtain my keys. Hopefully that doesn't mean JHymn went ahead and bought my songs again O_o;.

BTW, you can use iTunes to convert AAC files that you ripped to MP3s. iTunes only disallows you from converting Protected AAC files that you've purchased from iTMS.
Re:I just used JHymn by EnronHaliburton2004 · 2005-01-28 13:53 · Score: 1

Gosh, that's so obvious. How could I possibly not know that to change "Advanced: Save as AAC" I need to modify an option under "Edit: Preferences: Importing".

Modify the "export" settings by changing the "import" settings. It's so intuitive!!!

How about an "Save as ..." submenu, like practically every other application on the planet?

--
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Re:I just used JHymn by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:12 · Score: 0

You're not exporting the song, you're importing from another song that's already in your library. It doesn't belong under "Save as..." because you're not saving the song as external data.
Re:I just used JHymn by mOdQuArK! · 2005-01-28 14:14 · Score: 1

Another idiot misapplying a car analogy. If you had a car where it would run only on gasoline that you had to buy from the dealer (or authorized agent), then your analogy might actually be worth discussing.
Re:I just used JHymn by adamgee · 2005-01-28 15:08 · Score: 1

Problem is that my mac is wired to my network. Maybe I could buy the AirPort Express and plug it into my hub....
But I'd still have to leave the room to change tracks on my mac via iTunes, when I can do it from the couch via TiVo HMO...
Re:I just used JHymn by EnronHaliburton2004 · 2005-01-28 15:19 · Score: 1

It doesn't belong under "Save as..." because you're not saving the song as external data.

I'm converting one file in one format to another file in another format. I can use the file externally to the application, so the data is as external as any other music file, or text document, etc.

Really I think this is just bad UI. Seems like Apple is trying to hide certain features and be a little too helpful again.

--
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Re:I just used JHymn by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 15:52 · Score: 0

Last time I checked, it wasn't a grey legal area to modify your car to use diesel. Or to modify the fuel to work with your fuel system. That is not the case with stripping DRM. So you see, your analogy is not very good.
Re:I just used JHymn by Alsee · 2005-01-28 18:10 · Score: 1

Preach it brother! It's like those jerks at Subaru. My Outback won't take diesel

Subaru does not attempt to PROHIBIT it.

And the point of his post isn't so much a complaint about the format that Apple gave him the file. It was about Hymn being perfectly legitimate and an attack on any idiot how thinks there's something wrong with deisel conversion kits. Errr, I mean idiots who think there is something wrong with Hymn.

-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:I just used JHymn by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 21:36 · Score: 0

No, you're importing the song because you're incorporating the converted song into your iTunes library. iTunes is about managing your own database of songs while MS Office is about sharing works. For legitimate usage of iTunes, the concept of exporting or doing a "save as" for another PC is unnecessary.
Re:I just used JHymn by EnronHaliburton2004 · 2005-01-29 08:09 · Score: 1

the concept of exporting or doing a "save as" for another PC is unnecessary.

Perhaps, but the menu option already says "Save as". If it said "reimport as" or "convert as" it would make more sense

--
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act

Google Cache by jasonmantey · 2005-01-28 11:45 · Score: 1

Google Cache: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:_4O95TtIFRIJ: www.hymn-project.org/jhymndoc/+&hl=en&client=firef ox-a

--
JM

apple zealots - start your engines by Saeger · 2005-01-28 11:47 · Score: 0, Redundant

Ooo. I can't wait to hear the apple zealots rant again against THIS instance in reverse engineering. "I mean, come on people, Apple is trying to play fair here! why can't you just accept this little DRM compromise?! Wah wah."

--
Power to the Peaceful

Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Mononoke · 2005-01-28 12:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ok, I'll bite.
If it weren't for Apple's DRM on the music sold through the iTMS, there would be no iTMS. No way to buy that one track you like. No way to support the artists that deserve the support. None at all.
Your turn.

--
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:16 · Score: 0

Actually the idea that music companies would ignore the potential of downloads just doesn't add up - the alternative would be to leave consumers with the only other download option, "piracy". Apple isn't as special as you might like to believe; music downloads would have appeared sooner or later.
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:23 · Score: 0

Ha ha, 0WNED! Take THAT, Shit-Sager!!!
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:32 · Score: 0

You seriously think music companies haven't been using the Ostrich Defense all this time?
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Cid+Highwind · 2005-01-28 13:56 · Score: 1

If it weren't for Apple's DRM on the music sold through the iTMS, there would be no iTMS. No way to buy that one track you like. No way to support the artists that deserve the support.

Sounds good to me. No iTMS = less revenue for big record labels. That would speed the inevitable demise of the RIAA, and limit the potential damage they can do to the American legal system before they go.

--
0 1 - just my two bits
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Hitchcock_Blonde · 2005-01-28 14:33 · Score: 0

Spoken like a true, Nike shoe wearin' pseudo-anarchist.

--
Karma Schmarma
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 18:47 · Score: 0

Spoken like a guy with 'cock' in his name.
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Alsee · 2005-01-28 20:06 · Score: 1

If it weren't for Apple's DRM on the music sold through the iTMS, there would be no iTMS.

In other words the members of the RIAA have conspired to abuse their monopoly power and exclude any legal non-DRM market.

No way to support the artists that deserve the support. None at all.

Apple wanted to sell MP3s. Apple doubtless still wants to sell MP3s.

Your turn.

-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Mononoke · 2005-01-29 01:09 · Score: 1

In other words the members of the RIAA have conspired to abuse their monopoly power and exclude any legal non-DRM market.
In other words the members of the RIAA own the product. If they don't want to sell it to you, they have that right. It has nothing to do with "monopoly power." Do you even know what that means?
Apple wanted to sell MP3s. Apple doubtless still wants to sell MP3s.
Apple wanted to sell music. Apple found a way to do it that satisfied all of the parties involved.

--
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by shark72 · 2005-01-30 12:52 · Score: 1

"In other words the members of the RIAA have conspired to abuse their monopoly power and exclude any legal non-DRM market."

There are many legal non-DRM sites. Magnatune is one of them, and I think it fits the model of what many Slashdotters would consider to be the perfect online distribution site: no DRM, MP3 format, payment optional.

The trouble is, sites like Magnatune are flailing, and indie (non-RIAA) record companies are flocking to the iTMS in droves (in fact, I'd guess that the ratio of non-RIAA to RIAA music on the iTMS is higher than it is in most indie record stores). While there will always be outlets for unsingned musicians or indie labels to distribute their music for free or without DRM, the non-RIAA labels are largely choosing the download sites that provide DRM. For a non-DRM site to beat Apple, there has to be a critical mass of not only customers, but content providers that want a DRM-free download site, and so far that hasn't happened.

Anybody reading this can help fix this by writing to their favorite indie label (many are very small; less than a dozen employees, and they will read your letter) asking them to eschew MSN Music, iTMS and the like, and make the jump to DRM-free download sites. It won't happen until indie record labels understand that non-DRM is the way to go, and let's face it, those checks they're getting from iTMS et al will make it an uphill battle. But the power to change this starts with you.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:apple zealots - start your engines by Alsee · 2005-01-31 01:18 · Score: 1

The members of the RIAA conspired not to allow online sales for over half a decade, and then conspired to imposed uniform and oppressive DRM terms when they did finally allow them. First a non-compete conspiracy against any online sales at all. For YEARS there were countless companies dying to serve the market. For years the RIAA members conspired to say "no, we won't take your money". And later a non-compete conspiracy against non-DRM-crippled music sales.

And it was the members of the RIAA themselves specifically raising the anti-trust issue. They had entire legal teams and work groups dedicated solely to anti-trust. They created puppet front groups to do the dirty work. One of the comical items is that they did all sorts of juggling to ensure that the heads of the different companies were never in the same room at the same time when they were arranging the DRM music service terms. Any face-to-face meeting and agreement on anything would have meant a slam dunk anti-trust conviction. Their own lawyers telling them they couldn't be in the same room agreeing to conspire. That it was illegal.

"monopoly power." Do you even know what that means?

To squeeze it into a single sentence: Having an overwhelming percentage marketshare *and* the effective ability to dictate the market. The 5 RIAA members, acting in concert in the RIAA cartel, do indeed have monopoly power in their market.

I will however note that their monopoly power is slowly but steaily eroding. While the RIAA has been proudly proclaiming single and double digit losses year after year to anyone who will listen, independant labels have been poping up left and right and seeing double and triple digit GROWTH rates. In part this indy growth is attibutable to the RIAA abuses. The RIAA imposed a restraint of trade against anything but DRM crippled sales. They have hamstrung themselves with a crippled product. Independants who are more than happy to break the cartel rules and offer the public the product they want, they are more than happy to sell MP3s.

Crippled products simply cannot survive in a genuine free market. People will always preffer the better non-crippled competitor. Independant music labels and independant artists may be small and obscure, but their growth is being signifigantly fueled by offering MP3s in contrast to crippled RIAA crap.

Apple wanted to sell music.

Apple didn't merely want to sell music, they wanted to sell MP3s. The members of the RIAA establisted a non-compete conspiracy against any such market. With all five major labels acting in concert it was effectively impossible for Apple to enter the market at all.

Had even one major label agreed to allow Apple to sell MP3s, not only would they have made money but they would have gained market share against their competitors. Had there been any free market competition that's what would have happed and they ALL would have ended up rushing to best serve the customer and offer the best product possible. They would have been fighting to beat out each other. To steal market share from each other. Instead now it's small independants eating away at their market share.

Apple found a way to do it that satisfied all of the parties involved.

And as I said last post, the only reasons the RIAA allowed Apple slightly less abusive and oppressive terms was that they desperately needed Apple on board to avoid blatant anti-trust violations and that they didn't take the tiny non-Microsoft computer market very seriously.

Apple was offered better terms than any other online service and they still fought against it. The eventually accepted the favored terms because the alternatives were to be excluded from any music business at all, or to attempt a long and expensive legal battle.

-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.

HYMN Workings by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:51 · Score: 0

If jHYMN is anything like the original HYMN, it should be pointed out that only owners of the file have the ability to strip the tune of its DRM. When your iTunes library is authorized to play a song, it downloads the part of the key that HYMN needs to strip the file. So stealing whatever tunes you can get your hands on and then cracking them does not work.

Mod parent Overrated! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:52 · Score: 0

Mod parent Overrated!

Re:DRM by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:52 · Score: 0

yeah, slashdotters should listen to cool underground stuff like Linkin Park and Nickelback. They Rox and they sing about individuality and deep things.

Not quiet any more by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2005-01-28 11:52 · Score: 1

What have been the recent legal actions, if any, that Apple has tried to take against the hymn project?

FP: Things have been quiet. I'm thinking that hymn has figured less into Apple's latest actions than their efforts against Real's Harmony project, with hymn and its derivatives simply being regarded as collateral damage.

It's not quiet any more. Not once it hits Slashdot!

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."

Re:Not quiet any more by El+Gordo+Motoneta · 2005-01-28 11:58 · Score: 1

It's not quiet any more. Not once it hits Slashdot!

Insert "shit hitting fan" sound effect here.
Re:Not quiet any more by nine-times · 2005-01-28 12:02 · Score: 1

Hymn has been on Slashdot before. My theory is Apple doesn't care all that much. Supposedly, they didn't want DRM in the first place, and they fought the RIAA over it for a while, and finally came to the present compromise (the iTMS DRM is not as restrictive as the RIAA wanted, but more restrictive than Apple wanted).
Now, that's all rumor, so who knows. But if I had to guess, i'd say Apple doesn't care very much about their customers cracking the DRM. Other companies trying to mimic the DRM for use on other online stores or other audio players, however, is a different story.

Nice spam by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 11:57 · Score: 0

Too bad there isn't anything worth listening to your piece of shit indie website

Re:Nice spam by ndtechnologies · 2005-02-11 11:32 · Score: 0

well, I guess that it is apparent that not everyone who reads slashdot is intelligent after all. Anyone else suprised at how this person got a score of 3, but yet I got a -1?

--
I have nothing clever to put here...

FairPlay LIMITS sharing, doesn't prevent it by Queer+Boy · 2005-01-28 11:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

FairPlay limits filesharing, it doesn't prevent it. Computers just have to be on a local network and they can listen to all your music whenever you want. I forget how many as Apple has INCREASED the number of people you can share with since they came out with FairPlay.

You can also burn any iTunes track to CD. Only limit is you can only burn 5 copies of a playlist before you have to change the songs in the playlist. Which means if you or your friend spring for the cost of a CD, you can share any song you like, as many times as you like, with whomever you like, just like other physical media.

I think that's a super middle-ground. Steve Jobs has discussed MANY times that DRM will be cracked, but FairPlay is pretty good. Apple puts a sticker on all their iPods that says, "Please don't steal music." Please point me to a better approach to DRM or filesharing scheme. Yes, DRM sucks, but it's not going anywhere if you want to use downloaded RIAA music.

--
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.

Re:FairPlay LIMITS sharing, doesn't prevent it by Have+Blue · 2005-01-28 12:12 · Score: 1

For that matter, FairPlay does not prevent file sharing at all. You're free to do whatever you want with the DRMed file, including posting it on Kazaa and mailing it to all your friends. What it limits is *playing back* the file, which is the right you are paying to obtain.

"Computers just have to be on a local network and they can listen to all your music whenever you want" is not quite accurate. A computer must be authorized under the owning account to stream a protected AAC, and it can only be authorized under one account at a time. So if all the computers belong to you, there are no problems. But it does not let you share purchased music with everyone on your LAN automatically (unless you give them your ITMS account, which is a bad idea since it's linked to your credit card).
Re:FairPlay LIMITS sharing, doesn't prevent it by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:41 · Score: 0

I guess apple isn't being so polite anymore because the Ipod mini that I just bought came with a sticker that said "Don't steal music".

There's no 'please'.
Re:FairPlay LIMITS sharing, doesn't prevent it by Alsee · 2005-01-28 19:01 · Score: 1

a super [DRM] middle-ground

No, there is no middle ground.

This isn't about whether one flavor of DRM tastes better than some other flavor. It really doesn't matter at all how oppressive or "generous" any particular DRM flavor is. This is about DRM enforcement, yes or no. The inevitable fact is that DRM is worthless without DRM enforcement. This is about whether NON-INFRINGING people making and using Hymn are felons or not.

You have two choices, no middle ground:
1) DRM enforcement: Non-infringing people get imprisoned.
2) No DRM enforcement: DRM is absolutely worthless.

If you ask me, the RIAA and others are perfectly free to use any sort of DRM they like. However but they have absolutely no right to imprison innocent non-infringing people. That means any DRM is worthless. Too bad, you can't imprison innocent non-infringing people simply so they can THROW OUT copyright enforcment and REPLACE it DRM enforcement of things they have absolutely no rights to.

-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:FairPlay LIMITS sharing, doesn't prevent it by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 22:58 · Score: 0

Strange
The engraving on my ipod says "I steal music, Fuck the RIAA!"

-r
Re:FairPlay LIMITS sharing, doesn't prevent it by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 06:30 · Score: 0

That's still more polite than my Dell DJ, which came with a note when I opened the box: "Hahaha, sucker!"
Re:FairPlay LIMITS sharing, doesn't prevent it by Phroggy · 2005-01-31 09:54 · Score: 1

FairPlay limits filesharing, it doesn't prevent it. Computers just have to be on a local network and they can listen to all your music whenever you want.

Sorry, this is wrong.

Computers just have to be on a local network and they can listen to all your unencrypted, non-DRM, non-iTMS music whenever they want (after you enable this feature - you can also restrict sharing to certain playlists, or require a password, if you want). However, to play encrypted iTMS tracks (whether purchased, or given away for free, such as audio recordings of 9/11 Committee hearings), each client must be "authorized" with your e-mail address and iTMS password. A limited number of computers may be authorized with your account at a time; I believe the current limit is 7 (originally 5). Internet access is required to authorize or deauthorize a computer; this is how Apple keeps track of how many computers have been authorized with your account (also, authorization works by logging into the iTMS with your e-mail address and password, and downloading the corresponding encryption key).

--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;

iTunes set the best standard by augustz · 2005-01-28 11:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

I love folks complaining about "crippled" iTunes songs.

They forget that Apple has SET THE STANDARD for sensible DRM that is reasonable for the consumer.

I've been around a long time, and have seen plenty of stupid stuff. Divx (in the DVD space) moved things back, lawsuits and claims about the mp3 format itself, a joke.

But I've also got a sense of history. Before apple came along legal online music was GHASTLY.

You think iTunes is "laden" and "crippled" with DRM? People have forgotten that before apple came along there was a fragmented music space with DRM that meant you couldn't move songs between computers, burn them to CD's, and stores run by companies that were no fun to do business with. Subs, if you canceled, your music vanished.

For most folks, fairplay is actually fair. Most people don't end up playing on more then five computers. Unlimited burns of a song, and seven burns of a specific CD are reasonably fair. The authorization process isn't terribly painful.

Remember, the RIAA used to claim on their dumb soundbyting site that making a tape copy of a CD was copyright infringment. And they were probably right, it was.

The one big issues with iTunes are lack of open source support (tricky, but they should do better here) and the lock-in to iPods as the portable music player for the service. The issue is that software needs to provide the DRM. Luckily for apple they've got a reasonable ipod product. This lockin will have to evolve though of course, open source and linux are not supported so far.

But from a DRM perspective, they really moved the industry forward. If the media companies had their way we'd be stuck with Sony's ATRAC format.

So, complaints and props to apple.

Re:iTunes set the best standard by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:04 · Score: 0

So, complaints and props to apple.
Little Freudian slip there? I think you meant to say "So, compliments and props to Apple."
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:11 · Score: 0

the reason they lock you into the ipod is because that is how they make there money, they make jack shit actually selling the music
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:42 · Score: 0

People have forgotten that before apple came along
there were DRM-free CD's. Now everyone is up in arms defending m4p.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:44 · Score: 0

Please provide evidence that Apple's RIAA-approved DRM is any more "reasonable" than anyone else's RIAA-approved DRM. (*crickets chriping*)
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 15:00 · Score: 0

You could call it "setting the standard for reasonable DRM," but I call it the "nose under the camel's tent."
Re:iTunes set the best standard by bwy · 2005-01-28 15:28 · Score: 1

But from a DRM perspective, they really moved the industry forward. If the media companies had their way we'd be stuck with Sony's ATRAC format.

Very true. Nobody else is anywhere near as close to offering a cohesive solution like iPod + iTunes + iTMS. I don't even know what the alternative might be for RIAA music. Some crappy combination of junk software, a WMA based store (Napster?) and a WMA compliant device I guess.

I'm guess I'm just growing fond of "complete" solutions these days. Time is too short for me to goof around with making crap work together any more. You know how when you buy that new printer or scanner, the software installs like 20 different apps all written by different companies and this is supposed to be a software bundle? Bah! Bundle of crap, maybe.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Lord+Ender · 2005-01-28 15:54 · Score: 1, Insightful

The iTunes DRM sucks and you know it. I have an MP3 player in my car. To use it, I need to burn MP3 files to a data CD. With iTunes, when I buy a song I CAN'T LISTEN TO IT IN MY CAR because it won't let me "export" the song to a format my hardware can parse. That's absurd.

--
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 16:31 · Score: 2, Informative

With iTunes, when I buy a song I CAN'T LISTEN TO IT IN MY CAR because it won't let me "export" the song to a format my hardware can parse.

That's an untrue statement, and it's kind of disappointing that you'd stoop to making it. You can burn an audio CD. A standard, no-funny-business, plays-everywhere audio CD. Which "your hardware" (we're talking about a stereo, right?) can "parse." (We're still talking about a stereo, right? Why all the jargon?)

If you want to then take that audio CD and go elsewhere with it to compile a CD of MP3s or something, knock yourself out. You're free to do whatever you like with the songs you buy from iTunes. They're yours. You own 'em.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Mazem · 2005-01-28 19:23 · Score: 1

They forget that Apple has SET THE STANDARD for sensible DRM that is reasonable for the consumer.

Sensible DRM? There is no such thing.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by leperkuhn · 2005-01-28 19:49 · Score: 1

He can't burn an MP3 cd. Not a difficult concept. Unless something happened that I don't know about, you have to either burn an mp3 cd, or an audio cd. not a mix. if i have a wu tang cd, and i buy a ODB (god bless his soul) itunes track I cannot mix them together on an MP3 CD. Simple concept.

--
http://www.rustyrazorblade.com
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Alsee · 2005-01-28 19:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

Before apple came along legal online music was GHASTLY.

Well yeah. The RIAA cartel abused it's monopoly power to suppress any legal download market at all for what, half a decade? They imposed a market vacuum. Hell, they created the P2P explosion. Huge market demand, and a conspiracy to create a market vacuum. And markets abhorr a vacuum just as much as nature. Of course a gray/black market exploded to fill that artificial vacuum.

And after years of countless companies dying to serve the online market, they finally conspired to impose oppressive terms and insane prices. Including DRM. And there is no way DRM can survive in a market except through suppression of competition. Nobody preffers a crippled product. People want to buy MP3's. Had any of the companies allowed MP3 sales they would have absolutely stopped the competition and won alomst total market share online.

And you want to know WHY Apple's DRM is slightly less oppressive than any of the others? Because the RIAA desperately needed Apple on board to avoide getting nailed for anti-trust violation. The RIAA had conspired to impose exactly identical oppressive terms on all of the other music services. The RIAA would have been a DEAD DUCK had they created all of these Windows services and blatantly abused their power to prohibit any Apple sales. And Apple did not want to use any DRM at all. They wanted to actually offer the product the public wanted to buy, MP3s. The RIAA didn't take the tiny Apple market seriously, and they desperately needed Apple on board, so they bent a little bit and allowed Apple slightly less oppressive terms than anyone else. So obviously iTunes was able to stomp the other services. It was less oppressive and less crippled. It's still a fraction of what it would be if they were actually selling MP3s.

Side note: While the RIAA is proudly proclaiming signifigant percentage drops year after year, independant labels are popping up left and right and they are seeing double and tripple digit percentage GROWTH.The RIAA's rufusal to sell anything other than DRM crippled crap is hugely fueling this indy growth. Indy labels and artists that can steal away RIAA marketshare by offering the product the customer wants, by offering non-crippled products, by offering MP3s for sale.

fairplay is actually fair

Not so long as there is any expectation of DRM enforcment against absolutely NON-INFRINGING use. Not so long as there is any expectation that innocent non-infringing people are felons for making or using Hymn. No, there is nothing "fair" about expecting fair use to be a felony. Fair use isn't simply some "reasonable" selection of uses, fair use is what the LAW says CANNOT be restricted by copyright.

making a tape copy of a CD was copyright infringment. And they were probably right, it was.

Baloney. Learn the law. Go read the Supreme Court cases on the subject. This post is long enough without attempting to teach the legalities of fair use.

complaints and props to apple.

Well, Apple is pretty much under the thumb of the RIAA. The DRM system wasn't Apple's doing. They fought not to have it at all. They didn't want any DRM and they STILL don't want any DRM.

Though it really would have been nice had Apple not caved on the issue. Had Apple said we want to sell MP3s, period. I'd have loved to see the RIAA hang on anti-trust conspiracy, for imposing a Windows only market, and for abusing their copyright monopoly to control formats.

-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 20:01 · Score: 1

That's right. That's because the music's not in MP3 format. He can't burn a Windows Media CD either, or a CD with WAV files on it, or a CD that consists entirely of William Shatner describing the songs to him through the magic of the spoken word.

Because the music he bought isn't in that format.

Sounds like your problem -- because really we're not talking about anybody else, here, but rather about you --isn't with rights management. It's with the music format the Apple is selling.

Lucky for you there's plenty of choice in that arena. Go buy something else instead, rather than complaining that the thing Apple's selling isn't what you want.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 22:17 · Score: 0

For most folks, fairplay is actually fair. Most people don't end up playing on more then five computers. Unlimited burns of a song, and seven burns of a specific CD are reasonably fair. The authorization process isn't terribly painful.

MSN Music is about the same. Without the iPod lock-in. Unlimited syncing with wide selection of different players.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Drantin · 2005-01-28 23:20 · Score: 1

People have forgotten that before apple came along there was a fragmented music space with DRM that meant you couldn't move songs between computers, burn them to CD's, and stores run by companies that were no fun to do business with.

Are you thinking of liquidaudio, or is there something else I'm not remembering?

--
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Lord+Ender · 2005-01-29 10:40 · Score: 1

Why would I want to use and audio CD in an MP3 player? That wastes all the benefits of an MP3 player. Yes, I own the song but they go out of their way to make it annoying for me to use unless I put the song on an iPod or a legacy audio CD. That's treating your customers like dirt.

--
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-29 12:02 · Score: 1

Let's consider.

The MP3 format is acoustically inferior to the AAC format at the same bit rate. The sound quality of a 128 kbps MP3 is unacceptable, demanding the use of higher bit rates to achieve the same level of quality.

Higher bit rates equate to more storage; 50% more, at the very least. If Apple has a million songs and those songs average 4 MB each, that's 4 TB of music they have to store. You're talking about increasing it to 6 TB at least. That's a big difference.

Then there's bandwidth. Apple has sold a quarter of a billion songs. Again, if they average 4 MB each, that's a thousand terabytes of bandwidth they've consumed. You're saying that should have been 1,500 terabytes instead.

So let's review here. You're saying that, in order to make your life more convenient, Apple should store 6 TB of music instead of 4 TB, and they should have consumed 1,500 terabytes of bandwidth instead of a thousand. Because they didn't, you say they "went out of their way to make it annoying" for you. On the other hand, all you need to do to listen to your music in your car is to hit the "burn" button and stick in a blank CD. But you don't want to do that. You'd rather Apple increase by 50% the operating costs associated with running the store. (Without increasing prices, of course.) Because you think they "went out of their way to make it annoying" for you.

How unbelievably narcissistic can a person be?
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Lord+Ender · 2005-01-31 02:59 · Score: 1

Wow, what are you doing on slashdot? This site is for people that know technology. Letting someone export a song to other formats does not in any way require them to store multiple formats on their servers. Dumbass.

--
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-31 04:20 · Score: 1

Letting someone export a song to other formats does not in any way require them to store multiple formats on their servers.

Um. Yeah, it does. You can't go from AAC directly to MP3 without throwing away a significant amount of data. You have to go from AAC to AIFF and then to MP3, and then you have to encode at a much higher bit rate. Even so, due to the fairly crappy nature of MP3, you lose a good deal of sound quality in the process.

Going from AAC to AIFF, of course, is lossless; you don't lose anything. And going from AAC to AIFF and back to AAC is also effectively lossless. But going from AAC to another compressed format is a train wreck.

Seems like somebody who "knows technology" would, you know, know this.
Re:iTunes set the best standard by a24061 · 2005-02-01 21:14 · Score: 1

They forget that Apple has SET THE STANDARD for sensible DRM that is reasonable for the consumer.
DRM is by its nature inherently unreasonable. Consumers should have the right to make backups and to play music on any device they want.

I'd like to think I'm not cracking anything here.. by nvrrobx · 2005-01-28 12:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

I use this to remove the DRM from my legally purchased iTMS files so I can play them on my Phatbox in my car and on my Media Center PC. I'm not distributing them to friends, I'm just doing what I would have otherwise done by burning to CD then ripping back to HD.

Probably still illegal nonetheless, but I really don't feel very 37331 when I do it.

Jon Johansen? by Sh33p · 2005-01-28 12:08 · Score: 1

"how they build on the work of 'DVD' Jon Johansen" Jon Johansen? A 16-year-old boy? It was actually some anonymous german guy who cracked the dvd protection, Jon Johansen even admitted that in an open letter.

Re:Jon Johansen? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:11 · Score: 0

Link please? Back up your claim.
Re:Jon Johansen? by Sh33p · 2005-01-28 12:20 · Score: 1

http://www.sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/000 106.html
Re:Jon Johansen? by valkraider · 2005-01-28 13:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

Thats not a "link". That is a "URL"

This is a link.
Re:Jon Johansen? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:29 · Score: 0

"how they build on the work of 'DVD' Jon Johansen" Jon Johansen? A 16-year-old boy? It was actually some anonymous german guy who cracked the dvd protection, Jon Johansen even admitted that in an open letter.

Correct, it wasn't DVD Jon who cracked CSS, but that's not relevant to this case.

It was DVD Jon who reverse engineered FairPlay and wrote the decryption code that playfair/hymn uses. That's how they build on his work.

PS: In the future, RTFA.
Re:Jon Johansen? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 17:03 · Score: 0

Did you try reading the article?

hymn is a decryption program based on the work of Jon Lech Johansen , who first reverse-engineered Apple's DRM scheme (called "FairPlay").
Re:Jon Johansen? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 06:53 · Score: 0

Please visit Slashcode bug #981137, which concerns automatically hyperlinking URLs in "Plain Old Text" mode, and add a comment to show your support for a speedy resolution. No progress has been made on this trivial feature request for longer than six months.

Redistribute this comment at will.

Shill or just don't care about your rights? by sulli · 2005-01-28 12:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

With Apple DRM, Apple can take away your use privileges whenever it feels like it. Sure they're being "reasonable" now, but soon enough they will tighten the noose, just like TiVo is doing with ads over fast forward and blocking you from saving the Sopranos.

If you give up control, you get what you deserve.

--

sulli
RTFJ.

Re:Shill or just don't care about your rights? by newwind · 2005-01-28 12:26 · Score: 1

How in the world are they going to take away my privilege of burning the CDs I burned when I bought the music?
Re:Shill or just don't care about your rights? by rsborg · 2005-01-28 12:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

With Apple DRM, Apple can take away your use privileges whenever it feels like it. Sure they're being "reasonable" now, but soon enough they will tighten the noose, just like TiVo is doing with ads over fast forward and blocking you from saving the Sopranos.
If you give up control, you get what you deserve.
Which I also believe in. I believing in keeping control... perhaps the JHymn creators do as well. However, ranting about how Fairplay is just like all the other DRM is counterproductive. I believe, currently, that Fairplay sets a good standard.. and that JHymn is a nice "ace in the hole" against it.
Remember, proper "diplomacy" (saying "nice doggie" with the big rock behind your back) doesn't give up control. Just because you're satisfied that other guy is doing what you want, doesn't mean you shouldn't stock up on deterrents.

--
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Re:Shill or just don't care about your rights? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 13:45 · Score: 0

You can't buy music from iTMS. You can only buy a limited, non-transferrable, revokable license to listen to music.
Re:Shill or just don't care about your rights? by SeaFox · 2005-01-28 14:13 · Score: 1

With Apple DRM, Apple can take away your use privileges whenever it feels like it.

Really? So why was it to make the iTunes sharing programs that worked in version 4.0 stop working, I had to download and install 4.0.1? Why is it to lower the number of burns of a single playlist from 10 to 7, and increase the number of shared computers from 3 to 5, I had to install a newer version of iTunes (4.5).

If Apple is truely in control of everything as you say they are they should be able to make DRM changes remotely. As far as I can tell, once the computer is authorized and I have downloaded by music I can drop my ISP service and my purchased music will continue to play fine no matter if the iTMS completely ceases to exist.
Re:Shill or just don't care about your rights? by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 16:26 · Score: 1

Demonstrably false. Step one: Buy a song from iTunes. Step two: Click the little "burn" button in the upper right-hand corner of the window. Step three: Listen to songall the live-long day.

Now howzabout you quit being a dumbass and come join the conversation?
Re:Shill or just don't care about your rights? by yasth · 2005-01-28 19:37 · Score: 1

Rather FairPlay used to be better then the services that existed, but it isn't any longer. Now MSN music and most other services have the same general outlines (some numbers might be different between services, but the idea is there). So FairPlay is like all the other DRM services. Actually it is a not all that agile version of DRM, from a content manager perspective MS DRM is the best around, but the DRM is not that important it is the actual license it enforces, and that is pretty much the same. Apple's DRM just seems to be an easier target (marketshare differences come into play too, but that is a form of ease).

Getting your files free (as in libre) is just a good idea. As otherwise they really aren't your files. DRM allows some nice models (subsciption based services for example, internet rental), but DRM applied to the normal ownership model is a poor trade.

--
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
Re:Shill or just don't care about your rights? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 06:25 · Score: 0

I'm thinking of starting a Leo McGarry fan club. Seriously.

Watch It They Could Water Mark It! by JTWebMan · 2005-01-28 12:15 · Score: 1

I think they just went about it wrong. If they really wanted to they could easily hide a water mark style where they could get the user that downloaded the file and the date. So when they find it on the share they can just get it from the song it self. They have been doing that to movies that are shown in theaters. JT

Re:Watch It They Could Water Mark It! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 21:07 · Score: 0

Collaborate with another person and purchase the same song. Remove DRM + userID w/ JHymnn. If md5's match, there's possibility that a watermark exists to indicate that it was purchased, but it would be proof that the purchaser's id was removed.

there is no DRM when you burn it as audio by johnpaul191 · 2005-01-28 12:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

once you make your mix CD and burn it as an audio CD all DRM is gone. if you give that mix to your friend Todd and he rips it to his machine (Mac/M$?Linux/bla) there will be no DRM on it anyway.

iTunes has some limit to the number of burns a playlist can have...... but you can either change the playlist by mixing around one song, or take one burnt CD and just use disc copy on that "master" cd.

Re:there is no DRM when you burn it as audio by afabbro · 2005-01-28 12:31 · Score: 1

iTunes has some limit
And that is the magic word that makes people seek to overcome stupid DRM limits.

--
Advice: on VPS providers
Re:there is no DRM when you burn it as audio by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:09 · Score: 0

and i need to point out that using lossy compression twice on the same file might have an adverse effect on the quality of your audio?

iTMS music is encoded to AAC, burning to CD and ripping again to AAC or MP3 is just going to make things worse.

its bad enough that we have to buy music in a lossy format. its worse that some people consider making it 'lossy-er' is a good idea.
Re:there is no DRM when you burn it as audio by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 23:28 · Score: 0

once you make your mix CD and burn it as an audio CD all DRM is gone. if you give that mix to your friend Todd and he rips it to his machine (Mac/M$?Linux/bla) there will be no DRM on it anyway.

No, there will be no DRM, but it will have been encoded with lossy compression twice, so you'll end up with an audio file with worse quality than had you simply stripped the DRM.

Burn, Hollywood, Burn by Doc+Ruby · 2005-01-28 12:20 · Score: 1

If the media companies are planning their entire future bizmodels on DRM, just a lamebrained extension of their old "value through scarcity" model, their entire industry will go up like a burning house of cards. Often. Whenever a single person publishes a crack tool like this, hundreds of man-years of DRM engineering, negotiation and marketing go up in smoke. 10 years into the game, and these media companies don't have an inkling of the network effect, and how it has already changed their world completely. For better (near-free distribution) and worse (no privilege of control by publishers). At least they're not making any new content worth consuming, or their demise might hurt the culture, rather than remake the economy.

--

--
make install -not war

Itunes getting progressively worse by Frogbert · 2005-01-28 12:30 · Score: 0

Can someone tell me at what point Itunes started becoming more restricted in what it did instead of less? The newest version of Itunes has limited sharing of music to 5 users per day, and it reapplys DRM to your decrypted music.

The first "feature" of Itunes is very annoying because we have six people using Itunes in my household and this invariably means the last one to turn on their computer gets no ones music. Previously it was 5 connections max, someone disconnected and you could connect with another machine, it wasn't such a huge issue but it still was annoying.

Does anyone know how to get around these restrictions?

Re:Itunes getting progressively worse by valkraider · 2005-01-28 13:16 · Score: 1

How does it "re-apply" DRM?
Re:Itunes getting progressively worse by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 15:12 · Score: 0

Does anyone know how to get around these restrictions?

Don't use iTunes?
Re:Itunes getting progressively worse by timbos · 2005-01-28 23:40 · Score: 1

I think that he meant that iTunes 4.7.1 breaks the latest (at time of release) Hymn crack of your encrypted music.

I guess I am a failure by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:35 · Score: 0

I chucked Fedora 3 in my brand spanking new laptop and everything worked straight away. I didn't even open a console till I wanted to start learning MySQL, does that make me a loser. Boo Hoo. Oh to be an individual Mac user...

Hymn by XFilesFMDS1013 · 2005-01-28 12:41 · Score: 1

So it's just another article about breaking and hymn, what's the big deal?

Re:Hymn by Smobien · 2005-01-31 09:04 · Score: 1

lmfao!

"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who? by asv108 · 2005-01-28 12:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

I love reading posts from Apple fanboys who fail to see the problem with a DRM standard that locks playback to portable devices that our produced by the same company that distributes the music. Apple's "sensible" DRM locks playback to software and hardware made by Apple computer. Sure, you can permit playback on multiple iTunes installations, but that does not free your music playback from the products of ONE company.

Now if Apple licensed Fairplay playback to device manufactures and software developers, that might change people's opinion but as it stands now, Apple computer has a monopoly of fairplay enabled music playback. I would suggest that Apple open Fairplay, but as we all know, the concept of DRM is simply PKI turned upside down. Its a game of digital hide and seek or "security by obscurity," so it is simply not possible to open source any software based DRM scheme.

Lets look at this situation from another angle, if Microsoft was the leading online music retailer and used a format that could only be played back on Microsoft hardware and software products, would people be defending them? The hypocrisy and denial of Apple fanboys on /. is so blatant, its not even amusing anymore.

Re:"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who? by snelson · 2005-01-28 15:30 · Score: 1

I couldn't agree more with you ASV108.
Thank you.
Re:"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who? by Thu25245 · 2005-01-28 15:33 · Score: 1

...DRM standard that locks playback to portable devices that our produced by the same company that distributes the music... You mean, like portable CD players? Does Apple make those, now? ...if Microsoft was the leading online music retailer and used a format that could only be played back on Microsoft hardware and software products, would people be defending them?... And, when did Apple become a convicted monopolist? Man, I must not be keeping up with the times.
Re:"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 16:34 · Score: 0

And, when did Apple become a convicted monopolist?

Oh, not yet. They're walking the path to monopoly, though - every successful busines does. We'll see how far they make it. Anyway, ask yourself this question - if Apple DOES make it into a monopoly status (after all, that's a secret desire of any self-respected Apple fanboy, since nobody else can measure up and should just go away), will you defend them then, too? Looking at the other side of the fence, people who were praising MS for being soooo user-friendly before the DoJ figured it's time to wave the monopoly flag are usually the least likely to bring up the 'monopolist' word, let alone combine it with 'convicted'

So the point of this silly answer to a stupid question is: would you rather have to deal with a monopolistic Apple after the fact or try to prevent them from becoming one in the first place? Remember, there's absolutely no guarantee that Apple will stay 'benevolent' in the future.
Re:"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who? by shark72 · 2005-01-28 19:15 · Score: 1, Insightful

"I love reading posts from Apple fanboys who fail to see the problem with a DRM standard that locks playback to portable devices that our produced by the same company that distributes the music."

It's certainly not a problem for Apple. Their players have an ungodly market share, and I am certain that their strategy of locking the iTMS to iPods has helped. They make a much higher margin on iPod sales than they do music sales.

To put this in perspective, we're talking about music downloads and MP3 players, here. There are a squillion download sites, and a squillion makers of MP3 players. Apple's strategy is paying off for them; that's all that counts. If one doesn't like the way they do this, there are plenty of other options available.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Re:"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who? by tres · 2005-01-28 23:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is just silly. It's like getting mad at Blockbuster because they don't license every other video rental place in town to use the Blockbuster retail outlets to sell their own movies.

Your argument would almost even make sense if iPod only played music purchased through Apple's iTunes music store. But, the fact is, you can play whatever you want on the hardware (Sorry, Ogg has its place and purposes, but really isn't all that relevant for consumer music playback).

Apple doesn't own the music, they own the distribution chain. That's all. If you don't like Blockbuster, then you go down the street and buy movies from someone else. Likewise, if you don't like Apple, don't buy. Go buy the same content distributed through another source.

Apple doesn't guard any doors except to the end-to-end system which they created themselves. They keep no one from creating their own parallel system; Apple "owns" none of the music, nor controls the distribution of content in any other medium.

If you don't want to play the game, then don't. Go get yourself a copy of emule, start feeling 1337 and pat yourself on the back, man; you're sticking it to the man (Artist? What artist?).

--
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Re:"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who? by kybred · 2005-01-29 05:48 · Score: 1

I love reading posts from Apple fanboys who fail to see the problem with a DRM standard that locks playback to portable devices that our produced by the same company that distributes the music.

That's funny, my iTMS purchased music plays fine on the non-Apple CD player in my car.
kybred
Re:"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who? by zygote · 2005-01-31 18:10 · Score: 1

Lets look at this situation from another angle, if Microsoft was the leading online music retailer and used a format that could only be played back on Microsoft hardware and software products, would people be defending them?

Not only that, MS would never employ a closed system to seek to advance its position as a monopoly.

Apple should be held to the same standard as a company with a 98% market share, because the way Steve Jobs & Co. conducts business is just unfair.

Make a nice product, sell a zillion of them, find a compromise with the RIAA....bastards!

Apple Fanboy #242

--
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson

Re:Where does it all end? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:47 · Score: 0

Is free the only fair price?

Yes. Information is a nonrivalrous abstract good to which physical-good economic theories just don't apply properly.

"Compensate artists" with subsidised 'net connections at most - if they insist on assigning value to information, there's already more high-value but near totally cost-free information on the net than any artist could ever produce in many lifetimes.

They can still make money on commissioned works and live performances too.

But seriously, fuck copy"right".

Trolling 101 by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:57 · Score: 0

Post the same generalizations, stereotypes, and assumptions over and over until some like-minded mod incapable of critical thought mods it up.

Seems to work.

Re:I'd like to think I'm not cracking anything her by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 12:58 · Score: 0

It is stupid isn't it. Either you own a license to listen to the music in your house, car and on your person, in which case copying it into a format that each can handle is perfectly logical, and blocking the ability to do that is surely a breach of the license. Yet many music stores limit their downloaded music to computer and mp3 player use. At least Apple's is reasonably fair.

Or you own the music in the format you get it in. In which case they can't limit what you do with it, because it is yours. They try to enforce format changes every 20 years though, to try and get people to rebuy their music, but I'm sure that there will be players that will play standard CDs in 20 years time, if they haven't corroded away that is. But computer storage is cheap, and data easily transferrable. I'm sure that there are people here with 8 year old MP3s in their collection still, if they haven't reripped since. Music you put onto a computer now will still be around in 100 years time. Your computer music collection will be something you can pass on upon death. No more "Oh, I got 100 warped vinyl albums from my uncle" uselessness.

Oh, and 37331?

Re:DRM by anagama · 2005-01-28 13:02 · Score: 5, Interesting

Isn't it retarded that we have to crack DRM anyway?

This isn't flamebait - it's true. DRM costs money - removing it generates revenue. Counterintuitive? Case in point:

An iBook came into my household this christmas. I had heard about iTunes for years, but not being on Windows or Mac, had never seen more than a screenshot. So anyway, I try it out and buy an album I once had but lost to a departing girlfriend. It was cool, but I also knew it was DRMed - and indeed, when trying the file on my linux box - no joy. I didn't buy any more music after that. No way would I pay for music I can only listen to on one computer (I want it to work at home (linux/new mac), work (linux), studio (linux)). So I didn't buy any more music - then I heard about Jhymn - installed it, stripped the DRM off my files, txr over to my linux box, and voila - lot's of joy.

That was about a week ago - I've spent over $30 on iTunes in short time since then (it's frighteningly addictive and easy to click "buy" - especially when sleepy late late at night). Without DRM stripping I would have spent a big fat ZERO.

Moral of the story:I only buy from iTunes BECAUSE I'm able to strip the DRM and play the files on my linux boxes ... a fair use I believe because I can only listen to music on one computer at a time.

--
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good

Re:DRM by zvoid · 2005-01-28 14:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

And I have no doubt that Apple really doesn't have a problem with you stripping the DRM. As you say, you are now partaking of the crack that is the iTMS, you are happy, Apple is happy.

But *legally* Apple cannot condone any DRM strip scheme. The problem here is not with Apple.

All things considered, Fairplay is a pretty amazing concession from the RIAA in the first place.

Crippled is the wrong word. by Hamhock · 2005-01-28 14:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

...a DRM removal application for iTunes song files laden, or 'crippled' as some say,...

"Crippled" is when something isn't working the way it was intended. Songs from the iTunes Music store work the way they are supposed to. If you don't want DRM laden music, don't buy it.

--
Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun -Troy McClure

Re:Crippled is the wrong word. by eraserewind · 2005-01-28 16:30 · Score: 1

No, crippled is when something deliberately doesn't work as well as it could. From a music users point of view the songs plainly are crippled.
Re:Crippled is the wrong word. by Too+Much+Noise · 2005-01-28 16:37 · Score: 1

"Crippled" is when something isn't working the way it was intended.

By your definition, Win XP Home is not a crippled version of XP Pro, since it 'works as intended' Go think about it for a while. Hint: the keyword here is 'intended'

Re:DRM by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:08 · Score: 0

Now, If apple would just realease itunes for linux you wouldn't have to worry about that.

Book on Watermarking by Midnight+Warrior · 2005-01-28 14:10 · Score: 4, Informative

FutureProof said that Apple is putting watermarking in their music and they are looking for the lack of that watermark in future versions of iTunes (both to stop competitors and most likely identify those who would rip from iTunes and resell it illegally). Nothing has stated that the watermark is an Apple-wide watermark (i.e. distributed to all users) or if it is a per user watermark added on top of the Apple watermark (double water-marked).

Unless this makes your head swim, there is an excellent book that most folks with a bachelor's degree in some field which involved math should be able to read and understand: Information Hiding Techniques - Techniques for Steganography and Digital Watermarking (ISBN 1-580-53035-4), by Katzenbeisse. This and some other related books can been seen at forensics.nl.

Note: I am not affiliated with any of these publishers or authors, but merely read through the above mentioned book and found it appropriate for the topic.

Re:Where does it all end? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:11 · Score: 0

I suppose that's one way of looking at it comrade! Still, continuing to use the 'net as an example, have you not noticed that the overwelming majority of free "information" is crap? Sure, there are some noteworthy exceptions, but by and large the 'net is overflowing with bad, false, uninteresting, mangled, misapplied and/or simply delusional "information".

People deserve whatever renumeration they can negotiate for their time, talent and effort. Sure, there are plenty of people who will jack up the price for crap, but at least there is an incentive for those with talent. In fact, whatever it is you're wanting, the fact that you want it creates a market and actually makes it more likely you can get it. If you only want it if it is free, perhaps you don't really want it?

There are some seriously messed up things about how copyright and patents are implemented, but I think history provides a reasonable argument that capitalism corrects towards better products. (I'll leave the need for socialist programs and corporate regulation at the governemnt level for a conversation where it is more ontopic.)

In Soviet Russia they made crappy tractors and the ballet dancers seemed to "need" a lot of pampering.

I want to play it everywhere! MP3 is the standard by acomj · 2005-01-28 14:12 · Score: 1

Yeah, itunes DRM isn't so bad. Especially if you have an ipod. However with the advent of mp3 cd/ tivo remote players, I want my play my purchased itunes on my mp3 cds with my ripped mp3s.

I don't complain about it, I just convert them to 256+kbps mp3. Its a pain in the patukas. Its not that bad sounding (although I keep the purchased songs around).

I understand apple couldn't sell without the DRM, so I stopped complaining about it.

Terminator X by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:15 · Score: 0

Old school chillin with the PE....

Bass, how low can you go!!

Re:Terminator X by Doc+Ruby · 2005-01-28 14:21 · Score: 1

It takes a modem of megabytes to stream us back!

--
--
make install -not war

+5 Delusional by microbox · 2005-01-28 14:17 · Score: 1

It's got nothing to do with either law or morality. It's just got to do with how far you're willing to delude yourself. Is that it?

Fancy talking about people deluding themselves! Ha!

Maybe, in their heart, people feel that downloading music is just fun, and they'll buy a CD when they want to hold something in their hand?
Maybe copyright law has been gamed into rent behaviour by a rich few?
Maybe people know that steeling from shops really DOES cost shops, printers, insurance companies etc.
Perhaps a democracy shouldn't have laws that make most of the voters criminals?
Perhaps it has EVERYTHING to do with law and morality, but you missed the point on how these concepts are supposed to function in society (and right now copyright law is very disfunctional)

I hereby label you a zebra, since you've covered yourself in BLACK and WHITE... except that zebra's are probably much more rockin'.

--

Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right

Re:DRM by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 14:20 · Score: 0

Just a reminder - Apple already allows you to play the files on another computer - just burn it to an audio CD.

They do watermark each purchased song by acomj · 2005-01-28 14:22 · Score: 1

Open a purchased itunes song in emacs and search for your email address that you use for itunes. Its in there.
So each song downloaded is tagged, I'm not sure if the username is tied into the encrytption or not though. It seems a lot of work to encrypt each song purchased.

Re:They do watermark each purchased song by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 21:25 · Score: 0

The songs are tagged with the user's e-mail address unencrypted while the audio portion is encrypted. What the hymn folks are worried about is that Apple could have added additional watermarks that we are not aware of yet.

Insurance? by John3 · 2005-01-28 15:01 · Score: 1

How does an insurance company come into play here? Stores don't have insurance for shoplifting. There are policies for financial misdeeds and armed robbery, but shoplifting and petty employee theft are not covered by any policies I've seen offered to retail locations.

The only one getting screwed is the retail store, and if it's an independent retailer (are there any left in the CD business?) then it's really sad. I probably wouldn't lose sleep if it was Wal*Mart getting ripped off.

--
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan

Re:Insurance? by fingusernames · 2005-01-28 15:37 · Score: 2, Informative

As this sounded like BS, I did a quick Google:

http://www.mostchoice.com/business_insurance_cri me _overview.html

Found others too.

As a business owner, believe me, there is insurance for pretty much anything. The only question is whether the premiums are worth it. My broker would be happy to fill you in. :-)

Larry
Re:Insurance? by Ohreally_factor · 2005-01-28 23:59 · Score: 1

What's the deductible for inventory shrinkage claims?

--
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Re:Insurance? by John3 · 2005-01-29 00:25 · Score: 1

No coverage for shoplifting, just for "most" employee fraud and theft. You can't get coverage for the 8000 CD's that are stolen one at a time. You might get coverage for the employee that steals 8000 at once, but what I was referring to was shoplifting coverage. No insurance company foots the bill for shoplifting...the stores absorb this loss or pass it on to consumers.

--
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Re:Insurance? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-31 08:49 · Score: 0

insurance companies don't really foot the bill for anything as such.

insurers are about risk management.

by using an insurer you take a reduction in the average outcome in exchange for eliminating the possibility of a really bad outcome.

therefore where the range of outcomes is very small/well known (like with petty shoplifting) then there is no point in using an insurer.

Re:DRM by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 15:06 · Score: 0

A few songs per cd with the option of re-ripping them off at a lower quality, plus the work involved in that? No thanks. I'd rather start a transfer to my work machine before I go to bed and have the tunes when I get to the office in the morning. No media to swap either

We truly live in great times... by KennyP · 2005-01-28 15:09 · Score: 1

THIS, /.ers is what open source is all about!!!

The unrestricted access to my "data" on my piece of "equipment". If it's mine, I should be able to use it on any applicable device I have. Restriction free.

Congrat's - and let this inspire others to continue to allow us to freely access what is ours!

Visualize Whirled P.'s

Re:We truly live in great times... by ndtechnologies · 2005-01-28 15:34 · Score: 0

one thing that I think that companies like apple have forgotten about is that the 1992 home audio recording act, makes it legal for anyone to make copies of property that they own, with that property being Music, in this case. That law was set into effect over 12 years ago, however now it is illegal all of a sudden. So with this law already being in effect for the last 12 years, it really makes me scratch my head at the DRM policy.

--
I have nothing clever to put here...
Re:We truly live in great times... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-02-03 11:58 · Score: 0

That was a great "post," I love hearing your "thoughts."

I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 15:09 · Score: 0

I would gladly BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free. If there is a way to remove the DRM I might buy some. But with the system as it is now there is no way I'm spending money because I know that in a few years a DRM'd song will be unplayable after the last iPod breaks and Apple gets out of the music bussines. People keep thier music colections a LONG time. Apple may not exist in 30 years

Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by ndtechnologies · 2005-01-28 15:28 · Score: 0

very true, which is why I have a hard time justifying DRM anyway. Give the bands the choice...don't make it for them is what I say.

--
I have nothing clever to put here...
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by John+Miles · 2005-01-28 17:02 · Score: 1, Interesting

No, not "very true."

1. Buy song(s) on iTunes
2. Burn song(s) to CD-R (which you should be doing anyway for archival purposes)
3. Tell iTunes to rip to MP3 format at an archival-quality (192 kbps or better) bit rate
4. Rip CD-R you just burned to MP3 files
5. Delete original DRM-crippled .AAC files that you purchased from iTunes. You don't need them anymore.

Voila, DRM-free songs from iTunes... and you didn't even have to run any cracking tools.

It boggles the mind that so many uber-leet Slashdotter types don't realize that iTunes lets you do this. As soon as you buy a track, you can, and should, convert it to an unencumbered format. After that, nothing Apple or the RIAA do in the future can affect how you listen to the music you purchased.

--
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 19:50 · Score: 2, Informative

JHymm's method = no loss of sound quality, the file is the original AAC data.

Goofy burn to CD and re-encode method = much loss of quality, creation of artifacts etc.

Enough said.
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 20:35 · Score: 0

I guess I'm lucky enough not to be able to hear artifacts re-encoding AAC to 192 kbps MP3. :)
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by rollerbob · 2005-01-28 22:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

People always seem to use the CD-R burning argument in Apple's defence. If you take these steps, you've got a library full of paid-for music that's been compressed twice. Yuk.

If you buy music from iTunes, none of your music is of archival quality. For that, you need to store your music as AIFF of FLAC files.

In an ideal world, where everyone has lots of bandwidth and storage, people would buy their music online in FLAC format, which they can do whatever they like with: burn to CD, convert to MP3 etc. Sadly, that's not the direction we're going in.
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by TeHCrAzY · 2005-01-28 23:15 · Score: 1

It seems to me that it is an un-nessesary to burn a CD. Wow, you can burn to a cd and re-rip it. You still have to pay for a CD-R to burn too! It just seems silly to do that, if there is a program availible to remove the DRM easily, without additional cost.

--
Monkeys. In my pants.
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-29 02:01 · Score: 1

how else are you planing on keeping your music safe?

--

I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-29 02:05 · Score: 1

you have all the bandwidth you need in sneekernet... you want archival quality of popular music then you have to get the CD (a gold master CD if you are really anal.

--

I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by TeHCrAzY · 2005-01-29 03:15 · Score: 1

My computer is failsafe!!! Thats because its running Windows XP with all the latest updates.

--
Monkeys. In my pants.
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by John+Miles · 2005-01-29 05:30 · Score: 1

If you take these steps, you've got a library full of paid-for music that's been compressed twice. Yuk.

Correct. That's a drawback of iTunes in general; before buying music from them, you need to decide if paying 99 cents for lossily-compressed tracks is a good idea.

It works for me because I don't perceive any loss going from 128 kbps AAC to 192 kbps MP3. At any rate, the psychological impact of DRM is worse for me than the psychoacoustic impact of multiple lossy transforms. YMMV.

--
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Re:I'd BUY songs on iTunes if they were DRM free by Phil+Karn · 2005-01-30 23:22 · Score: 1

Check out magnatune. They're small, but they've got some interesting music and just the business model you're looking for. I only discovered them recently, but I've already given them much more business than I'll ever give iTunes.

Re:DRM by macjohn · 2005-01-28 15:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

You seem to be under the (mistaken) impression that iTMS makes any money. By the time they pay the royalties and pay for the infrastructure, there's essentially nothing left. Apple runs iTMS solely to sell iPods; that's the only place the money is.

--
--Hi. I'm in Portland and it's raining. This appears to be a permanent condition.

then buy it yourself! by johnpaul191 · 2005-01-28 15:50 · Score: 1

yes, and if you want to avoid the double lossy compression effect... you could always buy the song yourself?

if you want the song in a high quality sounding format, buy it on vinyl... that's what i do. i like the convenience of MP3/AAC files, but i really like the quality of vinyl. to me the difference between a good MP3/AAC and CD is not a big deal, neither have the sound and feel of vinyl.

Re:then buy it yourself! by Mr2001 · 2005-01-28 21:13 · Score: 1

So, uh, what brand of record player do you use in your car? I tried a Technics, but for some reason it kept skipping whenever I hit a bump...

--
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.

iTunes Classic by gnatware · 2005-01-28 15:56 · Score: 1

Sounds like a secondary market for "classic" versions of iTunes (good ol' 4.2, 4.5, 4.6) is in the making, as Apple piles on new watermarking strategies.

Kind of like buying vinyl, only for software.

Then of course you have to mod your iPod shuffle to work with iTunes Classic. More fun for DRM hackers.

Shuffle-up-a-gus.

Re:DRM by anagama · 2005-01-28 15:57 · Score: 1

An exceptionally valid point.

--
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good

Re:DRM by anagama · 2005-01-28 16:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

Exactly! As if I don't have enough coasters as it is! Plus, copy to disk, move it to another computer -- that's so "sneaker net". Why bother with a LAN if you're just going to copy-walk-copy. And last of all, I can't play actual cds on my computers because for at least the last several years, I've been too lazy to connect the cd player to the sound card - just more effort than it's worth.

--
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good

Re:DRM by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 16:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

Your life would have been oh so much easier if you'd just found that little "burn" button in the upper right-hand corner of the iTunes window.

Why did you choose to do it the hard way? And more important, are you trying to say that the only place you've got copies of these songs that you bought and paid for is on hard drives? Why didn't you burn them to CD anyway for permanent safe-keeping?

Re:DRM by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-28 16:37 · Score: 1

That's not correct. In Apple's last earnings con-call, they said that the music store was a significant source of profit for Apple. Given that they've sold over a quarter of a billion songs at a per-song price that averages around 80, and their per-song revenue is on the order of about 20 per track, it's safe to assume that Apple has cleared somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million since the music store opened. Now granted, a significant chunk of that had to go into the hardware and software that run the store. But you know it didn't cost them $50 million to start the thing up.

So yes, Apple has made money with iTunes. Probably in excess of $40 million so far, and more every day.

Did you read the article? by goombah99 · 2005-01-28 16:41 · Score: 2, Informative

And multiple releases of iTunes since then have done nothing to stop these files from playing - which it cannot do because they are now identical to files that you rip from CD yourself with AAC!!

Uh dude 3/4 of the article was about why that is not true at all. Two reasons were given. First, Ipod and Itunes memorizes what songs were bought from the music store. If it sees that song with out the DRM it wont play. Amusingly it will play on any machine that did not purchase that song, it just wont play on a machine that did purchase it. Second, apple may be watermarking the songs. So these songs ARE distinguishable from songs you ripped yourself to AAC.

--
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Re:Did you read the article? by Basehart · 2005-01-28 17:12 · Score: 1

you should ask loudeye corp about any watermarking, that's where apple gets their music from. they did last time i looked anyhow

Agree by SuperKendall · 2005-01-28 19:04 · Score: 1

I didn't remember the exact bit that was changed, thanks for reminding me...

I agree it was pretty annoying they had to take out a thing meant to make it more obvious where it came from... especially so since they did nothing after. So it seems they could have left it alone.

Also, like you say there are programs that can grab off shares but like you say limiting it to the subnet is a pretty good compromise, and I don't even care if a few people grab songs - like I said enough others have been interested in stuff I had to go buy a few things.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

AAC is open - TiVo needs to support that by SuperKendall · 2005-01-28 19:08 · Score: 1

Actually Apple doesn't have to get involved at all - Tivo could support non-DRM AAC as it is open, you could strip the DRm from your files, and then not have a conversion step at all.

That would be very nice...

Or you could replace your TiVo with a Mac mini, someday when the PVR stuff is refined. But I'd also like to see TiVo support AAC.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:AAC is open - TiVo needs to support that by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-28 20:48 · Score: 0

actually the removal of DRM and conversion to another format is done in one step with JHymn

intended by whom? by SuperKendall · 2005-01-28 19:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

The thing is, the word "intended" means very different things to the user downloading the songs than it does to the people selling them.

You can't say "works as intended" to a user of the songs, because their intent is different than the DRM designers. DRM is never built to help the customer in any way, only to restrict end-user rights.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:intended by whom? by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-29 02:14 · Score: 1

what rights have been restricted by Apple DRM?

you sound like an anarchist (in the political realm) would sound. laws are enacted to create a framework around the rights of the people but some how those laws (and I mean good laws) have hurt your rights... but they do not restrict your actions in any way.

I really want to know what it is you plan to do with the music that you cannot do while it is DRMed.

--

I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Re:intended by whom? by Hamhock · 2005-01-29 06:57 · Score: 1

It's not like the user downloading the song doesn't know it's not protected by DRM. If you're intent is to have a song without any restrictions, then buy the song in a format that doesn't have any DRM (CD's for the most part). Please explain what you mean by different intentions.

--
Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun -Troy McClure

Article was dead at the time - and avoided case by SuperKendall · 2005-01-28 20:03 · Score: 1

I didn't see any mirrors, and the article was down - I've not looked at the Hymn site for a while.

No wonder it works the way I use it, because I buy all my music at home and then bring it into work to strip out the DRM (so I can share with others at work). By sheer chance I have used it in the only way it will actually work!

I knew there was a good reason not to just un-DRM my whole library without a backup...

I also wonder then if it wouldn't work to share the unprotected file, since any attached computer playing the file off the share would not have bought it.

Luckly, it's also pretty easy to blow away all the iTunes settings with a search through Library.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Article was dead at the time - and avoided case by A+Drake+Man · 2005-01-29 00:27 · Score: 1

It's also mentioned in the article that part of the DRM is to store information elsewhere. He even says that he doesn't know ALL the places where it's stored (I'm sure somewhere within the QuickTime preferences is an unlock key too) so while it may work for now, a new iTunes version could check against this other hidden list and still de-authorize them.

Re:DRM by Alsee · 2005-01-28 20:11 · Score: 1

Fairplay is a pretty amazing concession from the RIAA in the first place.

The RIAA would have been a dead duck on anti-trust abuses had they not gotten Apple on board. They were desperate and they didn't take the small Apple market seriously, so they bent a little and allowed Apple slightly less abusive terms.

-

--
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.

why do we enjoy breaking DRM lke stuff by goodzilla · 2005-01-28 20:16 · Score: 0

i do wonder why we have to break every secuirty measure that comes up. I know cds are too expensive but honestly if somethin the artist says is something you like/identify/enjoy/ whatever shouldnt you at least support the oh so few artists that you do like. dont you support projects at sourceforge just because the work done is nice well along the same lines please support your artists.... i recommend watchin the video by KORN called .. Yall want a single ... i believe that between the US and THEM the artists might just be losing out... think about that... it seems that /. readers all think in very similar manner and so this anti RIAA us and them feeling is reinforced ... all i want to say is support your artists ... take care

Re:DRM by anagama · 2005-01-28 21:21 · Score: 1

Well, I did burn the Joanna Newsom to CD so I could listen to it in the car - her music is like some kind of mind poison - I can still hear her singing in my head even when listening to something else. That aside, I hate having CDs as backups. I figure having the songs on 3 HDs in 3 locations (10 miles between any two, 20 between the two most distant point) makes them pretty safe from everything except earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or nuclear explosions. That's good enough protection for me.

--
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good

nothing new by shoota · 2005-01-28 21:29 · Score: 1

been out for a while a tool named irevolt does all of this automatically giving you unprotected m4a files. its a bit ridiculous that you pay for music and you don't the ability to use it on any of your devices just ones demeeded by apple as "worthy". its a lot of marketing schemes in my opinion.

Re:nothing new by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-29 01:58 · Score: 1

what devices would you like to be able to use it on that you can't? oh, wait, you are just spreading fud about a DRM system that actually is very very lenient.

--

I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Re:nothing new by shoota · 2005-01-29 08:47 · Score: 1

for i can't use any of the tracks from itunes on my linux box to start. not to mention my sony shockwave player. so thats at least two things that i've restricted from using something that i paid for.
Re:nothing new by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 09:33 · Score: 0

burn and audio CD... then you can play them in your shockwave player!!! wow... hard to figure out.

as far as Linux... tough shit.

Re:hope he doesnt get sued by A+Drake+Man · 2005-01-29 00:33 · Score: 1

The iTunes EULA that says that if you purchase from the iTMS (remember, no one is forcing you to AND you can turn off the Music Store completely) then you should abide by their rules.

If you DON'T want to abide by the rules DO NOT use the iTMS. Really, now, is it so difficult to NOT buy electronic DRM'd music especially when you're against electronic DRM'd music in the first place?

Why pay for a blank CD when you can create Image by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 00:45 · Score: 1, Informative

You dont HAVE to burn the MP3 or AIFF files to a blank CD - you can mount and image and then burn to it. Atleast on a Mac - dont know about PC's.
AM

Re:Why crack it? - this is why... by log0n · 2005-01-29 02:04 · Score: 1

I owned a Powermac G4. I sold it to buy my 17" Powerbook G4. I later sold that to upgrade to my dual G5. The logic board on the G5 died about 3 weeks after I purchased it (Applecare saves the day).

I never deauthorized any of those computers when I sold them (2 of them not knowing I had to, the 3rd I never had a chance). Out of a possible 5 machines I could play my music on, I no longer have access to three of them. I've got my current comp authorized to iTMS, but that leaves me with exactly one 'free slot' - my next upgrade, a hardware failure, whatever - before I loose ALL of the music I've purchased (probably 275+/- tracks).

I'm not a pirate whatsoever (I like spending $ on stuff - gives the pride a boost) but to protect my financial investment in my music it's in my best interest to strip out the DRM simply for longevity.

Apple's system is great. I've got no problems with it. But they should have devised a system that would automagically deauthenticate a system after it hasn't checked in for X months or so (similar to Windows XP authentication) - but since it doesn't, I'll do everything short of stealing the files (from Apple or elsewhere) to ensure I don't lose the money I spent on their products.

Gotta love freedom of speech! by Ilgaz · 2005-01-29 02:07 · Score: 1

"50% Insightful
30% Overrated
20% Troll"

You know, you should support those DRM cracking schemes which gives much more ammo to CD producer companies. Its slashdot. Support freedom of speech you overrated troll! ;)

And you're mad at the RIAA? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 02:16 · Score: 0

So, I really don't get you people. You bitch about DRM and the RIAA, all while gleefully sharing stolen music like it's some kind of right.

Do none of you actually create anything of value in your work that you'd like to get paid for? Why do you feel that the music companies and musicians shouldn't get paid for their work?

I'll be the first to agree that they're greedy and worthless in many cases. But you want what they have, and at $.99 they're charging a fair price. So why do you then feel empowered to share it or steal it?

You are escellating the battle between the industry and yourselves. We will all lose. Thanks a lot.

My father always said... by dilvish_the_damned · 2005-01-29 02:33 · Score: 1

Kudos go out
I always blaim my father for things. Mostly for always having some semi-ironic quip for whatever the situation was. I blaim him for that.
Such as:
you know son, now matter how big you get, there will always be someone bigger(this was interchangable with "faster, stronger, smarter")
or
No matter the lock, there will always be a key.. or two
my favorite
you can keep a secret, but not if you tell someone Well, ya, like duh. (its harder than you might think first off, which I guess is why he told me this)
So in this case I would like to coin another father-esk sort of phrase:
No matter how strong your scheme is, someone will work around it
Although this is probably already covered by the "...Better mousetrap.." sort or saying.
I know that there is a such thing as security. It is secure enough to where it does not take federal mandates and houshold raids to make it secure. Thats security. I am not suggesting things like ssh2 are completly secure and that security promblems will not be found. I am mearly suggesting that it is trusted to be secure and that when a problem is found, it will be fixed.
I am fully unaware of any media distribution method (designed to lock people in) to be secure from breakage or to essentially succeed. I think maybe there has been no case.
All our security is based on the desireable parties having secrets that the undesirable parties cannot derive in any meaningfull timeframe. This involves keys, and algorithyms.
Since the media providers generally dont trust anyone, they seem to think its keen to put the keys in the software where no one may find them.
q: Dont they need to deliver said software to the user?
a: Why yes Dilvish, they do need to do just that
q: Since they need do this, arent they in effect handing the keys to the users and alienating them at the same time?
a: " " (I like self gratification, I think its healthy)

The results are just what we see. I used to read all the hardware DRM related stuff, but I am not a hardware guy. I am also jaded when it comes to this sort of thing. We have seen all kinds of software cracked and many kinds of hardware cracked.
I am personally not afraid of the security schemes designed to make the media people happy. I am afraid of the jail time. I have faced a judge once over such trivial things, I have no compelling desire to do it again.
I guess what I am saying is that we all know this sort of thing can be done, but I believe the effort would be better spent trying to fund http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html

But still, I by no means inteand to subtract from what has been done here. I just think there is a better way.

--
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.

Re:DRM by m50d · 2005-01-29 02:42 · Score: 1

I can't afford the hard drive space for loads of raw tracks, and I don't like the artefacts you get from compressing twice. Multiple hard drive copies are safer than a single copy on CD.

--
I am trolling

Re:I'd like to think I'm not cracking anything her by Paul+Crowley · 2005-01-29 02:49 · Score: 1

eteel haxor doodz?

--
Xenu loves you!

Faster then the wind by nurb432 · 2005-01-29 03:25 · Score: 1

Is that a take down notice i hear flying thru the air via fedex?

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----

misleading by knukkle · 2005-01-29 04:00 · Score: 1

Unlike, say, burning a song to a CD and re-ripping it, you don't lose any sound quality when you can access the original data in decrypted form.
... by detecting various forms of watermarking that haven't been removed, because we don't know they are there to be removed.

Well, if there is some kind of watermark then it is "woven" into the data, by definition. So decrypting an Apple encoded song will not give you the same file as you would get when encoding it by yourself from the original CD. Sure, nobody could hear the difference (even your dog).

The question is: do you want to be able to remove the watermark (sounds very hard to me because we can't reverse engineer Apple's encoding) or to slightly distort the stream (watermark attack) in order to prevent watermark decoding.

ditch Apple alltogether by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 04:07 · Score: 0

When it was time to buy an mp3 player, I never even gave the ipod consideration. Get an iriver iHp instead. No DRM baloney, plays tons of formats, can record uncompressed, and is firmware upgradeable. Reading this thread is tiresome - why bother re-ripping, scrubbing your music files everytime Apple releases new iTunes software to get ahead of the game.

The Apple way of using things has become monolithic, oppressive and totalitarian. Its no longer the rebel forces, its the deathstar now. As geeks, we don't need dumbed down interfaces to hold our hand through everything. We should always buy products that has more open features and open standards. Unfortunately, Apple is not there.

I don't understand why ... by dadman · 2005-01-29 04:31 · Score: 1

people keep saying that it is my music to play on any of my equipment. No, you don't own the music on the CDs you bought from a store. So those are not your data. (If they are really yours, why do you have to pay at all??)

When you buy a music CD from a store, you actually pay for the license to enjoy the music in a personal manner and a right to play it on any equipment you like. It does not include, however, the rights to redistribute, rent, or broadcast. It is a license with limits.

Likewise, the music one purchased from iTMS does not give you unlimited rights, too. Because of the price, you can only enjoy the music on selected equipments and with a very restricted freedom of usage. If you don't like these licensing terms, you simply not buy from iTMS, you shall look into buying a CD instead. Yes, it cost much more, but you end up with a much less restrictive license on the songs.

So what's wrong with that (aside form overpricing of CDs)?

Re:I don't understand why ... by sabat · 2005-01-29 08:16 · Score: 1

What's wrong with that is that there is no support for your concepts in the US Constitution.

Quoting Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (lifted the quote from the hymns website):

"The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but [t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts ... to this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art."

Among other things, it means if I buy a song, I have rights.

--
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.

Shut up, you dipshit by daveschroeder · 2005-01-29 05:01 · Score: 1

According to Merriam-Webster, marriage is the union of a MAN and a WOMAN.

So, uh, are you saying that the definition of "property" can't change for changing times?

Stop with the fucking bullshit "copyright infringement is not theft" line. If it makes your pea-brain feel better to keep repeating that, fine. But you're stealing, plain and simple.

Re:Shut up, you dipshit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 05:32 · Score: 0

Tell it to the judge, motherfucker. According to the goddamned LAW, copyright infringement is not theft. If you want it to be theft, send your paychecks to congress and lobby for the change. But, right now, this minute, you are WRONG according to the dictionary, and you are WRONG according to the law, and you are WRONG according to millions who download music over p2p networks.
Re:Shut up, you dipshit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 05:37 · Score: 0

So, uh, are you saying that the definition of "property" can't change for changing times?

Sure. But, turnabout is fair play. I say that downloading copyrighted materials is "fair use" or "good for the economy" or "my God-given right". Saying it doesn't make it so.
Re:Shut up, you dipshit by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-29 06:05 · Score: 1

According to the goddamned LAW, copyright infringement is not theft.

According to "the goddamned LAW," copyright infringement is a crime covered by 18 USC 2319. The title of the relevant chapter is "Stolen Property." Other crimes specified in that chapter include "transportation of stolen vehicles," "transportation of stolen goods," "trafficking in counterfeit goods" and -- I'm not kidding -- cattle rustling.

So yeah. According to "the goddamned LAW," copyright infringement is theft. It's a crime punishable by up to five years in federal prison. And that's not even counting the various state laws that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Next time, before you get oh-so-passionate about something, you might consider lookin' it up.
Re:Shut up, you dipshit by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 06:39 · Score: 1, Informative

If you read carefully, you will see

(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000

It would appear that as long as you don't sell the stuff, and as long as you don't copy more than $1000 retail value of the stuff within any 180 day period, you don't meet the criteria --- i.e. you are not stealing.

If you meet the criteria, then I will concede that it is theft.

And uh... by daveschroeder · 2005-01-29 05:03 · Score: 1

...what's keeping you from having multiple hard drive copies, again?

Re:And uh... by m50d · 2005-01-29 05:56 · Score: 1

Not being able to play the DRMed AACs from linux

--
I am trolling
Re:And uh... by Leo+McGarry · 2005-01-29 06:09 · Score: 1

What does that have to do with Dave's question? The question was, "What's keeping you from having multiple copies on multiple hard drives?"

There's no barrier here to use. You can use your music in any way that you see fit. And yet you turn your back on the various ways that are available to you and seek, instead, a way that's less convenient, less easy and less useful to you, just so you can thumb your nose at the company that bent over backwards to sell you music in a new, more reasonably priced, more convenient way.

How does this not add up to your just being an asshole?

Where the "deprivation" argument falls down... by daveschroeder · 2005-01-29 05:08 · Score: 1

You're depriving the painter of the possibility of his work (or even duplicates of it) having been purchased by taking it upon yourself to create/obtain duplicates that the creator has not been paid for, either for yourself, or others.

You're stealing from him, plain and simple. "Legally" stealing? Perhaps not. But that's a semantic debate. Saying it's "copyright infringement" and not "stealing" makes you feel like you're not the two-bit thief that you clearly are. And anyone who makes that argument is clearly feeling guilty.

Of course, you've got some tired rationalization for that, as well, I'm sure.

Re:Where the "deprivation" argument falls down... by m50d · 2005-01-29 06:25 · Score: 1

But what if I can't afford to pay for it? What if I buy some of his other paintings with what money I have?
I download music. Call me a pirate if you want, although the only ship I've been on is a cross-channel ferry. But the fact is that as far as I can see the music industry has only benefited. I don't have much spare income, so I could not buy all the music I download. But I have discovered bands I really like and then brought their albums. In fact I've spent more money on music than if I hadn't downloaded anything, because I discovered a band I really liked and spent money that I'd earmarked for a new graphics card on their music. Still only getting ~5fps in UT2003 on my crappy clone TNT2.
Admittedly, some few people will freeload when they could afford to buy things. But there is no extra labour being required. There's no losses anywhere. If they could pay but they don't want to, then I don't think trying to force them to pay by artificially restricting copying - which is all you can do with anything digital - is the right way. But I'm not sure they should even be stopped anyway. You act as if the painter has an entitlement to be paid every time someone gets a copy of his painting. What about every time someone looks at it, should they have to pay? I realise I'm rambling here, so I'll cut to the end. Whether or not I have a copy of the painting or song does not affect the artist/singer unless I could afford to buy it, in which case I would have done so. It only affects me. So I don't think it's wrong of me to copy it.

--
I am trolling

Re:Why pay for a blank CD when you can create Imag by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 05:34 · Score: 0

True, and you can go crying to Apple the next time your hard drive crashes and you lose a lot of unbacked-up music. They will be quite sympathetic, I'm sure, but they won't let you re-download the tracks you just lost.

An Accurate Blockbuster Scenario by asv108 · 2005-01-29 05:48 · Score: 1

This is just silly. It's like getting mad at Blockbuster because they don't license every other video rental place in town to use the Blockbuster retail outlets to sell their own movies.

Nope, not even close. If you want to use an analogy for Blockbuster, this would be an accurate example.

Blockbuster creates a new video format.
Blockbuster becomes the only retailer for sells this new format.
Blockbuster also makes the hardware that plays the new format.
BlockBuster refuses to open or license the new format to other hardware companyies and retailers.
Other retailers can still sell older formats, but Blockbuster has the largest market share of video players.

Re:An Accurate Blockbuster Scenario by tres · 2005-01-29 11:46 · Score: 1

Sorry, but you've still not addressed the point of the post; the fact is you can buy from anyone else in town. Apple only owns the distribution channel, not the songs. And by no means are you locked into that distribution channel.

Like I said, it would make sense if Apple had some kind of ownership rights of the content and weren't allowing anyone else to provide the same content in other formats, but it's just silly to think that Apple should "Open" their distribution channel to competitors.

--
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us

Re:Why crack it? - this is why... by Gob+Blesh+It · 2005-01-29 06:19 · Score: 1

I had the same problem, but fortunately you can just send a note to Apple asking that they reset the authorization count on your account. I've done this and they were happy to oblige.

Of course, you might run into problems if you accidentally type something like "My friends are having problems listening to music I bought..."

Re:Backing up purchased music by evought · 2005-01-29 08:20 · Score: 1

> how else are you planing on keeping your music safe?

It takes a hell of a lot less space to back up MP3s/AACs than burning music CDs. When I bought a copy of the unabridged Lord of the Rings on audio CD, I ripped it to the hard drive, set the compression to something that will allow me to play decent portions of it on my 128MB el cheapo MP3 player, and burned backups to CD: 3 CDs from what was ~70 CDs.

It is the same with the audio books I buy online. There is no point in backing up an unabridged book to some 20 CDs when I can put the compressed copy on 1 or 2. Backing up the encrypted copy isn't any good though since I do not know what will be available to play them on if I lose the online files. If I lose my Mac, what am I going to do, load an AAC on my Linux box? I cannot afford a new Mac any time soon.

I am disabled. There are many days when I cannot do much more than listen to audio books. Protecting my investment is very important to me. I also cannot afford to go out and buy a new FairPlay or Audible capable device when one breaks. I just dropped my Audible Otis a couple months back and now have no way to play those books without lugging my laptop.

Your argument still fails by daveschroeder · 2005-01-29 08:22 · Score: 1

Let's take this argument out to absurdity. Which I feel is appropriate, since you already have.

Whether or not I have a copy of the painting or song does not affect the artist/singer unless I could afford to buy it, in which case I would have done so. It only affects me. So I don't think it's wrong of me to copy it.

How do you figure that it only affects you? Where is your incentive to better your financial situation and make more money, so you can afford the things you want - which you claim you would buy if you had the money? Inherent in that is educating yourself, making yourself a better and more productive member of society, a semblance of ambition, and incentive to do more. If everything could be gotten for free, then where's your incentive to do anything? And then, the logical follow-on question is: where is ANYONE'S incentive to do anything?

Luckily, there are still honest people in the world. That's apparently the difference: some people feel obligated to pay for the work and effort of others within the bounds of the laws that society has collectively set up; others feel that it's okay to take from others with no compensation, and manufacture arguments designed to rationalize it, rather than thinking, "Hm, wouldn't it be nice to {improve my lot in life | work more hours | work toward a better job | make myself more desirable in the marketplace | etc.} so that I can reward myself with the things I want?"

Re:Your argument still fails by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 12:02 · Score: 0

within the bounds of the laws that society has collectively set up

I don't recall being asked for my input. Who set up these bounds again? It wasn't society.

"Hm, wouldn't it be nice to {improve my lot in life | work more hours | work toward a better job | make myself more desirable in the marketplace | etc.} so that I can reward myself with the things I want?"

Sure, that's a nice philosophy. Here's another: There is a finite amount of wealth to go around. Some people are going to have to do without. I don't have this tremendous faith in and appreciation for capitalism and "free trade". I don't happen to think that any person is 60, 80, 100 times as valuable to society as any other person. Luck has as much to do with your financial success as skill and hard work. Some people bust their asses for nothing, while others have everything handed to them. IMHO, the system stinks. I don't feel obligated to obey the rules of a system that doesn't reflect my needs or desire my input. The rich take care of themselves. It's about time the poor do the same.
Re:Your argument still fails by m50d · 2005-01-30 10:11 · Score: 1

Well, let's carry on taking it to absurdity. Suppose everything, not just digital stuff, were freely replicable. Food, drink, housing, anything you want, you can copy some with no effort at all. You think that in such a society, it would be wrong to do these things, you should instead buy these things from people, and starve if you can't afford to eat?
Having getting things as your incentive for doing things is a pretty poor way of living, imo. You seem to think that needing money is your only encouragement to try and make yourself a better person. I don't think forcing people to contribute to society against their will is the way to go. If people don't want to contribute but aren't consuming anything, I say let them keep going. If people are willing to contribute, they'll do so whether or not they need the money - and it's usually possible to make a greater contribution to society by doing things for charity etc. than you make by working for whoever will pay you the most. If people aren't going to contribute to society, I don't believe in forcing them to.

--
I am trolling

Hypocrisy by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 08:36 · Score: 0

So...when Real Networks creates similar technology (Harmony) they are evil because of past transgressions (despite their open source use and contributions), but these dudes are a-okay to the slashdot community. What gives?

Not an anarchist, but rights are restricted by SuperKendall · 2005-01-29 08:56 · Score: 1

Look, I'm generally favorable to Apple's DRM. However, one right (to share music with others) has been restricted - I share my iTunes library at work and other people cannot play the DRMed music unless it is unlocked. That's a case covered by fair use, and I think a reasonable use case.

That's really the only reason I use Hymn. At home I just leave it with the DRM in place, as it really does not affect me there.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Not an anarchist, but rights are restricted by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-29 09:28 · Score: 1

no its not.. what the fuck crazy fair use rights do you think you have to be able share music with the rest of the frigen world?

--

I am the Alpha and the Omega-3

Who knows what when by SuperKendall · 2005-01-29 09:04 · Score: 1

I'll bet far fewer people than you would think know what DRM is at all, much less that music they download online is protected by it. ITMS users could essentially go forever without knowing that it's there - until they get a new computer at least.

So by different intentions, I am referring to the end-users intentions to use downloaded music just like they've used CD's in the past (as much an expectation as intention). For most people, there is no difference to them and they would never read the complex legal text describing what they are actually doing.

I am talking about the users mental model of the situation vs. the reality of the distributors technical limitations imposed on the format. They are not one and the same, and therefore the user at some point is going to experience an unpleasant disconnect as the reality they thought they knew is shifted.

The goal of any provider of service or product should be to never, ever cause a shift in the users mental model (at least not unpleasant ones). That is the point when it's most likely for a customer just say "screw this" and walk away.

Apple has been as good as they can be at tiptoeing around this line. As I said most ITMS users will never really have much of a problem.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Backing up purchased music by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-29 09:25 · Score: 1

if you lose your mac then play then in iTunes on windows? holy crap!!!!! or ... or.. or.. play them in Mplayer!!!! OH MY GOD!!!

--

I am the Alpha and the Omega-3

And You're Just Plain Mad (as in Out of Your Mind) by sabat · 2005-01-29 09:36 · Score: 1

Ok, you're trolling and everyone knows it, but I'll bite anyway.

Music is not property. There is no provision in the US Constitution for considering music as property. And you cannot steal something if it isn't property.

The Constitution does provide for a temporary monopoly on creative works in order to motivate authors to do more creating.

Temporary monopoly: that's a far cry from some kind of authorization to treat music as property. And by the way, it's not "theft" if you still have your original "property." It's just copying.

--
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.

Why We Like Breaking DRM by sabat · 2005-01-29 09:43 · Score: 1

If you want to "support your artists," then you shouldn't give money to the RIAA companies. Fact is that the vast majority of the money you pay for CDs doesn't go to the artists, but to the corporate coffers.

Want to support your artists? Send them a check, directly. Don't kid yourself into thinking that buying music at that mall CD store is doing them any good.

Why do we like breaking DRM? Because if I pay for something, I might want do things with it. You know, throw it on a few computers, play it in my stereo downstairs and also have a copy up at my summer home (I'm dreaming). The Constitution gives us that right, and calls it Fair Use. DRM attempts to defeat our constitutional rights, something that nerds don't like, you dig?

--
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.

Re:Why We Like Breaking DRM by shark72 · 2005-01-30 12:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

" If you want to "support your artists," then you shouldn't give money to the RIAA companies. Fact is that the vast majority of the money you pay for CDs doesn't go to the artists, but to the corporate coffers."

Huh? About 30% of the price you pay for a CD goes to the store that sells it to you. Likewise, most of the money that the record company gets for the CD goes to paying the various people who helped create the CD. "Corporate coffers" sounds like you think it's going into some Gringots-style bank; the reality is that when you buy a CD, a mouse, or most any other consumer good, most of the money you pay ends up paying somebody's salary. In fact, the record industry makes do with margins that are lower than the PC mouse industry, so it's likely that if you buy a CD and a mouse, a higher percentage of the cash you paid for the CD will end up going to help somebody make their living.

"Why do we like breaking DRM? Because if I pay for something, I might want do things with it. You know, throw it on a few computers, play it in my stereo downstairs and also have a copy up at my summer home (I'm dreaming). The Constitution gives us that right, and calls it Fair Use. DRM attempts to defeat our constitutional rights, something that nerds don't like, you dig?"

The constitution says nothing about "fair use rights," and neither does US copyright law. If you'd like to learn more, you can read what US code has to say about fair use. There's also the Wikipedia entry and EFF primer. Fair use doctrine gives you a set of legal outs if you're brought into court for copyright infringement (ie. you can attempt to use the guidelines in that section to show that your actions were fair use), but fair use doctrine most definitely does not disallow a rightsholder from taking steps to prevent their work from being copied in an unauthorized manner.

Either way, you're allowed, under fair use doctrine, to make a copy of music you've purchased for personal use. I do this all the time with stuff I've purchased from iTunes, without breaking their DRM -- the folks at Apple who set up the DRM policies took a sensible approach, and their DRM allows me to move tracks between multiple iPods, make backups of the tracks, burn them to CD as often as I want, and even burn multiple copies for friends (which is definitely not fair use, but iTunes doesn't stop me from doing it anyway). In short, Apple's DRM has not stopped me from doing anything I've wanted to that would fall under the realm of fair use. Apple's DRM does not allow me to put a track in a P2P share directory so dozens of people I don't know can download it and listen to it, but that's not "fair use" by any stretch of the imagination.

If you ever come across a music download service that doesn't allow you to make copies for personal use, then that service is retarded and will hopefully die the death it deserves. Apple's DRM is remarkably easy-going, and I think this is one of the reasons that the iTMS is such a wild success.

--
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.

Re:Where does it all end? by sabat · 2005-01-29 09:51 · Score: 1

People deserve whatever renumeration they can negotiate for their time, talent and effort.

People deserve whatever other people are willing to pay for their time, talents, and efforts.

In this case, that's close to nothing, mostly because of a lack of scarcity. End of story.

--
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.

Re:Where does it all end? by sabat · 2005-01-29 09:54 · Score: 1

Is free the only fair price?

Your whole paradigm is wrong; music is not property.

Where this all ends: a new business model will be developed in which artists can make money making music. This will, in all likelihood, spell the end of the RIAA and music companies as we know them. The RIAA knows this, and is just trying to hold off that day as long as it can; Hilary Rosen (former head of RIAA) has admitted this in interviews.

--
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.

Subnet, not world by SuperKendall · 2005-01-29 10:17 · Score: 1

Look, fair use says I can share copis of works I own with friends.

iTunes sharing only works on a subnet - at work I'm really only sharing with a few people, and pretty much all of them I consider friends.

It would also be legal to burn CD's and hand them out, but this is a more convient way of doing just that.

Study fair use a little more before you offer critique.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Subnet, not world by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-29 13:53 · Score: 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

perhaps you should study it rather than spout turds that you read on slashdot? fucking idiot.

--

I am the Alpha and the Omega-3

The Osama of AAC? by acb · 2005-01-29 10:35 · Score: 1

This "FutureProof" character is very careful not to give any clues to his identity or whereabouts. Do you suppose there is a bounty on his head yet?

Unlimited Sharing by meehawl · 2005-01-29 10:47 · Score: 1

Does anyone know how to get around these restrictions?

Get an unlimited, uncrippled media sharing solution. Go with something like VideoLAN (free!) or my personal favourite, Media Center. MC can upsample or downsample or transcode on the fly, serves up library audio and video to unlimited number of clients across LAN or WAN (I tried to max it out with 8 LAN clients and 5 WAN clients onetime and it just kept on chugging), and works with pretty much every codec I throw at it.

--

Da Blog

And again with the bogus arguments by daveschroeder · 2005-01-29 12:52 · Score: 1

I don't recall being asked for my input. Who set up these bounds again? It wasn't society.

Wha? In this crazy society we live in (assuming you're in the US), we have something called representative democracy and another wacky concept known strangely s rule of law. As nutty as it sounds, the constituent elements that make up our society collectively decide on laws that govern our interaction with one another. Not everyone may agree with the fundamentals of every possible law, but we still collectively decide as a society to obey them, so we can actually live in some semblance of civility.In-sane!

There is a finite amount of wealth to go around.

Now I know you really don't know what you're talking about. This is not a zero sum game, and wealth is most definitely not finite. If you want to talk about people who are worth "100 times" as much as someone else, you're not talking about that tired old "one percent" the liberals always trumpet about. You're talking about the top 0.1% or 0.01%, depending on who you're comparing to. Why are you concerned with the fabulously wealthy? On top of that, that isn't what this discussion is about at all. If you don't believe that you can (or even want to) better yourself, you'd probably be perfect in socialism: the endless struggle for the lowest common denominator!

Nice Robin Hood argument though: the classic "because they have more, it's ok to steal from them". Nice. It's good to see plainly where you're coming from, though. Thanks.

Re:And again with the bogus arguments by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 13:59 · Score: 0

In this crazy society we live in (assuming you're in the US), we have something called representative democracy

In theory, yes. In practice, no. We live under the ILLUSION of a representative democracy.

the constituent elements that make up our society collectively decide on laws that govern our interaction with one another.

Once again, the few make the laws for the many. They pass laws by the most underhanded methods. A great deal of the time, the citizens are not made aware of what's being voted on. Hell, often the congressmen themselves don't know what's being signed into law. There are a few very rich, power hungry individuals who monkey wrench the system from the inside for their personal gain and to the detriment of millions. I'm not having any.

but we still collectively decide as a society to obey them, so we can actually live in some semblance of civility.

What a laugh. You're telling me that you ALWAYS operate within the bounds of the law? How can that be, when I know good and well that you cannot possibly know all the laws that you are required to obey? Millions of people speed, run stop lights, are publicly intoxicated, steal from work, lie on their income tax returns, infringe copyright laws, and lots lots more. Collectively agree to obey the law indeed. Fantasy ... sheer fantasy.

Nice Robin Hood argument though: the classic "because they have more, it's ok to steal from them". Nice. It's good to see plainly where you're coming from, though. Thanks.

You're most welcome. You're no better than me, or anyone else. Everywhere man goes, he leaves an oil-bleeding, deforested landscape littered with the carcasses of newly extinct species alongside the corpses of the less fortunate members of his own. But hey! As long as he didn't break any of the sacred laws, and he earns another dollar in the process, it's all good.

Re:Backing up purchased music by evought · 2005-01-29 13:09 · Score: 1

> if you lose your mac then play then in iTunes on windows? holy crap!!!!! or ... or.. or.. play them in Mplayer!!!! OH MY GOD!!! So, what, stealing a copy of Windows in order to avoid having to crack DRM is OK ? ;=) Besides, why in the hell would I want to run Windows?

Re:Backing up purchased music by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 13:45 · Score: 0

who does not steel windows?

I mean.. .common, that is how MS gets their market share numbers.

Anti-trust overblown by augustz · 2005-01-29 15:41 · Score: 1

I think you are bit naive with your focus on the RIAA needing to avoid anti-trust issues.

Though it really would have been nice had Apple not caved on the issue. Had Apple said we want to sell MP3s, period. I'd have loved to see the RIAA hang on anti-trust conspiracy, for imposing a Windows only market, and for abusing their copyright monopoly to control formats.

If apple said we want to sell MP3's, then Microsoft / Real etc simply sell WMA or other DRM protected music on the Mac platform. End result? NO itunes music store, and NO "anti-trust conspiracy" charged.

Re:Anti-trust overblown by Alsee · 2005-01-31 01:57 · Score: 1

Drats, it was several years ago and now I can't find any good direct link on it. The RIAA was definitely concered with antitrust issues at the time. They went through elaborate measures, with their lawyers specifically prohibiting any of the label heads from being in the same room at the same time when working up the uniform online licencing terms they were imposing.

The RIAA has been bouncing in and out of court on antitrust issues repeatedly, probably more than any other organisaion in history. I think they were nailed for CD price fixing twice. Senator Hatch even introduced a bill trying to grant them (and the MPAA) special immunity to antitrust prosecution.

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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.

Looks like somebody didn't learn how to read. by SuperKendall · 2005-01-29 19:53 · Score: 1

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia article provides little insight into the issue of noncommercial, noneducational aspects of fair use which are what I was talking about in the first place.

Take a bit of time to read this article.

Consider this segment:

HRRC always has maintained that even where particular consumer practices may be controversial, private, noncommercial home recording practices should not be lumped in with piracy. For example, in a congressional hearing on "Internet Redistribution" earlier this year, U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) noted that he has a fair use right to make a home recording of a copyrighted broadcast and share it with a relative over the Internet.

See? Some U.S. house reps agree with my position.

This is a longer and deeper look into the whole noncommercial, private aspect of Fair use. It outlines the cases for both sides.

Now consider the case of how I am doing the sharing; At work, I have perhaps two or three people listing to my shared iTunes music. I have three licenses free for other computers to play my music.

So then, I can if I wish authorize the other computers to play back my protected shared music. If I do so, you have to admit I am breaking no law, as the system is built to allow it.

So then what changes when instead I do not assign the licenses, and simply let them play the shared music anyway? How does that differ?

To me this case would be pretty cut and dried were it ever to come to legal action - as noted in the Wikipedia entry some aspects of fair use are "Effect upon work's value", and "Amount and substantiality". Since the shared works never permanently reside on the others computers, and I could just authorize them anyway there is not loss and nothing in the way of sustainability.

You need to ruminate on issues like these before you jump to hasty conclusions and dubious Wikipedia links about what is or is not fair use - by doing so you pretend to have more clarity on the issue than the supreme court!

BTW, the vulgar language doesn't really help your case any and just made you look silly and childish. When you get into the business world you are going to have drop things like that or you are going to be a rung of other peoples ladders instead of climbing your own. Not that people don't swear like sailors at work, they just NEVER do it in written form if they wish to appear professional. You may as well start working on that now as it's a hard habit to break.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Looks like somebody didn't learn how to read. by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-30 04:33 · Score: 1

some representatives thinks thinks that recording a free to listen to broadcast and sharing it with family/friends on the internet is legal... thats fine, I agree... but you are claiming that you can buy music and then GIVE it to your friends and family... that is not fair use and I think you should ponder how broadcasts and music on a CD are different.

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I am the Alpha and the Omega-3

Beat The System. *(with a stick) by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-29 23:54 · Score: 0

1. Look up music on iTunes - do not download.
2. Order CD from Amazon.
3. Get CD in Mail.
4. Upload CD into iTunes - Burn a copy.
5. Donate original purchased CD to local Library.

So this allows you to legally obtain the music,
and share it with everyone who has a library card.

The Librarian will thank you.

Never said GIVE, only SHARE by SuperKendall · 2005-01-30 09:05 · Score: 1

I never said GIVE. I am only talking about sharing music, and that my rights to do so in a way that is at least argued to be legal (it certainly was consider legal in widesread copying of tapes that no-ne cared about) are being curtailed by Apple's DRM.

As I sad I suport Apple's DRM and don't think they could have been any more lienient than they have been due to content provider restrictions. But that does not mean we can't apply pressure to try and make the restrictions even more lienent by pointing out valid and most likley legal scenarios for sharing.

Indeed as it is Apple encourages giving away music more than legal sharing, since you can effectivley burn as many DVD's as you like of a song! The 10 CD playlist playlist practically begs you to do so, or at the very least says "Go ahead, we don't care!". I can not believe how many home burned CD's I have got at recent years - people hand them out at weddings, as christmas presents, and at club events. And the kind of people who are handing them out are not simplistic folk or pirates - we are talking high level lawyers, university professors, and other very well educated folk - some even with a huge degreee of legal eduction. If these people think nothing of passing out copyies of burned music for noncommercial, privateuse what does it tell you about what they law would actually say if aything came to a lawsuit? As the saying goes, no jury in teh land would convict you. And inedeed cases that have gone to court generally do not go well for the MPAA in the case of private sharing.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Never said GIVE, only SHARE by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-30 09:25 · Score: 1

oh... now you are going semantic on me huh... it is still not a fair use right to take a recording that is for sale... make a copy and then give that copy to your friend... you want to share your purchased media.. that is legal... what your friend does with it is not your concern.

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I am the Alpha and the Omega-3

Actually that is fair use as well by SuperKendall · 2005-01-30 11:41 · Score: 1

I was just pointing out what my original argumnet said. However it's also perfectly legal to give a copy of a recording to a friend, just as the U.S. Rep said and what other trial cases have decided. You need to read all the stuff I posted before which talks about this.

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Actually that is fair use as well by the_2nd_coming · 2005-01-30 16:18 · Score: 1

you are not giving a copy of a recording that you made of a BROADCAST... you are giving a copy of a product you purchased... there is a huge difference.

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I am the Alpha and the Omega-3

Re:Where does it all end? by shark72 · 2005-01-30 11:53 · Score: 1

"Where this all ends: a new business model will be developed in which artists can make money making music. This will, in all likelihood, spell the end of the RIAA and music companies as we know them. The RIAA knows this, and is just trying to hold off that day as long as it can; Hilary Rosen (former head of RIAA) has admitted this in interviews."

I see this stated on Slashdot a lot; it's been a common statement ever since the days of the original Napster. But I never see anybody estimate when this will happen. When do you think it will occur? A year? Five years, ten years? No right or wrong answers, of course; I'm just curious what you think.

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Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.

Re:Where does it all end? by shark72 · 2005-01-30 12:36 · Score: 1

"People deserve whatever other people are willing to pay for their time, talents, and efforts. In this case, that's close to nothing, mostly because of a lack of scarcity. End of story."

The trouble with this theory is that Apple's iTMS has been a wild success, logging millions of downloads. Apple and the record companies are laughing all the way to the bank.

Sure, some people have the moral mindset that limits them to getting their music only via the P2P services and the like, but there's always going to be some people who will break the law to get something for free. For instance, most people buy cars. Some people steal them, and pay zero. This does not make the value of the car zero, nor does it make the car manufacturer "deserve" zero.

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Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.

great... by torrents · 2005-01-30 21:01 · Score: 1

everybody i know who uses itunes and burns to cds and then re-rips to mp3 (accomplishing the same thing) this just preserves the "original quality" if the record industry wants to slow piracy in any meaningful way they better stop releasing albums on audio cds

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Get your torrents...

Debacles by phorm · 2005-01-31 08:05 · Score: 1

Yes. DRM has had it's trial period and often been shown wanting by restricting legitimate use. Steam just had its major showdown when HL2 went up, and if you think that a lot of people were against steam before you'd better believe that it will be even worse with any future releases.

Re:I don't understand why ... because your stupid? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-31 13:54 · Score: 0

When you buy a music CD from the store what you buy..... is ... a .... MUSIC CD !!!!
Are you retarded???
I have never signed any kind of licensing contract from the pothead at blockbuster/wherehouse... have you?

This is only a test by meehawl · 2005-02-05 07:08 · Score: 1

The Volition Bug was launched anonymously from a site somewhere in a Central Asian republic. It propagated wirelessly among all the WiFi-communicating chipped objects, installing new directives in their tiny brains, directives that ran covertly in parallel with their normal factory-specified functions. Infected objects now sought to link their processing power with their nearest peers, often achieving surprising levels of Turingosity, and then to embark on a kind of independent communal life. Of course, once the Volition Bug was identified, antiviral defenses--both hardware and software--were attempted against it. But VB mutated ferociously, aided and abetted by subsequent hackers.

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Da Blog

Why Apple don't care by Anonymous Coward · 2005-02-06 09:02 · Score: 0

iTunes is only generating revenue to fuel sales of the iPod (it's a cycle) so I don't think the folks at Apple are going to be steamed up unless this was something that prevented purchasing. It also is the reason why AAC isn't open to other players.

As you can see, if anything it opens up iTunes to the large non-iPod user market while still having the money put in Apple's pockets for their use.

JHymn isn't *that* well known; so it's more like a small itch to Apple if at all. It's not robbing from Apple; moreso slightly expanding the market.
And anyway there's nothing stopping people from buying iTunes store music, burning to CD, and then ripping back into MP3. This is the same with WMA DRM.

Besides if Apple get a bit too touchy over this (and as someone pointed out this is not about P2P and the JHymn site discourages that); they'll be getting the same disdain that Lars Ulrich got in the Napster saga.

Re:DRM by ndtechnologies · 2005-02-11 11:34 · Score: 0

You really don't get it do you?

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I have nothing clever to put here...

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