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Apple Hides Account Info in DRM-Free Music
Alvis Dark writes "Apple launched iTunes Plus earlier today, the fruit of its agreement with EMI to sell DRM-free music. What they didn't say is that all DRM-free tracks have the user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them. Is this to discourage people from throwing the tracks up on their favorite P2P platform? 'It would be trivial for iTunes to report back to Apple, indicating that "Joe User" has M4As on this hard drive belonging to "Jane Userette," or even "two other users." This is not to say that Apple is going to get into the copyright enforcement business. What Apple and indeed the record labels want to watch closely is, will one user buy music for his five close friends?'"
> Unless you're actually planning to break the law by sharing the songs,
Or buying them for a friend, or have had your PC/MP3 player stolen, or sold the songs on after you bought them, or had your PC/Wireless router hacked and files stolen...yeah, apart from that you should be ok.
But what if you no longer wish to own that track (you got sick of it, or bought the wrong track, or whatever) and decide to exercise your right of first sale and transfer ownership of that one (1) copy of the track to someone else? You are certainly allowed to do that, and it is NOT copyright infringement. It doesn't even fall under Fair Use because you are transferring ownership of a legally-purchased artistic work, just as you would a CD, vinyl record, book, or VHS tape. Also, what if you buy a bunch of tracks off of iTunes for your friend for his or her birthday, burn them to CD (destroying your local copies of course, even though it may otherwise fall just inside of Fair Use) and give them to your friend? It's a gift; ownership was transferred LEGALLY. However, the record companies will cry foul because Jane Doe will be seen playing tracks purchased by Joe Sixpack.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
A smart P2P client should be able to strip out the identifying tags automatically. Not that I would ever advocate copyright infringement, just hypothetically speaking.
Atleast in Finland we pay outrageous prices for blank media so that we could legaly make copies of music.
Funny enough, I think it's still illegal to copy music. It's a weird situation. But Teosto and Gramex are the evil brothers of copyright.
Those are the local RIAA. I'm member of both and it's not even easy to resign from them. I tried once but was told to mail in my resign letter in certain time frame when they "process such requests". Surprisinlgy enough, I never remembered to do it at that certain time. I think they have a ton of guys like me who have like one registered demo tape from their teens. Atleast they can boast to have beeelliyons of members whose intellectual property they are protecting.
Oh yeah. If I register a song with them, I'm not allowed to even publish it on my web page anymore without paying royalties. Royalties which should be paid to me ofcourse. In reality all the small guys pennies will go to a common pool which will be divided to the artists "fairly" based on other visibility. eg. The big artists take the 2 cents which would be rightfully mine!
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It's especially irritating when you own more than one computer. I have two macs, and I'm the only user of both of them. Why should I have to buy software twice just to use it on both of my machines?
Most shareware doesn't seem to be locked to the specific machine, and none of the software I use has had this problem yet, but if I ever come across something I want and the seller insists on my buying two copies to use on my computers, he won't get a single dollar from me.
-Z
1: Adopt EFI, Trusted Computing for new Mac's.
( a powerful firmware level intended for DRM schemes sitting between OS/software and hardware, that has it's own partition on the drive, can access the internet and download, do just about anything without a OS, without your knowledge for most people)
First off, EFI is a replacement for an ancient BIOS that most x86/x64 machines still slug along with. Since Apple could start with a clean slate, why not adopt the modern firmware for a mainboard over something filled with 20 years of legacy Apple didn't need? You can spin EFI in a bad light all you want, but really it's more of a new replacement for something old, just as PCI replaced ISA.
Also, the Macs currently shipping lack the TPM chip needed to implement Trusted Computing. Apple did initially ship them, but didn't do anything with them. Vista can use the TPM chip though for bitlocker encryption.
You can spin whatever spook story you want, but try to at least do it with real facts and not just sensational Slashdot headlines.
What you are describing is an attempt to create artificial scarcity.
That is precisely what the "sellers" of intellectual property want you to believe. That the license/item/product you purchased is scarce that it's value should be higher than what it is really worth. There is only one problem: this approach doesn't work in a digital world with digital assets (like songs, movies, etc).
The music publishing industry (RIAA) is currently built on artificial scarcity through control of the supply chain. That works in the real world where you have inventory and "real" CD's (and real costs too). But the entire idea of "scarcity of digital assets" is nuts because things can be copied and transferred so easily in the digital world. What this means is that the actual value of what they provide is lower than what it was, say, 20 years ago. Much lower. However, they continue to try to make you think that artificial scarcity (and therefore, higher value of them) is an achievable goal.
It isn't. The digital world does not work that way. Attempts to control it will be met with route-arounds, just like they always have.
Eventually, an equilibrium will be reached. Customers will be charged what the item's value really is, and over time, society will eventually agree on what that value is. Right now, it is a one-sided discussion, with the RIAA (and its congress critters) doing all the talking -- so we go through some pain and society routes-around accordingly. Someday we won't have to route-around....but not until prices come down to reflect the real value of what we are getting for our money. Right now, we're not getting enough. So route-arounds continue...
Do you know if giving music, not fixed in a tangible medium (like a CD), is legal? These tracks are licensed, not sold. So are you just complaining that Apple's actions make it less convenient for you to perform a possibly illegal act?
In countries like Germany this is perfectly legal (unless you break a copy protection scheme). There, Apple's behavior might even be a violation of privacy laws.
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