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Apple To Play Fairer With FairPlay?
NewbieMonster writes "According to tech.co.uk, Apple is about to license its Fairplay DRM to Made for iPod accessory manufacturers. It's reported that Apple will also allow streaming of protected AAC content via USB. Could this signal a move to allowing other music players to access and play ITMS content?" From the article: "The expected announcements could signal a move on Apple's part to take some of the sting out of its Fairplay DRM which has come in for a great deal of criticism over recent months. It may also be a way of keeping Made For iPod makers onside, as the draw of the Microsoft Zune becomes stronger." Anyone noticed the draw of the Microsoft Zune becoming stronger?
Anyone noticed the draw of the Microsoft Zune becoming stronger?
.......no
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
why was the zune thrown in there???? to start a flame war of course, no other reason, i mean whats a /. article without some micro bashing
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Doesn't that mean that everyone has a license?
How we know is more important than what we know.
According to tech.co.uk, Apple is about to license its Fairplay DRM to Made for iPod accessory manufacturers. It's reported that Apple will also allow streaming of protected AAC content via USB. Could this signal a move to allowing other music players to access and play ITMS content?
Again, reinforcing the point that DRM isn't about preventing piracy, it's about maintaining control over other things. Like competitors in the marketplace.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
No, it is not cracked.
The iTMS (iTunes Music Store) was cracked, meaning that people were able to buy DRM-free songs from iTMS using custom software. iTMS 6.0 changed that, and to date, it is not possible to buy unencrypted music from an account registered with iTMS 6.0 or higher. It's possible to run older iTMS versions (for now) and buy music, but some of us had extensive music purchases before we got our heads out of our butts and realized we wanted to play the music on something other than an iPod.
The DRM encryption itself is completely uncracked. IF you can get a hold of your decryption key, there is code to decrypt your music files. Apple has done a rather amazing job of keeping that key secured, though. It's pretty much impossible to pull it off of newer iPods, and I think it's not possible yet to extract it from a box with iTunes 6+.
If I'm wrong about that, let me know... I've got 250+ encrypted songs I'd really like to play on my Linux box with its superior sound setup, instead of on my iBook.
Outside of slashdot (an alternate reality where grandmothers use lunix and ogg vorbis is popular), who is criticizing fairplay? Is there anybody that doesn't think Zune is a turd?
Please, enlighten me.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
You may already know about this, but here is how to un-DRM your songs: simply burn them to an audio CD, then re-import them from the CD's. Sure, you theoretically lose sound quality this way, but I cannot tell the difference, and I'll bet if I blindfolded you, you couldn't either.
This is a bit tedious when done by hand for a large number of songs. The only working Macintosh utility to automate this process that I know of is "DRM Dumpster," which uses a single CD-RW over and over to get the job done. Worked great for me. Other utilities seem to have bugs that prevented me from using them.
Currently hooked on AMP
Wow... you sound really authoritative, but it seems like you really don't know what you're talking about.
Nothing in these links contradicts what the parent said. You can't buy unencrypted music with PyMusique anymore, and the DRM encryption is still unbroken. QTFairUse extracts AAC frames from memory, it does not break the encryption.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
At this point, if anybody knows how to get the keys for iTunes music, they're not talking. This doesn't mean DRM can't be removed. There is a program written in Python that latches onto iTunes like a debugger, has iTunes play DRMed songs, then grabs AAC frames after they've been decrypted but before they've been decoded. It then prevents iTunes from decoding and playing the audio, so a 5 minute song can be decrypted in less than 30 seconds, and it's a lossless transfer (as opposed to burning and ripping). Unfortunately, this program was written for Windows, and I don't believe anyone ever got it working on a Mac. If you can come up with a Windows box, one of the sibling posts has linked to it.
My interest was the same as yours. I had about $300 invested in my iTunes library, but my media center (and now all my other boxes) runs Linux. I certainly don't want to promote piracy, but I think it's perfectly legitimate to want your music library on a Linux box.
It is true, all these programs basically exploit an almost analog-hole type situation. And most of them dont even work anymore.
None of them broke the encryption in the first place.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
The labels require it though (also to maintain control over your music unless you are living under a rock somewhere and wonder why about that too)... why not use it to your company's advantage when the people your licensing from require it anyway.
That's false, and Apple loves that you believe it. The license holders don't "require it". Case-in-point, eMusic, which sells DRM-free MP3's. A ton of them. Johnny Cash, Dashboard Confessional, Credence Clearwater, Moby, the list goes on for miles.
Those songs are DRM-free on eMusic, but on iTunes, those same songs are locked down with Apple's Fairplay. The only one making that decision is Apple, and the only reason they make that decision is to lock in marketshare.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I'm surprised no one has made an AAC encoder specifically designed for this situation. Consider how lossy audio compression works. The 30000 ft overview would be that you simplify the input by throwing away some of it (hopefully, some of it that is inaudible), resulting in something that can be losslessly compressed.
When you take a lossy compressed song and expand that (e.g., burn to an audio CD), and want to compress that again, you don't need to throw any of it away to get something that will compress well, if you are trying to compress using the same compression system that was originally used. (If you were expanding an AAC file, and then wanted to compress with, say MP3, that would have to have some degradation, because AAC and MP3 would have different ideas of what needs to be thrown away). What this means is that it should be possible to design an AAC encoder that can take advantage of the knowledge that the input is the result of expanding a 128 kbit/second stereo AAC file, and compress back to something that matches that original AAC file.
There was a brief flurry of interest in Zune when it was released, but now we seem to be getting steady-state numbers.Only one model rates in amazon's top 25 MP3 players list (Apple takes out the first 5 or so entries).
Using "lemon" to describe Zune is an insult to citrus!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
try myFairTunes6_v0.5.8 is unnoffical beta version works with itunes 7.0.2.16 (version 0.5.7b was the latest official version) be warned though its a stream capture hack, it plays back your music via the itunes scripting interface and captures to lossless then reconverts to .m4a and re adds it back to your itunes library.
it's not a black hole, it's a brown dwarf.
"Maybe I missed something. Why is the Zune becoming more attractive?"
My guess is these people can't get enough punishment to satisfy their 'masochistic tendencies||hatred of all things Apple||love for all things Microsoft||pseudo-metalhead-gamer-wannabe fantasies'.
You forgot the magnificient brown colored zune, which, I may say, I was almost happy to see was changed to a pink one... nah just kidding, I'm happy with m'iPod.
Of Code And Men
please excuse me if I cause anyone offense in saying this, but maybe if Mac users didn't refer to crackers as "scum" and other names, they wouldn't ostracize the platform. I do appreciate that crackers are finally being recognized by others as the freedom fighters I've always considered them to be. It's about time.
How we know is more important than what we know.
the zealots only noticed something was amiss now that steve has 'em all by the balls.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
QTFairUse extracts AAC frames from memory, it does not break the encryption.
Well, if that'll get you the original compressed AAC version with absolutely zero loss (not even transcoding loss, nevermind the D/A/D loss of the analog hole), what more exactly do you need? Even if you found the key, the encryption is no more or less broken than it was before, they can ship a new version with a new key and a new memory location and you're back to square one again.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
All that needs to be done to make PyMusique again is to reverse-engineer the algorithm used to encrypt the store pages behind ssl, the algorithm that manipulates their keys, and the simple algorithm used to encrypt the files as they're transferred from the store (before per-user DRM is applied).
:P )
Not very difficult at all, just a bit time consuming.
(From the original author of PyTunes, which PyMusique is a GUI frontend to
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
Anyone notice there are still people who don't realize that you can use plain MP3/AAC files with the iPod?
The Zune has a proprietary DRM system, just like the iPod. It even (illegally, in some cases) ads DRM to your non-DRM'd files if you "squirt" them. Or maybe I'm just not getting something here.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Did grandparent call crackers scum? I didn't see that. Who called crackers scum? Some Mac users you know? And you don't think that there are Windows users calling crackers scum? I mean, this just smells of Artie McStrawman. Mac users aren't one person. There are many different Mac users. Some stupid, some not, just like with most other large groups of people.
Then how do you explain that *all* the labels on iTunes sell *all* that music in a higher quality (ie. not lossily compressed) unprotected form? It's called a CD.
DRM is pushed by tech companies like a narcotic and some music labels are stupid enough to buy into it.
It will *always* be possible for content to end up on the P2P networks in a "good enough" (for 95% of the audience) form anyway, and as soon as one person does it that nixes the value of the DRM to the label anyway.
Some labels might "want" DRM, but it is the illusion that they are buying, not the reality.
Why is the Zune becoming more attractive?
... ... What? Why are you looking at me like that?
Obviously, it's because the Zune is unencumbered by a proprietary, consumer-hating DRM scheme unlike the iPod, and you can access music stores that offer a better and cheaper experience than the iTunes store.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").