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DRM for 1'3" of Silence
jc42 writes "In the latest entry in the battle over Digital Rights Management, a fellow has blatantly ripped off a "tune" from the iTunes Store. "Tune" is 1 minute 3 seconds of silence. To compound his crime, he has posted the tune on his web site for anyone to download. I downloaded it to iTunes, and it played just fine (but now I suppose I'm a criminal, too). I wonder what John Cage and Mike Batt would have to say about this? Will lawyers for Apple or Ciccone Youth send a C&D letter? If I were to make my own MP3 silent tune of exactly the same length and put it online, would I be infringing their copyright?"
At least that's one song who's lyrics won't offend the FCC.
Or do you think they mught just be committing quiet obscenities? Better ban it anyway just in case.
Beep beep.
Actually, if it was John Cage, you would hear the performer turning the page.
You have the right to remain silent.
But only got the message,
"Nothing to hear here. Move along."
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Article is already slashdotted, here's the google cache:
I'm gonna preface this by saying that I love Apple and their products and I hate the RIAA and their shortsightedness. My only complaint with Apple is the restrictive DRM built into iTunes Music Store songs (also, those new G5s could be a little cheaper).
In protest, I've committed a real crime and documented the entire process. But it shouldn't be that way and that's why I've done it. Come and get me, Apple! Come and get me, RIAA!
It all started with a free song code from the Pepsi iTunes promotion. I tilted several Pepsi bottles at the local Ralphs (just look for random letters under the cap), found me a winner and scored a free song.
You may not know this, but there are several tracks that you can buy from that iTunes Music Store that consist of nothing more than total silence.
Here's one from Ciccone Youth (a Sonic Youth side project):
So I bought it.
Then, I wanted to play this song on another device other than my iPod (I own a Creative MuVo TX MP3 Player). No go. The Digital Rights Management (DRM) makes it impossible to transfer the song to my other MP3 player unless I go through some ridiculous steps which involve burning the purchased song to a CD and then ripping it. This causes a noticeable loss of sound quality due to the song being recompressed. Totally unacceptable. I want pure silence.
So I stripped the DRM using JHymn, a cross-platform application that unlocks your DRM'ed songs and keeps the original's sound quality. This is absolutely, positively illegal according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
One law broken, one to go.
One file is legal, the other one is definitely not. Can you spot the one that'll get me in trouble? I'll give you a hint: it's the one without the little lock over its icon.
There's just one law left to break. I'm offering this very file for download here on my website. So go ahead, download it (1.1 MB) and break the law with me. Right click, save as, and crank it up on your favorite portable electronic music player.
If this little stunt gets me in trouble, you'll be the first to know.
You can help stop the RIAA and their nonsense at Downhill Battle.
Find out more about protecting your digital rights online at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.
Silence is golden. Get involved.
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it doesn't matter if they vocalize the words, we all know they are THINKING them.
sum.zero
If I were to make my own MP3 silent tune of exactly the same length and put it online, would I be infringing their copyright?
No. First of all, no one has a copyright on any length of pure silence. You can copyright SOUND RECORDINGS. Pure silence is the absence of sound, and is therefore not copyrightable.
However, you could record yourself sitting in front of a piano (ala Cage) and the various ambient sounds recorded would technically be a unique work, and as the original author you would own the copyright on that SOUND RECORDING.
This guy is violating the DRM agreements that Apple set forth, so Apple could pursue him.
As explained above, the pure silence is not copyrightable, so the RIAA has no beef.
If the guy forgot to remove the album artwork from the file, then he is infringing the copyright of whoever owns the album artwork copyright, and they could sue him.
What is he really trying to prove? The point is lost on me due to his ineptitude.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Well, it may not be copyright infringement, but if he cracked the DRM to access the silence, it is indeed a crime under the DCMA. Which is one of the big problems with the DCMA. Even if you have a legal right to the material that is copy protected, you cannot crack the copy protection without committing a crime.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
By the way, Cage's piece is "4'33" of silence" (and it does last 4 minutes and 33 seconds).
Not only does it bring up the question of what is Art, but what is copyrightable. There was a suit about this (The suit was settled with John Cage's estate getting a 6 figure settlement). See http://www.billboard.com/bb/article_display.jsp?vn u_content_id=1710115
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
Let me get this straight. Someone makes a "song" that's 1m 3s of silence. Some other guy makes an audio file that is 1m 3s of silence. He's daring someone to sue him, and everyone here is already screaming about it? No one's done anything! Apple hasn't sued. The artist hasn't sued. The RIAA hasn't sued. What's the big deal?
man 1.1 MB for just silence you would think nothing would compress down to almost nothing.
Realy take a look, whats hard to compress, variance.
The song is the same the entire track. so realy that could be compress quite nicely. no need stereo is silence after all. no need for a bit rate, its silence.
Frankly I am a bit disapointed in the compression.
that any ashlee simpson song consisting of silence would be a vast improvement over those with noise.
sum.zero
I guess we should all observe about a minute of silence then...
There's no place like
As evidenced by Mike Batt being sued by the John Cage Trust, people have been sued for copying silence.
Apparently, his minute of silence "infringed" on the late John Cage's 4'33 of silence.
No joke. No legal precedence was set, as the matter was settled out of court. (I wonder how much the trust got out of suing someone for copying silence.)
but if he cracked the DRM to access the silence, it is indeed a crime under the DCMA
Not so. The DMCA forbids circumventing technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. In this case, since silence does not qualify for copyright, you'd be circumventing technological measures that control access to uncopyrighted works, which would not fall under the DMCA.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So I wondered how the various codecs handle silence. That seems like an easy optimization for the codec implementor. Here's what I did:
- created a 10-second silence sound file in Sound Studio 44.1/16/stereo
- exported it to AIFF
- opened it in QuickTime player and re-saved it as AAC/128/best quality
- opened that file and re-saved as AIFF
- encoded that file to MP3/192/joint stereo/best quality in Audeon
- opened that file in QuickTime Player and saved it to AIFF
- opened that file again in Sound Studio
I zoomed all the way in on the digital waveform, maximum magnification, and scrolled through all 10 seconds. All the bits were pinned at 0.So, while the guy is right in almost every case, he picked a really bad example to make this particular argument on. If he had burned to CD and ripped, assuming is CD-ROM drive is good he'd have pure silence in the re-ripped soundfile.
There must be something in the iTMS that's public domain that would make a better example.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)