Slashdot Mirror
iTunes DRM Hole Closed
FrYGuY101 writes "As recently covered on Slashdot, there was a hole in iTunes which allowed music to be acquired from the iTunes Music Store without Apple's DRM applied. Well, Apple has just released an update which closes this exploit."
Well you all knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner than this.
My spoon is too big.
from filling one of Apple's holes.
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
I like how they handled that... no horrible punishments, no wagging their finger at the community... just fix the hole, force the update (for obvious legal reasons), and carry on loving your customers... I like...
:P
Too bad napster to go couldn't be so accomodating...
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
When holes like this one open, it's only a matter of time before they close.
Rant:
This is no big surprise. Our favorite music is owned and operated by an industry
who cares more about money than music. The artists who write and play this music
have sold their souls to this industry. Until the artists wise up and use the
Internet to distribute their music on their own terms, this cat and mouse game will continue. It's not going away soon since many artists do it for the money anyway.
Which of course requires that everyone upgrade their itunes to version 4.7. Apparently you can still use PyMusique to preview tracks, just not buy them.
...is going to patch their system so they _can't_ get music without Apple's DRM? Why would a user knowingly restrict his capabilities to avoid copy protection?
-py
iTunes 4.7 has been out for a year now. Apple didn't "just release" anything, they just made it so their servers required you to have 4.7.
From the original story:
He explains that his program works by bypassing iTunes which adds the DRM itself at the end of the transfer.
I don't think it would be trivial to change the time that they add the DRM. So, is this a true fix that won't be broken again quickly? Or is this just a small patch that changes something just significant enough to break the Pymusique application?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Considering you can burn Apple's song on CD and get rid of the DRM, who cares.
What I'd love is a way to download songs from Apple in a non-lossy format! If DVD Jon could do that, I'd give him a lifetime of gratitude!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
..someone just releases a patch to PyMusique so that it looks like version 4.7 of ITunes to Apple's servers...
and the endless game continues....
Seems that Slashdot has become the standard bug-report mechanism across numerous OS's and companies.
The problem with this, though, is that the songs are already low quality (128Kbps, even though the AAC compression is pretty decent; I have a hard time hearing any artifacts in them). If you burn them, then re-rip them, you're compressing the audio even further, creating a lower-quality version of the song than you already had.
The thing I liked about pyMusique was that it would download the song and just not attach the DRM to it, therefore not requiring the file to be re-encoded. Even JHymn requires a re-encoding, which means that to prevent the file from having artifacts you'd have to encode at a much higher bitrate.
It didn't plug a "hole". It modified things so that PyMusique won't work anymore. Like they did with Real.
...it requires you place a wad of chewing gum in the headphone jack.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Of course the only change that Apple has made is to require iTunes 4.7 as the client. How long before someone figures out how to make PyMusique look like iTunes 4.7?
And as long as they are sending un-DRMd songs down to the client they are suceptible to man in the middle attacks (a proxy server which watches for iTMS traffic and saves the song streams to another file), or to someone directly pulling data out of the iTunes app (though the second would arguably violate the DMCA).
Who exactly is going to patch their system so they _can't_ get music without Apple's DRM? Why would a user knowingly restrict his capabilities to avoid copy protection?
The real question you're asking is how are they 'forcing' an upgrade. That's just a matter of blocking any version but the latest from accessing the music store.
Of course a lot of people will complain but it's the only real alternative for Apple. You can't really expect them to let the hole slide. If people would stop trying to crack the DRM it wouldn't be necessary. --
The Wolfkin
And Microsoft wouldn't have had a patch out if iTMS was theirs for another six months.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
How was being able to PURCHASE something in a form that the user actually wanted an exploit? A bug that would allow someone to gain access to Apple's servers, or to steal information, or - for that matter - to steal songs without paying - all of those would be exploits.
I'm with you. I would cheerfully pay an extra ten cents (or so) per song and put up with the longer download times if I had the option to get iTMS stuff encoded with either FLAC or the "Apple Lossless Format."
In fact, I'm going to send an e-mail to the iTMS sales support folks saying exactly that, and I suggest you do the same.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
"This is not a hole, this is a feature"
http://www.michel.eti.br
Are you sure about JHymn? I don't think it re-encodes.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
I believe that the apple lossless format is a variable bitrate, not a steady 128Kbps.
Somone else may have more information on this though. I for one would like to know.
With iTunes 4.7.1, there are restrictions placed on how many computers you can transfer the songs to. Now I'm forced to upgrade the damn thing on 3 of my computers.
Thanks for nothing, asshole.
What I'd like to see is iTunes to have a 'compress when copying to portable' option, and then have Apple sell lossless.
I don't mind wasting the gigs for lossless on my desktop, but I would object to wasting them on my 1st generation 5Gig iPod. Allowing this option would let me store the master copies at home, but still carry a fair amount of them around portably.
Cheers,
Ian
How about friday night about 18 hours after the hack/hole was out !! And it was reported several places yesterday.
...
This JUST in, slashdot can be slow to report
Maybe you just hold the shift key down when you download
for crying out loud
If you think that you would be signing a big fat contract with the music label, you're just as dumb as most of the artists out there. What you would be signing is a loan. You would be at the record labels mercy. Believe me, you are better off now. At least you don't owe the music labels anything.
how big is an itunes install these days? 20MB? seems like every couple of months i'm getting forced to upgrade: and guess what: it doesn't usually mean i'm getting *more* features...
AP Press Release:
The well known hacker (sic) group "General Pr0tekti0n F41Lur3" has released a patch that, in their words, "circumcizes Apple's DRM and makes everything kosher again". The quick response leads technology experts to wonder if this is a quickly escalating "DRMs race" which will eventually lead to mutually assured destruction of the end-user's data. The last time Apple implemented security to protect their intellectual property, the DRM was cracked in a day.
I'll be sure to down load this "update" that cripples my computers ability to utilize the Home Recording Act, right away.
There's already an option for that for the ipod shuffle. I'd imagine that there's some way to either enable it for other ipods, or bug apple enough that they'll add it for other ipods like they did with the shuffle music and other options for the 4th gen ipods.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
..how ass-like they would look suing DVD Jon... again!
Besides, I really don't think there was anything illegal in his hack this time. Even with the U.S. DMCA included into consideration.
*yawn*
Jon breaks something for the sake of breaking it*. The other party patches it.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
-----
*: if not true, then sell your services as a white hat consultant. You could make money.
Though arguably his targets are getting this service for free along with the gratis notification of his fans...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
So how long before I'm not permitted by law to modify data which I have paid for... and if that happens how much longer will it take before its the cops hall you off for highlighting your textbook.
Apple went out of their way to apply the barest minimum of DRM necessary to keep the RIAA happy. It's a great compromise, except for the existence of marginally talented pricks like Johansen who simply can't stand to pass up the opportunity to break something.
--
Even Linus is using Mac!
Puh-leeze. When will Napster, Apple and the RIAA learn?
.WAV, press play on your DRM-enabled player and record on Goldwave.
.WAV to your CD or use the LAME encoder to convert it back to .MP3.
Anyone with functioning ears can bypass DRM.
Got an old copy of Goldwave? (The new version might do it too).
Simply create a new
Ta-da. DRM-less WAV file.
Use Nero to burn the
If this guy is such a thorn in Apple's side, why not just hire him? Sure, it won't be as glorious as hacker extraordinaire, but it will pay well and give him access to a variety of resources (hardware / software). Why not channel his talents instead of fighting him each step of the way?
Misrepresenting software to get around the DRM could be interesting legally. (Yes, I know browsers can do this -- but not to avoid DRM.)
an Open-n-Shut case...
I use open source software and listen to free music.
ajf
What I can't believe is that DVDJon adopted the tactics and ethics of RealNetworks to break into the iTMS.
I read about this on suicidegirls.com last night, and Slashdot is only posting it now.
When a pr0n site beats you to a story, your tech reporting needs work.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not knowing exactly how itunes worked concerning it's downloads and DRM, I found this program to be somewhat of an eye opener to me. I imagine it will be the same for quite a few others, and we will see programs soon that do such things as lock the file right before DRM gets applied, or copies the stream but not the post download processing, etc... I imagine such would not be illegal, for you would merely be capturing data being sent to your computer.
loganavatar.com
Quick! He's pointing out our biases! Silence him!
If this heresy is allowed to continue, our saviour Jobs will take note and delay his second coming.
Quick friends, help me gather firewood and petrol and we will burn this unbeliever before his sacrilegous cancer can spread amongst the faithful!
Exploit (the transitive verb): to make productive use of : to make use of meanly or unjustly for one's own advantage
Exploit (the noun): a notable or heroic act
It's understandable that people abuse words (as in the subject) but can't we all at least try to avoid doing so when the word as a noun already has a distinct meaning?
The problem with this, though, is that the songs are already low quality (128Kbps, even though the AAC compression is pretty decent; I have a hard time hearing any artifacts in them). If you burn them, then re-rip them, you're compressing the audio even further, creating a lower-quality version of the song than you already had.
You're not making the lossy original lossier, though. I can't think of too many (any?) audio transcode applications that don't essentially decode the original format into what amounts to an uncompressed waveform and then compresses it into the new format. This is exactly the process for AAC->CD->MP3, since iTunes requires a conversion to physical media.
While its true that iterating this process many times will ultimately have a degrading effect on audio quality, the point at which this is the case is dependent on the codec, bitrate and strategy (VBR, etc). Even 5-6 years ago it was believed that dozens of analog copies between minidiscs were required to show generational effects of transcoding.
I seriously doubt that a single AAC->WAV->MP3 conversion at quality bitrates would show any noticable degredation, especially not in the usual listening environments (cars, mass transit, urban areas, most home audio setups) due to the quality of the equipment and the noise floors associated with the locations.
*gasp* There's a community of people here. And *gasp* they pick whatever they want to be interested in. And *gasp* there's a bunch of other communities all over the internet for like-minded people to small-talk.
Yes, the community's interests might be moving in a different direction from yours. No, this isn't an event worth whining over.
I was just compiling the list of tracks i actually wanted to buy - I hadn't registered for iTunes before this but when PyMusique came out I had decided that I was going to buy all my tunes this way.
Seems that it will be a little while before I start giving apple any of my money. I believe that apple would have sold bucket loads of music if they had been a little slower off the mark. I was stood in line with cash in my hand.
Maybe they did it for the record labels or was it for the iPod?
I wonder how happy all the Hymn and J-Hymn users out there are about what DVD Jon did. By releasing PyMusique, he got Apple to force everyone to use 4.7 iTunes if they want to use the iTMS. I believe that 4.7 broke Hymn and unless that has been addressed, now people will no longer be able to remove the DRM from music that they purchased from the iTMS.
What happened was fine, nothing to get your knickers into a knot about. When you buy music with DRM you are agreeing to use it according to the terms set forth. One of those terms is that you agree to how the terms may change in the future. That is why I do not buy music with DRM, the fact that what I can do with that music can change at any time.
It is too bad that the Apple DRM happens to be one of the least onerous and DVD Jon gave Apple a reason to make people move to slightly more restrictive terms with 4.7, but still just the fact that Apple can modify what you can and cannot do with the music from the iTMS is an immediate turn-off for me.
In an art, this is called "selling out."
When the Grateful Dead released the album "Touch of Gray" in the late 1980s, they had a couple big radio hits off it.
Some of their old fans accused them of "selling out," to which Jerry Garcia replied, "hey, we've been trying to sell out for years, it's just that nobody was buying."
Performance artists has always been about getting paid, not about creating something which will hang on a church ceiling forever. Shakespeare wrote his plays to make a quick buck, not to give you something to study in Middle School English classes. The fact that the stuff he wrote was good enough to be worth forcing on bored 12-year olds is strictly the gravy. Wealthy royalty paid him cash money to parade around in tights on a stage and show off his skills, so he wrote plays which the royalty would like. Hippies like you can call that "selling out" if you like, but I won't.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'd prefer to see FLAC support in iTunes. I know its probably not something they'd support on the iPod, but a lot of live sets are offered in FLAC format and it'd be great to be able to import the FLAC files directly into iTunes and only convert them to MP3/AAC if I wanted them playable on the iPod.
So, the music executives have forced DRM on Apple and so they have to provide it in their files. But they aren't really doing anything. Basically the DRM is to prevent files from being just put on Kazaa and spread around the world. Yet, the DRM doesn't really stop this. There's still the burn and re-rip strategy which is quite effective, as well as the "buy a CD method" which is also effective for getting files onto the internet. The only thing this does stop is file which the person has purchased being accidentally leaked on the internet by some hard-drive scanning P2P program. Anybody who still wants to distribute their purchased music can still do so. All it stops is people who don't want to share their purchased music from sharing it unintentionally.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
*sigh* It is such a geeky pasttime to rail against the quirks of our living language. There are so many phrases that people use without having any idea what they means or where they come from. The one that always gets me is when people say "That's a whole nother thing." The word nother doesn't exist, (yet,) and so far it only seems to comfortably fit into that one phrase. Here's a good link for the google impaired.
For so long, one of the more legit arguments for downloading music via p2p was that music publishers gave customers no other options other than to purchase an entire, overpriced CD when all a person wanted was one or two songs. Now we have a multitude of options for buying music pretty damn inexpensively online with a very reasonable implementation of DRM, and some people still want to jump through hoops to cheat the system? For god's sakes, write your own music if you're that cheap!
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Better yet, instead of AAC to CD to MP3, go with AAC to CD to AAC.
AAC rips sound better than MP3 to begin with, and the encoder is likely to make a lot of the same decisions it made the first time, so you will have fewer transcode errors.
You are (and always have) bought a license to use a copy, and the rights you have on how you can use that copy are limited.
You do not have, for example, distribution rights.
You cannot buy a copy of a movie or song and then broadcast it. That requires a different type of license.
You do, however, have your fair use rights, which, I agree, are being eroded and trampled upon. Sure, we can just burn to CD and then rip the MP3s back to get rid of Apple's DRM, but using any technique to bypass DRM or copy protection is a Federal Offense (tm) via the DMCA.
So all this bitching and whining about how YOU can't do what YOU want with YOUR music is drek. When you go produce your own music, then it's really YOUR music to do with what you want, and you can philanthropically hand it out on a web at your own expense all you want.
But you are buying a license from somebody with this stuff, and that license clearly delineates what rights do and do not come with it. If you don't like it, then don't friggen buy it.
You're like the people who bitch about gas prices going up but keep driving your cars. Or even worse - the people who plan a one-day "drive-out" where NOBODY BUYS GAS! That'll show those evil oil companies! That'll MAKE them listen!
I just don't bother using iTunes. Between WalMart and other (unnamed but you know who) sources, I can get my music DRM free and put it on my no-name MP3 player and all of my computers. There is always a way to defeat DRM.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Everyone keeps mentioning that you can always record to CD (as a normal CD) and re-rip the file (but what a pain that would be).
A determined enough programmer could easily write a driver for a CD-R emulator that automatically ripped back to MP3... is iTunes flexible in letting you select the CD-R drive you want to record to?
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I thought it was about both.
Instead of burning it to a CD, why don't you just use this: http://fairtunes.cjb.net/
If you re-encode to the same format using the same encoder, the loss is probably minimal. If you re-encode to, say, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis, which quite probably have different ideas about which data should be thrown out, you're more than likely to start hearing defects much sooner.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Why don't you toss in a cheerful rimjob while while you're at it, maczealot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I thought it was about both.
Prior to the 20th Century, performance art was not something you could preserve. The concept is, by its very nature, temporal.
The phonograph and the motion-picture camera changed that a little, but most performance artists still consider the actual performance, which is gone forever as soon as it's over, to be the real art form.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It is rapidly turning into a biased Apple fan site.
Bravo, well said.
For the first time ever, I'm finally seeing "This DRM is good!" posts on slashdot. And that my friends, is the end of slashdot.
Why? Because slashdot was known for their absurd pro-free software anti-DRM stance. Would you give a rat's ass if slashdot was like every other news site out there ? No.
Sunny Dubey
Just a hypothesis: I suspect that, irrelevant of any DRM/RIAA/"The Man" issues, Apple might be reluctant to offer lossless encoding just on the basis of data transfer. You may be willing to wait a couple more minutes for your song, but on the supply side Apple would have to deal with the logistics of moving many, many more bits out of their store. That's not cheap; the consumer face of the Internet can belie the true costs of data transfer. I don't know for a fact that this is a knockout argument against lossless compression on iTMS, but it's certainly a serious concern.
"There are hundreds of game theorists at the gates, sir, and they want to hold an election!"
If the aim is just to get lossless (well, there's no such thing, but lossless in terms of being encoded at a reasonable PCM bitrate) content, and convenience is not an issue (and loading 300Mb at a time, which is the best you'd get for a FLAC-style compressed CD's worth of music), then CDs remain the best way of getting the content. After fiddling with iTMS, downloading a few tunes, finding the DRM is enough of a PITA to make the whole "convenience" selling point bunk - to me - I have to admit that's pretty much the route I ended up taking. Yes, I could have used DVD Jon's hacks, but I tend to go for the "If it's breaking the law (even an insane law), and there's a legal alternative to do the same thing, go for the latter."
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I mean, c'mon! Can you suck AND blow everytime?
Not everything of value in this world has a monetary value.
Only because some things are worth more than any ammount of money, hence the term "priceless," and some things which are not worth any money at all, hense the term "worthless."
Very few works of art in the history of mankind have been truly priceless. Most of the work coming from artists who think their stuff is priceless is actually worthless. All other art can be bought at a price. (With the exception of public domain works, which are free now, but once had a money value.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Actually, while the parent was modded up as "funny" I think the poster makes a very good point. The fact is that /. has become a popular, large voice, and more importantly, is being listened to by the industry. Sure, there's always the threat of the /. effect that gives it some leverage, but still, it'a a voice that is being heard and listened to. Kuddos to /.!
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
It doesn't bother me either. I don't buy music from Apple.
I found this out this weekend, I dnld some songs (one of the 'Exclusive EPs' they handle) on my iBook. Thing is I don't have a burner on my iBook, so I scp'd them over to my linux workstation where I have my burner. I figured I could strip the DRM on the linux side just so I could burn it to a CD (the only reason I wanted the tracks), but now I can't. So, I can listen to the songs on my iBook, or iPod, but not on my stereo. Not a big deal, I can always go to a friends house who has a burner on her iBook, redownload the tracks and burn them there (only out 5$ and some change), but still, it's kinda fishy.
I realize I'm a strange case, but still, these are the first tracks I've bought from iTunes and I only did it because I thought I'd be able to burn them (which is allowed by Apple, you just can't burn them on the machine you didn't dnld them on).
bo
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
I think the proper reference here on slashdot would be Teh Man
Thank you for your attention gentlemen. .. you better be moving along now. ... nothing to see here.
Walking into a brick and mortar building and purchasing a good old fashioned CD is still a method for getting music. And it doesn't have a DRM attached to it. So why does everyone insist on attaching a DRM to purchased music files? How are they different than the physical CD? A physical CD takes me less than 3 minutes to either rip into AAC or make a physical copy and pass around to whomever I please. Putting a DRM on things is just like saying, PLEASE, TRY AND HACK ME. Its no different than telling kids that they can't drink until they're 21. If you don't make a big deal out of it, neither will they (look at countries that don't have a drinking age for example). On top of that, we all know that DRM is a useless technology. You give the person an encrypted file AND the keys to open it. Wheres the security? And now for the honer system theory.... If it were made blatantly clear when you purchased a song from the iTMS that YOUR NAME and ACCOUNT NUMBER were embedded into the file (just like a license plate on a car), I would certainly think twice about sharing that file on a P2P network. At the same time I would have an unlocked unrestricted file to do as I please with.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
How about paying 90 cents less and get yourself lossless DRM free music ?
This is BS, because I am forced to use version 4.6, as 4.7 will not allow me to import CDs at any bitrate other than 128Kbps. Aaargh!
"I'm not a cool person in real life, but I play one on the Internet". Galley
Hmmm... all the holes in Windows and IE still haven't been fixed. And those are the number one things we b!tch about.
...on /.
If we all work together, we can totally disrupt the system.
And they're doing it because of flagrant, widespread, arrogant abuse of the law by a significant minority of the population.
If the assholes hadn't been taking the piss for years, DRM wouldn't have needed to exist. Sooner or later the record labels would have realised there was money to be made from honest customers in on-line music downloads and done it anyway, and it would have been a lot more convenient for those of us who do just want to back up the material, or burn a CD with our favourite mix to listen to in the car. We could have avoided provoking a whole wave of unnecessarily wide-ranging and frequently abused laws along the way, too.
DRM sucks, but the population has brought it upon itself. The assholes broke the law long before the law started becoming silly, and now rather than accepting that they scream "No compromise is acceptable!" as if their right to have the music at all is enshrined in some higher law. Newsflash: this is not the attitude to adopt if you want to start reversing the damage.
Disagreeing is your prerogative, but you have failed to consider another alternative: as on-line distribution with thin margins becomes the dominant form of music sale, the record labels actually are going to start losing money. At that point the business guys at the top will just move into a different market, the guys who actually do good work will be out of a job, and while we'll lose a lot of the manufactured popular crap (but obviously a lot of people do like it; that's why it's popular) we'll also lose a lot of good music.
Most of the record industry isn't U2 or Britney Spears or $BIG_NAME_BAND, and without the publicity and promotional engine provided by the record labels, a lot of the smaller guys -- many of whom got that far by being pretty good at making music -- will lose out.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
How about paying 90 cents less and get yourself lossless DRM free music ?
That sounds like it would be terrific, if I didn't mind supporting the Russian mafia.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Does it never occur to anyone that most bands probably don't have the necessary expertise to do this, and would require some outside help from promotion and marketing experts?
Most people who sign with a record label probably aren't going to make much money from it, but don't kid yourself about the Internet revolutionising self-publishing for music artists. It might not be today's record labels who get the goodies, but middle-men who know about Internet marketing will appear and take their share before $JOE'S_BAND gets big through the 'net, and most bands will need to make use of those services.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You guys who complain about bitrates can always go into the iTunes prefs, select the import segment, and under 'setting' select 'custom' and crank up your bitrate. I mean, not that that was hard or anything.
And if you want to broadcast and have the bandwidth, there's always nicecast. [www.rogueamoeba.com].
You know, just a thought.
"It's a fine line that has been hotly debated since the days of Socrates, but there is an important qualitative difference between those who do things that are ultimately "functional" (i.e. produce a product which in some way furthers the aims of survival and reproduction) and those things which are "artistic" (i.e. things which do not further survival or reproduction). It has been argued by some (like Scott McCloud) that the moment one bleeds into the other (i.e. the money starts mattering more than the art), it's no longer art."
...
+3 points for quoting Scott McCloud (of Understanding Comics, for those just joining us), but -10 for totally mangling his point.
If I may quote, from page 168-169:
----------------
"Rare is the person in any occupation who expresses nothing, and rare is the artist who cares nothing for success, i.e., survival!
"The 'fine artist' -- the pure artist -- says to the world: 'I didn't do this for money! I didn't do this to match the color of your couches! I didn't do this to get laid! I didn't do this for fame or power or greed or anything else! I did this for art! In other words: 'My art has no practical value whatsoever!'"
----------------
The point that you missed in misquoting McCloud is that artistic merit is not exclusive of monetary value. It's entirely possible to create moving works of art, and want to be well-compensated for it. Michaeangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel under commission, for instance.
To claim that there's any financial value where the art suddenly ceases to become art may be a claim you hold, but it's not one McCloud does.
Or, as he says it, "'Pure' art is essentially tied to the question of purpose -- of deciding what you want out of art."
Class dismissed. Alaren has to spend the next three nights re-reading Understanding Comics, and this time actually reading the words instead of just looking at the pretty pictures.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
So what happens if you download with iTunes, but are running a packet sniffer to grab all the data? Couldn't you then look at those packets and get the unencrypted music from them?
Many people are saying you can just burn-and-rip or buy a CD to circumvent DRM and get files on P2P.
I contend Apple is doing much more to fight P2P than just the DRM.
Recall Jobs' initial presentation when he announced the iTMS.
I Don't use P2P any more because $0.99 is a cheep way to ensure I get the song I want, ripped at a good-enough-for-my-needs bitrate, downloaded in a few seconds, with 30 second preview, and a great was to browse and find new music. Oh yeah, and it's legal.
These are all things P2P does not (currently) offer. No doubt P2P will always be a way to get music for free, just like street vendors in NYC sell DVDs for cheap that are not legal.
The DRM is a deterant but what kills P2P for me is the simplicity of the shopping experience - and the price.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
By forcing DRM onto them?
Who wants DRM voluntarily? That's like complaining because someone is enforcing mandatory car height requirements in NASCAR. The nature of DRM like the other is that it's going to be forced on you. It has to. Noone asks for it but if it's in the business proposal it has to be forced on. That doesn't make Apple bad for enforcing the DRM.
If you want to complain that DRM like car height requirements is unethical or something like that feel free but you can get upset at apple for deciding to use DRM and then enforcing it's use. That's like getting mad at an officer for making someone walk back two blocks and pick up poop. You can yell about there being a poop law but you can not yell about the officer enforing it while it exists.--
The Wolfkin
One thing that I can say about Apple is that they are quick to fix their junk. If this were MS it would take years to fix that type of hole.
I'm saying this because when people start talking about Apple getting viruses, just look at their track record for fixing problems. Not as fast as Open Source, but a lot quicker than MS.
The above is not worth reading.
sneak in and take stuff?
yeah right.
you still had to pay for songs in pymusique. this is not stealing/theft. pymusique enabled to buy music on itunes instead of only renting it.
You are incorrect, and the majority of Courts in the USA do NOT find EULA's to be legally enforceable. Only the 7th and 8th circuit court of appeals. see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EULA
I don't understand the point of this hack in the first place, other than to get DVD Jon's name in the media.
Apple Itunes essentially has no effective DRM anyway. Hymn works perfectly, there is no need for this eminently temporary hack.
It's a fine line that has been hotly debated since the days of Socrates, but there is an important qualitative difference between those who do things that are ultimately "functional" (i.e. produce a product which in some way furthers the aims of survival and reproduction) and those things which are "artistic" (i.e. things which do not further survival or reproduction).
I'm sorry but Art as we define it today was practised as craft for centuries - right up to the 19C or so. Artists whom we esteem today for their creativity and innovation spent a lot of time working for pay - Leonardo, Michelangelo, Durer, Balzac, Dickens etc etc Sometimes the work is the better for it, sometimes worse - it was in no way divorced from the need to sell the art, in fact in many cases you could say it was directly inspired by it.
The concept of Art as unpaid angst is an invention of the Modernists, and not a very helpful one in my opinion.
Just because art is done for money does not make it a sell out; when it is done only for money, it could be called a sell-out, and unlikely to be very interesting (but sometimes is in spite of itself : ).
What I'd love is a way to download songs from Apple in a non-lossy format!
The lossy format Itunes currently uses is the only reason I'm still buying CDs.
Let us not forget that a major part of CD sales was due to people rebuying the same music they already owned. A nasty intuition that I have is that Apple/RIAA is keeping any lossless format back so that people will have to rebuy evreything all over once more to get the higher quality format. I've bought the same tune over the years as a 78, an LP, a Cassette, & as a CD. This was usually due to the suppourt degrading, but now that I have it as a lossless digital file, I'll never have to buy it again.
Until iTMS proposes lossless, I'll continue to pass on it.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
There was a great article a while back talking about Apple designing the iPod and how the original iTMS had no DRM at all and the record companies wouldn't buy into it until DRM was added.
I think all the stuff Apple does to block HYMN and software like this (come on, you had to ACTUALLY BUY the songs from the iTMS in order to get the DRM off of them), is done only to keep the RIAA happy.
Apple knows that DRM will always be circumvented, and I doubt they wanted to spend the engineering manpower and money to keep outwitting the crackers. It's a losing battle. Companies like the RIAA and MPAA and MSFT thought the DMCA would be their savior, but now the cracking tools are all hosted overseas, where the DMCA does not apply.
Apple actually stated they did not want to add DRM to QuickTime, because it will always be circumvented, and the manpower and money invested in updating the DRM can be better spent updating their products.
Quite simply, there's more than enough stuff out there for you to listen to that's NOT part of the "industry", or more appropriately, the major labels.
They weren't looking out for you- they were looking out for themselves. No music to sell via ITMS, no money... Just because you want the stuff is only secondary to that and you should place yourself on the pecking order accordingly and not act so grateful as they really, really don't care about you or any other "consumers". As far as they're concerned, the consumers are going to consume whatever they offer if it's packaged nicely enough.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
By blocking out customers who don't run an official iTunes-supported platform?
I refuse to reboot my machine to buy music. I made my first 5 purchases from iTunes immediately after discovering pymusique - I needed to verify my account in iTunes, but other than that, I could do all the shopping I wanted without leaving Linux.
I was planning on purchasing more.
Now that I cannot purchase music from Linux, nor can I load anything else I might purchase from iTMS onto my Treo 600, it's back to the old non-legal way of getting my music. I was more than happy to purchase my music if allowed to do so, but that's no longer possible.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
WTF? Last time I checked, all Jon (there's no 'h' in his name) wants to do is watch dvds and listen to music purchased via iTunes on his Linux box. What Jon has done is indeed illegal in some countries (more extreme /. members would call them corporate states), but I don't think that any honest person can say it's unethical.
It's really quite simple. If you buy something, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, so long as your actions don't harm anyone. Don't give me that "indirect harm" bullshit, either. I'd give you ground if we were talking about releasing the plans for building an antimatter bomb, but not for something so inconsequential as circumventing DRM and copy protection.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
So, you're saying Apple is standing there with a gun to your head, "forcing" DRM on you?
Oh, you mean you're choosing to purchase the music from iTunes and THEN complaining about the DRM after the fact? For a second, I thought you had something legitimate to say...
iTunes DRM only works with iPods.
If it won't work with PocketTunes on my Treo 600, I'm not buying it.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
He allowed us linux users to watch what we paid for.. Ya that makes him bad. You vote to take more rights from us.
Jerk.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How hard would it be to create an app to just proxy iTunes and divert any streams to another file? Someone wanna help me with this, I'm more than willing to work on something like that
We need some new moderation categories. The first that come to mind are "Misleading", "Uninformative", and "Idiotic".
well, better brush up then on your legal thinking.
Troll has a soggy diaper! Troll has a soggy diaper! Troll has a soggy diaper!
So you aren't in it for the love of the music. Art for art's sake. It's no wonder that your songs are as shitty as you admit they are. Go sell the instruments and start daytrading, you'd make a better pathetic businessman than you are a pathetic artist.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Actually, browsers do often do this to avoid DRM. After all, the very definition of DRM is that it's software which controls who can view the content. Thus, limiting what browsers can view content (perhaps, for example, to restrict it to those where they can easily disable copying content to the clipboard?) is very definitely a form of DRM. Yes, DRM is incredibly broad, which is why it's so scary.
I think Apple's going to tread very carefully here. I'm betting that one of the reasons they didn't sue over this is that they didn't want to create a precedent that could hurt them in their fight against Microsoft in other areas. They just need to keep things secure enough that the record labels remain blissfully unaware of what, exactly, Apple's doing to them.
Magneplanar speakers and a Class A power amp and pre amp mean I buy CDs. Sorry, 192 doesn't cut it, DRM or no. I do have a branch to route audio through my sound system, but my DAC/Transport decompression a tad better.
Mind you, I don't have a girlfriend.
I'm wondering what the reactionary response to this will be.
In high school (a long long time ago) a friend of mine got a -3 on a question on a test. The girl sitting next to him got a -1 on the same question with a near identical response. He complained and the situation was resolved by giving the girl a -3 instead of a -1.
My point, instead of raising awareness of the stupidity of the law and making it better for the rest of us...will DVD Jon just ruin it for us? Will his escapade just serve to make DMCA laws worse? Will the RIAA use this to show that DMCA laws are not tough enough?
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
your parents are in on it too. everytime they tell you to turn your music down, they're trying to make sure that you don't lose the fine-tuned ability to tell the difference between crappy encodings and good ones. fortunately, i figured this out early enough to blast my way to apathy
Good idea. I would prefer some kind of lossless format, too. Just too bad it won't ever be FLAC :|
Learn it. Love it. Live it.
You mean a Slashdot group-think topic might not apply to everyone???
The horror!
" If you allow anyone to do anything with the music, the record industry won't allow songs to be sold digitally"
Yes. CD sales are being stopped by noon today. Film at 11.
"Do you have any documantation of the "mediocre quality" claim?"
Yes. The act of lossy compression throws away some of the music. First today is phase information, second to go is all the harmonics, third to go is the complexity of the music.
"It sounds just as good as CD to me."
You ask for documentation, and then turn around and say "gee, mediocre music sounds just as good as CD's on my crappy apple-brand ear buds".
What a revelation. My god. King of the clueless.
Some people would be content to be ignorant and keep it to themselves. Not you...you parade it like you're proud of not understanding the magic technology in your iPod-magic-box. Ignorance to you is more than bliss, its a badget of courage that lets you say to anybody with an ear or a clue "Hey you, I can't tell the difference between FM radio and a CD, and I'm gawdamn proud of it".
All hail the power of no-nothing. The land where ignorance is king, and anybody who challenges that is just stupid, or whiny or a geek or something that threatens your iPod (which is Apple supplied Magic).
Cripes. No wonder the world is a screwed up place. There's probably more than the one of you out there.
I hear this argument, and it always makes me wonder a bit. Why don't you use that grey matter in your head instead of just parrating the riaa line? Of course, they would sell DRM-free music and at no higher prices. They are not going to walk away from a market of billions of dollars. The price is set by the market and not just the seller. If the market refused the DRM junk being offered, then DRM-free music would be available. It is quite simple and certain.
"consumer-friendly DRM"
Military intelligence
Giant Shrimp
public knowledge
common sense
consumer-friendly DRM.
the only people who claim others are immature, and usually kids.
Russian mafia, Californian mafia... is there really that much of a difference? :)
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
Wouldn't it be cool if Cribs on MTV showed where these people lived?
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
"because the assholes among us will turn their noses up at every reasonable compromise along the way"
The reasonable compromise is no DRM.
When we buy a CD, there's no DRM.
I want to meet the people who pay more money for less music with DRM from iTunes, and then say with a straight face "Oh, what a good deal".
To me, these are the same people who probably should be buying iPods and spending $$$ on singles from iTunes.
You think iTMS is magic... I'd say its just mediocre. Mediocre selection, poor pricing, not consumer friendly, restrictions that are ridiculous".
But to you, its new, and exciting... I'll bet you think its the wave of the future. Wow. Its like you're at Disneyland in 1958.
Its just silly. You're sitting there defending the trend of iTMS. If you were old enough, you would have bought a pet rock.
Sure, if you don't mind your musical career being over.
See, the big labels put in an exclusivity clause. Sure, you can "simply walk away", but you can't then release music commercially, even as part of another band, until you've paid them back what you owe and they've given you permission to record for someone else, or the duration of the contract you signed has expired.
And that's not the worst of it. It's not necessarily you who gets to decide whether to "simply walk away"; the record label can decide that it's not going to bother releasing anything you record, but you're still under contract and can't record for anyone else.
I know a couple of musicians who got fucked that way. They signed with a major label (Polygram). After a couple of singles, the label decided the musicians hadn't been profitable enough, so nothing more would be released. However, they couldn't go back to their indie label, because they were under contract for the next 8 years. So, that was the end of their musical career as artists; they worked as producers for a while, then found jobs outside the music industry.
I guess if all you care about is making money, and you don't mind your musical career ending totally if you fail to make big bucks, then a major label contract would seem like an OK deal.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Macs are just so pretty!
sup
Here's a theory:
Apple already knows about these holes, and puts the simple ones out there so that no one goes after the killer ones.
They "fix" the hole by only allowing a version of the client that's been out for a year? Seems like the fix was out there, just waiting to be turned on.
Maybe while DVD Jon attacks the edges, Apple is shoring up the center. Kind of like sacrificing your pawns to take their bishop.
</tinfoil hat>
Share and Enjoy!
> Do you have any documantation of the "mediocre quality" claim?
Well, the fact that Apple provides the option to rip/encode your cd's with their lossless codec implies (to me) that the AAC codec is not as good in quality of sound. I could live with their current DRM if I were able to purchase songs and download them in their lossless codec, as it would allow me to burn a CD in actual CD quality, but I don't think that option is currently available.
Just out of curiosity, if someone provided you with some "documantation", would iTunes music suddenly sound not-as good as CD?
I think you're absolutely right.
But implicit in what you're saying is that adding DRM makes the product worth less money.
But they charge more.
yeah seriously, where did all these pro DRM shills come from?
Because it drives home to people that DRM, no matter how innocuous can and will be used against them.
The others may be worse now, but Apple's may be the worst if they manage to become an important part of the music scene.
Hymn originally preserved the Apple ID and other identification info embedded into DRMed iTunes files. This was done intentionally, as the authors intended Hymn for fair use by the legal owner of the files, not for piracy. Thus that did nothing to make it harder for Apple and the RIAA to track down someone who Hymned a file and then put it up on KaZaA or another P2P network.
Then Apple changed iTunes so that it would refuse to play files de-DRMed in this fashion. i.e. if it had iTunes identification info but no DRM, it wouldn't play them.
Hymn fixed this by changing to completely remove any iTunes-specific identification info. Jon also posted a simple awk script on his blog (1-liner) to fix any previously de-DRMed files that had ID info.
He didn't WANT to remove the ID info from the files since he did not create the tools for the putposes of piracy, but Apple actually forced him to release that little fixing script and forced the Hymn people to remove identification info.
In short, Apple's recent actions have done nothing but ENCOURAGE piracy, by forcing the removal of identification info from nonprotected files, and trying to force people to use iPods with Windows or MacOS instead of other players with any platform.
My first music purchases in nearly two years were immediately after the release of pymusique. I've been wanting to use iTMS for a long time, but as a Linux user it's basically a non-option. iTMS+pymusique is easier than using P2P to pirate.
By breaking pymusique, Apple made it easier for Linux users to pirate music rather than purchase it legally.
Back to P2P for me.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I suspect without the marketing and promotional work of the major labels the rock world would become more like the classical world. Mentally people would become much more aware of the contributions of composers / writers and not just those of performers. In rock Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller (Love potion #9, Yakety Yak, Poison Ivy, Hound Dog) are about the only song writers where their fame has surpased the performers that made their works hits.
The net effect would be the more pure music market would become composer driven where a performer would be known for how well they handled a particular composition. On the other hand you would also have a performance drivern market where very good performers are known and have freedom to choose from a wide range of composers and thus lesser known composers get discovered first by well known performers and then by the general public.
I think far less music would end up being sold but I'm not sure quality wouldn't skyrocket. Such things are very hard to predict.
DVD Jon (and others) made a program that let you download songs from iTunes service so that you pay for the songs, but get them without DRM -- and that was bad.
Hymn (what ever) did the same thing -- and that was good.
Now, also hymn is blocked because of DVD Jon -- that is bad.
Everybody is mad at DVD Jon, because now they can not share their iTunes songs and they have to burn them on CD's and then rip from there.
And all the time I thought it was Apple the was restricting the use of the songs and thus Apple should have been the bad guys, but apparently as they are Apple, they can not - by definition? - be the bad guys and therefore DVD Jon had to be the bad guy. Right?
I must get one of those lovely Macs so I can (not) share my music and I can (not) use it where I want as it's just so nice...
appledot indeed...
Remind me not to go to boingboing.net for at least two weeks. I can see it now:
"Apple RAPES their customers by ROAD RAGING a new DRM scheme on them. BLOGOSPHERE and puppies are OUTRAGED."
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
I would cheerfully pay an extra ten cents (or so) per song and put up with the longer download times if I had the option to get iTMS stuff encoded with either FLAC or the "Apple Lossless Format."
Apple would be fools NOT to offer a format that uses 300% the bandwidth of their current offering, yet only brings in a 10% revenue premium!
I don't understand why it isn't possible to set up something that looks, to the operating system and to iTunes, like a CD drive, but which is actually on the hard drive. I watch DVDs that are stored on my hard drive this way using a program called Alcohol.
The reason for setting up a virtual CD drive is, of course, is to exploit the fact that the DRM is removed when you rip the file to CD. If you didn't have to physically stick a CD in the CD player, the process of stripping DRM could be made virtually seamless.
you dont 'have' to use drm. just burn to cd, rip back. thats like saying linux's horrible interface is 'forcing' me to learn perl or bash. no its not.
slashdot is just bringing it true nature into the open . the moderators and owners have always been anti free speech if it was against the 'paradigm' (linux). now that paradigm is being applefied. i dont think you get it. slashdot was never anything unusual, and it never had a philosophy that it stuck to. it was never consistent, and it never had any ideals. all it had was anger.
a friend of mine got a -3 on a question on a test. The girl sitting next to him got a -1 on the same question with a near identical response. He complained and the situation was resolved by giving the girl a -3 instead of a -1.
Heh. Back when I used to teach calculus, I did this (or at least threatened to do it a lot). I was a real BTFH.
Basically I would be careful never to err on the parsimonious side with partial credit. Frequently, two friends with fairly similar answers would walk up to me with their graded papers, having fairly similar answers but different scores. I would always out that the student with the higher score was the beneficiary of a generous mistake on my part.
"But, if you want me to, I could reduce your score to even things out." No one ever took me up on that offer, no matter how close their friends were. Usually, they left feeling relieved I had not in fact reduced the higher score, and perhaps a little peeved at their friend for putting them at risk.
Try a true double-blind listening test and then get back to us, asshat.
gnupod, a set of perl scripts for managing the iPod, has this feature - it will down-convert FLAC and OGG to MP3 or AAC. It works wonderfully.
Not wanting DRM has nothing to do with being "cheap" in this case. You still had to purchase the music from Apple with this program.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
I-TUNES is for buying INDIVIDUAL songs that you want. People who buy albums on it are either smart for buying shit that's out of print and impossible to get on CD, or they're fucking idiots like you. Let me repeat: I-TUNES is for buying SONGS.
Like when some band puts out a box set cause they want more money, but it's just all their regular shit with like 5 bonus songs for $50. If I have all those albums anyway, I'm not paying fucking $50 for 5 new songs. I'm jumping on I-TUNES to get them. The $45 saved is worth a little compromise with DRM.
I don't fault MAC for doing that anyway, it's the record companies. Steve Job said he didn't even want DRM and he told the record companies that they had PHD guys looking at it and they said it would never work. He knew people would always crack it but the record companies wouldn't listen. They forced MAC to do this DRM but MAC fought back and gave us something that's livable. It's called a fucking compromise, life is full of them.
Much sooner, sure. But the whole point is that it's likely to take a dozen steps or more before even the best ears begin to notice "much sooner." Nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY will notice just one or two steps. Unless you use a really crappy bitrate on the re-encoding.
Not gonna happen ANY time soon. Why? Because Apple doesn't have the files in a format that's equivalent to CD quality. The record companies encode to 128-kbit AAC and ship those files off to Apple. That's all Apple has.
Supporting any higher bitrate would require the record companies to go back and re-encode everything. Not gonna happen. It was stupid of them to do it this way, but that's how they did it.
1) Bandwidth is cheap in bulk. Really really cheap. So even if it uses 300% the current offering, it may not matter.
2) A 10% revenue premium could quite easily lead to double the profits in many businesses...
SSL Certificate
Apple won't ever sell lossless (they can't; they don't have the data) but it's easy enough to have multiple bitrate copies. Just import all your shit as lossless, then change your preferences to AAC or MP3, whatever, then select all and go to Advanced -> Convert Selection to ... Now you have 2 copies of everything. Uncheck all the lossless versions (easy - make a smart playlist with format Apple Lossless and start clicking!!) and set your iPod to only sync checked songs. Or something like that.
It's a kludge but works. But yeah they should support that for all iPods, not just the shittle.
Exactly.
Unfortunately the songs we like are copyrighted. THAT MEANS THAT SOMEONE WANTS TO HOLD ON TO THE RIGHTS OF COPYING AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF THAT MUSIC.
It's so plain and simple. You can pirate all the music you want (just make sure you cover your tracks). But don't assume that piracy is your natural given right.
Don't like it. Listen to music with no copyrights. Avoid the marketing paraphernalia and you'll probably discover even better music.
I wish people would stop pushing the CD/RIP-BACK solution for DRM encoded AAC's. There's a loss of quality in the process, not to mention the amount of time it takes to burn and rip.
For one song, it's not a big deal. But imagine trying to do this to the entire U2 album. How much would it cost if your time is worth, say oh I don't know, $35/hr?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
You look gay in your pictures.
Not that there's *anything* wrong with that.
"Sometimes, Good Enough really is good enough."
Exactly.
Which is why I never get why people complain about Brittany Spears albums. She's popular, so she must be talented.
So what were you saying again?
Don't you hate when people complain about this stuff?
Its like people complaining that Windows isn't good enough and they try to push Linux or Macs down your throat.
Don't they get it?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
According to CVS for PyMusique a workaround was checked in 12 minutes ago.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
> How long before someone figures out how to make
> PyMusique look like iTunes 4.7?
Already broken again!
http://nanocrew.net/blog/apple/itms47.html
"The iTunes Music Store recently stopped supporting iTunes versions below 4.7 in an attempt to shut out 3rd party clients. I have reverse engineered the iTMS 4.7 crypto which will once again enable 3rd party clients to communicate with the iTMS."
Hm, is Apple to stupid or Jon Lech Johansen just to clever for them?
DeCSS arguably opened up the DVD format, like it or not, to a variety of new platforms, and to a slew of other utilities that allowed end users to do various new and different things with the digital video. Although most ripping utilities now use different cracks and exploits than the original deCSS did (unless someone wants to correct me on this, last time I checked the fastest exploit was not Jon's), basically once the cat was out of the bag, it was out. The DVD format isn't going to suddenly get more secure tomorrow. The investment in non-upgradable hardware and firmware means that the DVD specification isn't going to change in response to cracks.
Contrast that to the FairPlay DRM, which by its very nature exists almost solely on computers that are connected (at least intermittently) to the internet. Through this medium, Apple remains in partial control of the client/user side of the software, and can thus issue changes like the iTunes 4.7.1 change that we just saw, to patch present and future exploits. Barring some huge flaw in the FairPlay DRM, or a complete surrender by either the music companies or the fair use groups, I don't see any particular end in sight to this cat-and-mouse game of cracks and patches.
To me, this underscores a fundamental difference between DRM on digital files, and on whole formats. While encryption-based DRM of files can be maintained for some time, given sufficient resources and control over the client programs, it doesn't seem possible to exercise this degree of control over consumer electronics-type hardware. Perhaps in the future (let's hope not), but definitely not today.
Summary: DRM on files seems to work and be maintainable, with a lot of effort. But on hardware devices it's so far been a dismal failure.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Performace artists are not exactly highly paid most of the time. I doubt most of them did it for the money alone.
Was it intentional?
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
Everytime slashdot has one of these always entertaining fair-use debates, some moron like you comes on and claims that "you don't buy a CD, you buy a license". And then gets modded up. I, personally, haven't bought a CD for a while, but if things haven't changed too much, you get a plastic case, a reflective plastic disc, and some crappy art, usually from a pothead at the local music shop, or amazon or b&n. There is no license included, no liscensing contract signed, nada. If you distribute it unlawfully, you are in violation of copyright law. But you never bought, paid for, or engaged in any commercial transaction for a license. Shut the fuck up.
DVD Jon and two other programmers have released software they call "PyMusique", that allows people to connect to Apple's iTunes music store and purchase songs without any copyright protection. PyMusique is allegedly being described by its developers as "the fair interface to the ITunes Music Store". This software lets users download songs from Apple iTunes without Digital Rights Management (DRM). The software prevents the DRM from being applied, allowing the user to copy, share and use the downloaded song like an MP3 file.
APPLE Strikes BackIt was always too good to last. Apple has stamped on an attempt to make it possible to purchase songs from the company's iTunes Music Store without having DRM restrictions added to the downloads. In a statement, the Mac maker announced last night that it was henceforth requiring all ITMS customers to upgrade to version 4.7 of Apple's iTunes jukebox software. iTunes 4.7 was released late last year, and is already notable for nobbling DRM-stripping utility Hymn.
Return of the DVD JonA group of underground programmers has posted code online they say will reopen a back door in Apple Computer's iTunes store, allowing Linux computer users to purchase music free of copy protection. The release comes just a day after Apple blocked a previous version of the program, called PyMusique, in part by requiring all iTunes customers to use the latest version of Apple's software.
Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.
unfilled the filled hole... link
http://www.sampletheweb.com
C|net reports its back open... Way to go DVD Jon!
The Admin and the Engineer
What I'd like to see is iTunes to have a 'compress when copying to portable' option, and then have Apple sell lossless.
As has been mentioned, the iPod shuffle has this feature. The "problem" is that even for a 512MB or 1GB iPod shuffle, it takes a while. Perhaps 30 minutes to fill up your 1GB shuffle. Now, the other iPods aren't based on a wipe-it-all-and-re-upload-everything philosophy, but still, recompressing your music library to fill your 60GB iPod has gotta take a while.
Oh, and this:
There are very few cases of symbiotic affiliations between record labels and music publishers.
Only because there are "very few" major record labels, all of which own music publishers. Warner Music Group owns Warner Bros. Records and Warner Chappell Music, which claims to own "Happy Birthday to You". Sony owns Columbia Records and Sony ATV Music, which owns most Beatles songs. Universal Music Group owns Interscope Records and UMPG. EMI Group owns EMI Records and EMI Music Publishing. These "antagonistic positions" that you describe often happen when an artist on one label records a song written by a songwriter on another label.
You assume that they sell AACs ripped from CDs. But they are actually made from the master recordings. The CD transfers are limited by their 16 bit limit. The AAC transfers have other limitations, but AFAIK it's perfectly possible that they actually sound better than CDs.
And even if the CD versions are actually better, which I admit is likely, the real question is how significant it is. To call it "mediocre", it can't be a small difference.
All I wonder is if someone has done a somewhat serious investigation of it. I've seen a *lot* of people claim that the quality is bad, but I've *never* seen any listening facts to back it up.
Just out of curiosity, if someone provided you with some "documantation", would iTunes music suddenly sound not-as good as CD?
This is a very strange thing to ask. I hear what I hear.
"In fact, you are an edge case,"
Coming from someone who uses iTMS, that is an ironic comment.
Most people are just ripping CD's. The amount of people downloading from iTMS is a drop in the bucket. You are the edge case. CD's reign and will reign for the next 10 years, long after you and apple get bored of lossy, DRM'd music.
"How do you plan to exercise your fair use rights on material that you can't access? "
Maybe they'll...I don't know... BUY THE CD?
Nah. The whole world is waiting to overpay for DRM'd music on the Internet. Because its so...convenient
That was most excellent.
I think there's another principle operating in the realm of legalese that's the same in many trades. Jargon. Jargon (or if you like 2-bit words (2-bits in the sense of money) nomenclature) serves several purposes, not the least of which is to keep outsiders out and to accentuate one's power over outsiders, especially in fields requiring a high degree of technical expertise (such as technology or Law). It is also a quick way of finding out if the person you're talking to knows very much about your field, or is just a know-it-all. Using the field of tech as an example, when someone technically knowledgeable hears someone else talking about how their school had a T-2 line, they know their full of shit, because there is no T-2. It goes from T-1 to T-3.
Anyone out there that has worked on movie production will also know what I'm talking about (ending a sentence with a preposition is totally in). All the gear used to make movies have slang names, often different from the technical names. A 2,000 watt fresnel light is called a junior, unless it uses a smaller housing that makes it more convenient for location work, in which case it's called a Baby Junior, or BJ for short. A 1,000 watt fresnel light is called a baby and and a 1,000 watt light designed for location work is called a baby baby. There are two types of 200 watt fresnel lights: Mini and Inky. And in between those and the baby is a 600 watt light called the tweenie. This is barely scratching the surface.
Partly this movie jargon is a type of shorthand. It's a lot faster to say, "Put a BJ in that corner on a pancake with some schmutz on it, and pin it." than it is to say, "Put a location 2,000 watt fresnel light in that corner on a piece of plywood approximately 14" by 24", with some diffusion gel on it, then turn the knob from floodlight to spotlight." This is also the case in the tech world and law, and many, many other fields.
But it's also to discourage outsiders from moving in to one's territory and to keep one's position of expertise. When a person who's never worked in movie lighting doesn't pick up the vocabulary very quickly, they get washed out even more quickly.
There's even regional differences. Some items have slightly different names depending on whether you're in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York. (The funny thing is that many people know the regional variations, but you'll get looked at slightly funny, like you're the country cousin, if you use the wrong regional term).
Terms are also made up on the spot, partly to amuse, but also partly to keep outsiders guessing. An adapter for attaching a smaller light to a stand designed for a larger unit is called a spud (possibly after the slang term for a rivet in steel construction). However, it is also often referred to as a buttplug. A wooden box is called an applebox (fairly obvious), but the joke name for it is a "grip-to-ground adapter, since it can, and often is, utilized as a seat.
I noticed you getting bleary eyed about two sentences in to the second paragraph, so I'll stop now. I'll leave figuring out the correct name for a clothes pin as an exercise for the reader.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Wasn't there a lawsuit over this between Sega and another company who made games which identified themselves as being (c) Sega in order to boot?
This would be kind of the same I imagine...
Russian mafia, Californian mafia... is there really that much of a difference? :)
Fewer former KGB operatives working in Cupertino, for starters.
Also, Apple Computer doesn't have the means to fix the outcome of NHL games.
(Then again, so long as the strike continues, neither does the Russian mafia...)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The advantage of doing it this way is the rips are made from the original masters.
I would bet that some labels would be willing to do this. A lot of people would be more likely to download "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" by the Flaming Lips if they could do so with a more hi-fi friendly format than AAC, OGG or MP3.
I accept DRM when....
I do not accept DRM when:
I should make a note about supplying a platform. If the platform is offered for sale by the service provider, but is also avaible for lease at a reasonable fee, that's fine with me. (As it happens, I own my satellite receiver, but the same unit avaible for rent, also). Nobody will give a long-term lease on an iPod or a DVD player, though.
My satellite TV provider is acceptable because they don't constrain how I use the content. I can capture, on videotape or whatever I may have, any show I'm subscribed to, even PPV. They ask you not to do this with PPV, but they don't do anything to physically stop you. Their competitor does, using Macrovision. My receiver only has analog outputs, but I would expect to find a similar state of things on their receivers with digital outputs (though I doubt they strip out the broadcast flag).
I use DVD's but don't approve of the DRM. Tools exist to strip it out, though, and the platform is such that replacing the DRM scheme won't work like it will for iTMS.
www.wavefront-av.com
But I agree with you about burn/rip being a sucky solution.
Why is everyone so passionate about listening to music or watching movies? Where is the focus of the human being today that postings on /. about DRM, piracy, RIAA, and other media-related topics tend to draw more postings than any other subject?
I understand being passionate about something, but seems to me that how and where you listen to music should not even be on your top 10.
The advent of digital media is contributing to the decline of free thought. All people posting pro- and anti- multimedia copyright issues should redirect their passions to things that make a difference in their communities. All of these postings are just reiterations of previous postings with a different subject line. "There is nothing new under the sun."
It is this type of behavior and response to "The Man" that gives them knowledge of the power they possess. A power, by the way, they do not rightfully deserve! The music and movie industry is geared towards our entertainment. How is it that entertainment has this kind of impact on us? They should not be able to draw these levels of emotions from people, unless it is through the content of the media, not the cost or format.
If you want to send messages to the powers that be, quit buying music, quit pirating music, quit paying $60 for a ticket to a concert for a washed-up 80s hair band. Read a book. Write a book. Paint something. Take your kids to the park, sans iPod. Learn to play an instrument. Write YOUR OWN music. Put the power of entertainment back in it's rightful place: in YOUR hands.
Flame me if you like. Call me a dumbass. Fact of the matter is, regardless of what my opinions are on this topic, who I think is right, or who I think is wrong, I am the one who has the ultimate decision and control over what entertains me and the impact it has on my life. You should reclaim the same.
~kiddcreole
There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who know binary, and those who don't.
How do you know my time is worth nothing just because I'm not at work?
As more and more information based employment becomes a reality, this "meme" as you call it, becomes more and more true.
My ability to code doesn't stop at 5:00 PM when I leave work. It also doesn't depend on my being *at* work.
Leasure is defined, by those same silly economists, as "unpaid human activity." If my leasure time interfeers with time better spent on revineu generating activities, it helps to think of it in terms of dollars per hour.
If you had to pay $35 to watch an episode of 24, I would bet you wouldn't watch it.
A McDonald's employee's skill set is equivalent to his/her pay, if it is the only job he/she is qualified at.
I know this sounds like a dot-com-bubble theory, but guess what? 2004 was the year the dot-com recovered from the bubble burst. And the companies that are still standing are a lot more nimble and aware of the mentality that caused the burst (those being darn stupid business plans, to name one).
But the real bottom line is, and this is what people learn in their economics class, "It's just a theory."
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Putting a number on it, however, just smacks of simplistic scorekeeping. McDonald's Joe's time away from playing with his kids is at least as valuable as your time away from whatever you like to do.
Don't they get it?
Oh we "get it" alright: us wanker audiophiles/ sound engineers understand that *you* don't know the difference.
Problem is, we do.
It's like telling someone a compressed jpg is photo quality. By definition, it is not, even if the difference is unnoticable to most.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
That's pure bullshit. If you believe that, then I have a bridge in Manhattan to sell you.
This is excuse may have seemed valid when he was younger, and just wanting to watch DVDs under Linux.
It just doesn't seem believable now. If all he wanted to do was listen, then why is he participating in starting up a service to allow others direct access to the iTunes servers?
The disingenuousness of this arguments seriously casts doubts over DeCSS, and whether he really was just an "innocent teen" who wanted to watch a movie. After all, there are pre-existing tools available for him to strip the DRM from iTunes-purchased tracks. So, why did he bother to write this application, when he could have easily listened to his iTunes music via other methods? Apple even provides the means to play iTMS tracks on Linux - burn the tracks to a CD!
... and then they built the supercollider.
I think the original poster was being sarcastic.
Read it again, this time, try to smile, and you'll see.