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EU Commissioner Slams Music Lock-In
Nonu writes "EU Commissioner for Consumer Protection Meglena Kuneva has come out against DRM lock-ins like Apple's iPod-iTunes combo. Kuneva said she believes the tie-in that keeps music bought from the iTunes Store from playing on MP3 players other than the iPod was unreasonable. '"Do you find it reasonable that a CD will play in all CD players, but an iTunes song will only play on an iPod?" asked Kuneva. "It doesn't [seem reasonable] to me. Something must change."' The EU is in the midst of an effort to harmonize its consumer protection laws, and along with the question of DRM tie-ins it is also looking at mandating cooling-off periods during which customers could 'return' downloaded music."
From TFA:Thanks Steve - why not offer DRM free music from artists and labels that you already have granted you permission?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Because if she has, she would know that Jobs himself opposes the DRM scheme. The reason they are using it is because of the very strict rules the music industry has imposed on them when it comes to file security and making sure the encryption will not be broken.
Jobs said that making all the songs on the iTunes store playable on different devices is possible, but giving out the encryption system to 100 different device makers without any overwatch is simply asking for disaster. Code has been leaked before (DVD discs anyone?), and this would be no exception.
It's not so much Apple's fault, because it's the music industry that said they cannot share their iTune songs, OR the encryption to play them on any other device, otherwise their license to sell online music would be revoked.
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
AAC is an actual standard, part of MPEG 4, un like WMV and now MP3, anyone is free to implement.
g
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Codin
Apple Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs has said that his company would make everybody happy by selling DRM-free music if only the record labels would agree to it. Color some Europeans unimpressed: a spokesperson for the Norwegian Consumer said that while Jobs' comments were welcome, they don't address the underlying problem of interoperability.
WTF? Selling DRM-free music most certainly would address the underlying problem of interoperability -- in the worst-case scenario, DRM-free music in one format (e.g. AAC) could be transcoded to a different format (e.g. MP3), albeit not at optimum quality.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
EU based companies *cough* Philips *cough* LG *cough*
LG is not European [You've made some Korean's very happy thinking so tho']
Why just fight against DRM for iTunes, and not DRM for everything? If the EU commisioner was really fighting for consumer rights here, it should be all DRM'ed anything, music, movies, electronic books
They are looking at DRM on all music - its just Apple's the biggest DRM dealer/pusher around at the moment.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Your analogy makes no sense. A better analogy would be to say that sony music cds only play on sony cd players.
for the comparatively very small number of artists with legal standing to request this.
It doesn't really matter how many artists if you want to lead by example.
(e.g., why do some tracks I bought play on my Zune and others won't?). I know that a lot of people don't buy that argument, but frankly, it's perfectly legitimate.
This argument would be legitimate, but sorry. Apple haven't minded confusing ITMS customers in the past.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
AAC is not free to implement, there are several companies which hold patent claims. Google for AAC and PATENT and you should find some mention of it.
But if you own a license to the song, then what is wrong with obtaining a 1:1 quality of the song?
....
I think it all comes down to choice with regard to quality.
You will never get 1:1 quality with a CD. Its a sample of the sound, and has a degree of loss. Not much of a loss as it samples at 44 KHz, but still a loss.
Most people will say that the loss on a CD is less than the threshold of hearing. I'd agree with that in general. There is more loss on a MP3 or AAC file, but if its less than the threshold of hearing for you, does it matter? Probably not. If you are a real purist, you'll probably play off vinyl to avoid sampling/compression errors. Not that most music systems could do justice to this level of sound quality, and vinyl does scratch
Now I personally think that apple should sell music without DRM free and high quality. Possibly apple feels the same about this also, as they are in this game to sell ipods, not music.
If you are buying 128 Kb/s AAC (equivalent to 192 Kb/s MP3 roughly), burning it to a cd and re-ripping in high quality, perhaps you should consider one of two options:
1. Rip into a loseless format. If you are doing very high quality MP3's (around 320 kb/s) you might as well use a lossless code as the size difference isn't that much anyway, and you will have no degredation from the original on playback.
2. If disk space is an issue, use AAC, not MP3, as it should generally lose much the same information on the second pass encoding. MP3 drops different types of sounds to save space, so it makes more sense to use a similar codec on the second pass.
Or, where possible, use a music provider that doesn't encrypt your music.
Anyway, just my 2c worth,
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
"Kuneva's comment -- which the Commission stressed is purely her personal view"
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Oh come one, always with the burn/rip cycle. Incredible that you also didn't mention the very simple and convenient "virtual CD drive" thingy. If you buy a CD that doesn't play in your car, just rip/burn and you're good to go! Even more convenient, you can buy CD that doesn't play, just order the same CD from another country! If that doesn't play either, just buy the CD very easily on iTMS and burn it! It's all just so convenient! Buy, download, burn, rip, convert, burn - these are not good ways of putting MP3's on my car stereo. Fortunately I have eMusic - they treat me as a customer, wanted as a customer, not wanted as a (potential) criminal or terrorist. With eMusic, I download and burn. Or download and copy. They even let me download the *tracks I bought* as many times as I want. No backup required for my music. iTMS is a pile of s**t. Expensive, DRM and no backup! And iTunes is ugly.
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
Please note that this comment only applies directly to the US iTunes Store. The UK one, for example, does not have a fixed price per album, although most are £8.99 ($17.373 in American money), and quite a few albums do not allow the purchase of individual tracks.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
... but I suspect that Apple has agreements in place with the major labels to the effect that all music sold through the iTMS will have the same DRM, regardless of where it comes from.I suspect this, because if I was a DRM-loving music label, sitting on top of a whole lot of content that Apple really wanted, it's one of the conditions that I would insist on as an absolute Well, I HAVE worked at an on-line music distribution company (Not Apple, but a pretty significant one) and I can tell you that no such restriction exists. Labels will approve/disapprove a particular DRM solution, but they do not have the authority to tell you you must use the same DRM for everyone else (because everyone else want their own control).
Usually what happens is that there are one or two labels who are REALLY strict (say, Universal) and for the sake of simplicity everyone else gets the same treatment. It is really done for the benefit of the distribution company than the labels (one consistent process is ALWAYS better/simpler than multiples).
There are plenty of small independents who don't care about DRM, but their catalog is so small (both in number and popularity) that it is not practical to design something just for them.
So if you are looking to blame someone, the blame here lies with Apple, not the labels.