MySpace Music Player Hacked

Roy van Rijn writes to tell us about a little program called MySpace MP3 Gopher, with which you can download any song from MySpace as an MP3 even if it is marked to disable downloading. MySpace MP3 Gopher is a Windows program requiring no installation, and for those not on a Windows box the author offers an online version that anyone can run. It is hosted on his home computer so it is bound to get slashdotted rather quickly. All you need to grab a MySpace song is its "friendID," which is in every URL as a parameter. Tech-recipes has step-by-step instructions.

Comments

I blame Universal Music

[macadamia_harold]

I have no doubt this project was funded, in whole or in part, by Universal Music group to support their BS crusade against MySpace and YouTube.

Re:I blame Universal Music

[MyLongNickName]

Yeah. Cuz hackers NEVER take time out of their day to go after free music, and large, public web sites. They always spend their time going after the US military, and obsure Albanian porn sites.

Re:I blame Universal Music

[macadamia_harold]

Yeah. Cuz hackers NEVER take time out of their day to go after free music, and large, public web sites.

Look at it this way: it's a lot easier to download an album from ThePirateBay, than it is to comb through dozens of Myspace pages trying to cobble together all the songs from the album using this tool.

It's all about the laziest route to information... and this tool "ain't it". That fact, and its timeliness in relation to the Universal Music announcement makes it suspicious.

Re:I blame Universal Music

[MyLongNickName]

Look at it this way: hackers hack. That is what they do. Sure, there may be a different way of accomplishing the same thing. But hackers love to find a different way of doing something just to prove they can. No need for a big conspiracy and trilateral commission.

In other news

[antifoidulus]

it is rumored that the Americans in Guatanamo Bay in Cuba downloaded this program and used it as part of their "alternative interrogations" program. Quoth an anonymous source "Not even the most devout person in the world can withstand a constant barrage of myspace musical selections"

Re:Uhm. Slashdotted?

[MyLongNickName]

Ok, who on slashdot uses myspace?

I bet you a lot of Slashdot does. As soon as you see the first chick with nice hooters who advertizes her myspace page, and you have to be a member to see the good pics.

Not that I actually did that... I just heard about a friend... errr .... guy I used to know who did that once.

Must already be patched by myspace

[linuxrunner]

I just tried downloading off my buddies band page, just to see how/if it works, and nadda.

So.. move along, nothing to see here.

LR

Re:It's so obvious

[repruhsent]

You've been able to do something similar to this for months. Thinking Universal wrote this on purpose to force MySpace into doing what they want isn't only naive, it's an indication that your tin foil hat is on far too tight.

Re:The lack of Web 2.0 security.

[spiritraveller]

This is just another example of Web 2.0 security, or the lack thereof.

I disagree. They are letting people download this music, but they are supposed to prevent them from saving the file.

This is just an attempt at DRM, which really has little to do with our traditional notion of "computer security".

"Security" usually means preventing unauthorized access of your computers... not preventing unauthorized access to data after you give it to someone.

Re:This is just wrong

[veganboyjosh]

Saying "You put it online, so you shouldn't mind people ripping it" is like telling a car dealership that they should accept that their cars are being stolen because they put them on display in their lot.

um...no. it's like a car "dealership" saying "i know we put these cars in the lot, with the keys in them, for people to use for free, but stealing them is wrong." the songs aren't there to be looked at and not used. as far as i know, there's no limit to how many times you can listen to a song on someone's profile. just keep hitting play, and it starts over.

Slashdot is always late

[Mz6]

The "hack" worked when it was posted to digg about 2 days ago. Looks like it was fixed early this morning.

Lol. Good point...

[msimm]

I actually work with a lot of MySpace artists with my site (I have a MS account, but I mean popexperiment). Ya, ripping off 96Kbps @ 22050Khz will really help you satisfy that need. Nothing like kicking back and taking in the hiss.

The only thing I really don't like about this is a lot of musicians and labels have come to depend on MS (say what you like, I work in a web-services company, I know Coldfusion and MySpaces scales poorly) and they might start pulling content. MS is actually the best resource out there right now for finding new work (since mp3.com really, which is shit now). Thats a simple fact. And artists can be very, very sketchy about 'lossing control' of their content. Another fact I have to contend with regularly (I run an internet radio channel/show on the previously mentioned site).

Lets hope they plug the hole quickly before knees start to jerk.

More interesting is the pending MySpace downloads. Assuming they don't build it out themselves (which the article seems to suggest isn't the case) this could be great for a lot of independant/international artists and even better for the listeners. Because MS encoded files are great for a quick taste but garbage to really listen to.

Anyway, as usual, we'll see how the chips fall. The net is pretty orgainic.

Re:Uhm. Slashdotted?

[prtsoft]

I use bugmenot.com to login to MySpace for more pics.

Re:Uhm. Slashdotted?

[MyLongNickName]

I would have thought of that... if some of the blood in my brain hadn't been located in another organ.