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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?'"
There is always a little line written in 4 point at the bottom.
Living With a Nerd
Is that you can buy them and give them to your friends, whereas the music download sites seem to be headed toward preventing you from letting anyone else play your purchase.
music always know where to find you.
You can right click on the file and convert it to mp3, which would erase all tracks.
This shouldn't matter anyway.
Gone!
Apple puts this metadata in all the iTMS songs. Unless you're actually planning to break the law by sharing the songs, I don't see what the problem is. In fact this issue seems like a good way to distinguish between those who are against DRM because it restricts their rights to legally use their music, and those who actually just want to pirate music but use rights-based DRM arguments as an cover
Apple isn't keeping tabs on anyone, and it would be trivial to remove this data from your songs. But the question remains why anyone feels violated by this
Wasn't the deal that DRM be replaced with some kind of watermark? Kinda nasty that with the plaintext name and e-mail though...
Is my info in there?
Don't tell me you can't find out just because the ones before were DRMd. People were breaking that since the first one came out.
Should it be there? No. But black eyes heal as this one will when they remove it from future songs they put up.
Can't be too difficult to code up a utility to strip out such tags (?)
But then I've just moved to a Mac so I don't know my way around too well yet
It will prevent anyone but you using the music, will help them track down file sharers, and will increase the value of CD's ...
What no one thought of is that if you lose your iPod, without much effort you will become the RIAA's brand new Public Enemy Number One...
Sigh
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
This doesn't really bother me. I buy music and don't give it away, which is as it should be. TANSTAAFL!
This seems completely reasonable to me. I'm willing to trade watermarking for DRM, and am happily downloading my first iTunes purchase ever as we speak.
I do have one concern: if somebody does a legitimate transfer of their music (deleting all of the copies they own in the process), what happens if the new owner decides to put the stuff on a P2P network?
The whole point of DRM is to stop people from pirating it. If your name is attached to it I'd say that's a pretty good deterrent. Beyond that, you can download the music, burn it, transfer it from your home PC to your office PC - you can do what you want with it... the only restriction is that you can't illegally share it online. It's focusing on punishing people who share music illegally, while at the same time not hassling the end users who just want to use their music. This is exactly what DRM should be.
You buy music for your personal use, which includes fair use such as sharing it with your spouse or playing AAC files under Linux or on non-Apple devices. If your music gets stolen, wouldn't you want Apple to notify you and help you close that security breach as well a punish the thief?
I'd like a few more details, please.
Do they "hide" it in the files, or put it into the comment fields? There's a difference there, especially if you want to accuse them of underhand dealings.
The article is also pretty crappy on the suggestion to convert to MP3. Why should I do that? A simple binary find&replace will be faster, safer and result in no quality loss or recoding troubles.
So a little more info on this before painting anyone as a devil would be cool.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I find it a little hard to get worked up over this. I don't find the idea of watermarking particularly offensive, as long as it's not done in such a way as to degrade the content (which all "analog preservable" watermarking does), and it's not part of a DRM scheme (e.g. 'no copy' flag). Watermarking that only identifies a user and can be used to track down someone sharing files after the fact ... I can live with that.
The difference to me is that it's not trying to stop someone from doing something illegal, before they even do it. That I find very offensive, and is the whole point of DRM. I believe that the computer should let you do anything you damn well please, even if it's illegal, but that you should take the consequences later. Trading DRM for watermarking would be a huge step up, since the watermarking really doesn't affect anyone who isn't putting their tracks on P2P networks. However, we also need to realize that watermarks can't be viewed as inherently trustworthy -- what's to keep me from framing you by putting your account information on a bunch of music and then sharing it? Practically, I'm not sure how useful watermarking really is. But if it's the price for getting rid of DRM -- which treats everyone like criminals, regardless of whether they're doing anything illegal or not -- it's OK by me.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The entertainment industry is obsessed with the idea of "casual piracy," or the occasional sharing of content between friends.
Sad, because non-evil labels actually encourage sharing your music with friends.
I just wish I had friends to share my music with. =( No one else I know can stand Artemis, whose music sounds like a mix of Enya and trip-hop to me.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I'm thinking probably not too long.
I read Usenet for the articles.
Hidden in plain sight? While certainly not mentioned during the announcement, it does not seem there is anything hidden here. Unless there is data hidden in the track (stego style), this is quite a non-issue for those who want to take it off through an iTunes user-installed script (coming any day/hour now).
Afterall, you're not trading the file to anyone - you're just manipulating data on your own PERSONAL computer.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
For people who aren't planning on using the absence of DRM to break the law, its not a problem.
For people who are planning on using the absence of DRM to break the law, since there is no encryption, erasing or altering the information in the copies they distribute ought to be trivial.
So, um, who really cares? This is pretty common in DRM-free purchased PDFs, I don't see why it would bother people in DRM-free purchased music.
...but in come the privacy concerns, of course.
1. is that information easily read from the files, or does it take a decryption key which, presumably, only Apple has?
2. regardless, what would Apple / EMI do with that information?
2a. Assume they don't use it to track down those who are liberally sharing music... are they using it for advertising purposes?
2b. Tracking purposes?
2c. Social networking (of the evil kind) purposes?
And, of course, cue the replies...
"removal tool in 3... 2.. 1..."
"let's replace it with Steve Jobs's account info!"
"let's put garbage data in there and flood the system with noise!"
etc.
Has Apple specified how the user info is stored and how it may be extracted/doctored? If not, has anyone reverse-engineered it?
Yeah, but the whole point is that it presents a bar to clear for "casual" users. The motivated ones will still find ways to pirate their music if they really want to (just as they could before), and the less motivated ones will enjoy the removal of lock-in and compatibility issues while still having something keeping them from sharing the files widely.
Very few security systems are designed to be impenetrable, just hard enough to penetrate that people won't bother.
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
... should be enough to solve the problem until someone releases a one-liner perl script to strip away the account info.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
as an occasional iTunes customer, I can't say that I really object to that kind of thing being done. There probably is no need for it, but it's not really problematic, either.
After all, if I buy music online, I really do not buy it to put those files on a P2P network - but for my personal use. And, maybe, to occasionally share one or two songs with friends, probably to give them a sample of some new album I bought and like. But beyond that? Why should I care that all the audio files on my playback and storage devices have my name imprinted in them?
Especially if I can get rid of that information in the files if I really want to?
This is really not a "big brother" type of situation, at least not as long as the iTunes application does not start snooping around for "probably stolen" non-DRM files. But for various reasons I'm fairly sure Apple knows better than trying to pull something like that off. The backlash would be destructive, to say the least.
A.
As I don't believe you're currently buying rights to the file, but still just buying a license to use it (or, at least, that's how the RIAA wishes it worked), said situation is "unsupported." If you no longer want a song, delete it, don't give it away. There is no way to prove you deleted the files and didn't keep a copy, somewhere.
Some will be pissed about this - there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Personally, I don't care if they put my name in the file.
I want DRM-free media. I've wanted it for a long time. I want to play my music where I want, how I want, on as many devices as I want. And the whole time I've wanted that - it's never been so I can give it away to people on the internet. No one who wants to pursue this as a way of doing business is going to believe any differently.
I love buying my music via downloads. I wish I could do that with movies (not the 320x240 video iPod stuff - I mean movies for my TV), but I run Linux, I have a non-iPod player, so I need platform-independent, DRM free media.
They want to put my name in it? Go ahead. I'm not putting it out in the wild - and with any properly run computer - accidental release shouldn't be likely either.
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
Some people are never happy.
If you never share your music on any P2P networks this will never be an issue. You have your music, and you can make as many copies as you want for yourself. Legally.
I agree. Where is the outrage? You're paying the extra amount to have it DRM free. Can I pay super-extra to have it not contain my email address?
What happens when your computer or mp3 player gets stolen and 6 months later there's files all over the p2p nets with your name on them. How could you prove you weren't the one that put them on there in the first place?
I dunno... Finger printing a media file ain't even close to a root kit on the evil scale.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
For the DRM'd tracks, it was used for authentication. For the new ones, well, the info is still there though the DRM is gone.
Perhaps you'd like it removed and all data scrubbed and maybe an account info that said "pYrAt3 m333!!!!111!!"
Does the license under which I "buy" these DRM-free songs permit me to strip this personally-identifiable information from the songs?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
First too few colors, now too many bits.
It's perfectly legal for me to buy a CD and make copies for all of my friends, and it would be just as legal for me to do the same with these files.
"Casual" copiers won't even know the information is in there so it serves NO purpose as a deterrent.
The Farewell Tour II
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
It's not a question of getting spied on - well, it actually is, so effem! All this crap can really piss one off.
Maybe doing a binary compare of the same file downloaded under two users would clarify that?
How could you prove you weren't the one that put them on there in the first place?
Why would you have to? Demonstrating that your computer was stolen would be easy. Any court would assume that it's more likely that a criminal would be sharing the files than a legal purchaser. iTunes have no santions to employ apart from cancelling your account. The RIAA can't do a thing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this exactly how jhymn and other similar programs leave your files? IIRC, jhymn will remove the DRM from the file, but still leave your AppleID, etc in the file. It seems that the only people complaining about this are the ones who want to pirate music.
This guy's the limit!
Why should I be outraged? Why do I care if my name is in a file that I purchased? Please explain.
I personnaly don't mind, that sounds like a reasonnable way to enforce the rights of the content owner while giving all the freedom to the customer, to use its purchase as she wants to.
If you see this as the same as Sony putting a rootkit on peoples' PCs, you might need to re-assess the situation.
If you have an example of a Sony or Microsoft program that gave unrestricted access to media, please offer it up.
Isn't that the entire basis of the concept of the Rule of Law?
It's different if there's an invasion of privacy, but we haven't seen any such invasion.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
This makes sense to me. And makes it less of a headache for me to manage my music. Of course, I'm one of those wackos who tries to purchase all of his music.
This means I can easily go through my collection and find music that I've borrowed from my friends and delete it if I decide it's not something I want to purchase. It also means I can tell the difference between what I have purchased and what I haven't. I have almost 8000 legal mp3s, so keeping track of them is no longer trivial.
What will happen to a poor Joe Luser if his laptop with all his music gets lost or stolen and some kind soul uploads his 1000 music files onto P2P network. His name and email address is there for everyone to see. Apple and RIAA are after him. How will he prove himself innocent?
[Real CDs] you can buy them and give them to your friends
So long as you don't rip them with iTunes. A violation of trust is a something that sticks with the violator. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
First, why would you have to prove that you did not put them there? Your name on them is not proof that you did, and if you can show that a device that may have had the files was stolen you'll walk unscathed from even a civil suit.
This whole thing seems a bit weird to me. Apple's license forbids them from sending the data back to headquarters for analysis to catch casual pirates. They've been including this data in all the files they've sent for a long time. This is in the mp4 format so nothing stops a freeware program from erasing or changing them. Heck I can grab your e-mail address from a dozen places now and add it to mp4 files on P2P networks. That doesn't prove you put them there.
So, it is 100 times easier to grab these files from P2P for purposes of piracy than it is to steal a player or get them some other way. Who is planning on uploading files they have purchased anyway? That's just dumb.
Show them the police report you filed when your computer or mp3 player was stolen?
Yes, you could put something else in there, but why not be creative and put something like the name of the RIAA chairman(Mitch Bainwol)?
The concept of using a watermarking technique is itself much better than any sort of DRM. But if the watermark is not correctly cryptographically tied into the song, then it is probably quite easy to forge watermarks. What this means is that it would be possible to still distribute thse songs (illegally) but have it appear as if somebody else did it. This is probably worse than having no watermark at all.
Of course, technically, forgeable watermarks should carry no legal weight, and should be useful for nothing more than casual marketing analysis. But we all know how things like the courts, BSA, RIAA, and so forth work. "Hey, this song found on xxxxx P2P service has your name on it! You must be guilty. Here's notice of our lawsuit, or you can settle for $100000 per song." I see a lot more innocent grandmothers getting sued in the future.
The same thing could actually be used for other file formats. Want to write a Word document outlining your plans to rob the bank; be sure to "steal" somebody else's GUID out of one of their documents and replace the one in yours. Now you've got a better shot at deniability of wrongdoing.
Someone needs to write a program that inserts Bill Gates name and email address into the tags. Only he has enough money to pay of the MAFIAA.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Privacy is actually important: saying anything of the form "people don't need privacy 'x' if they don't plan to break the law" is almost always a mistake.
Right, but that's not what we're talking about. Your songs with your embedded tags aren't made public. Your privacy isn't being violated.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
As far as I can figure it must have been this way since day one. I'm not sure if the new DRM free music has the # of computer restrictions, but Apple has always limited the number of computers you could play ITMS songs on - I think it's five? How else could they know unless there was embedded data. If people haven't been outraged by now, I can't see why they should suddenly start.
You're just regurgitating the age-old "Why should I worry about this draconian law? I'm not a criminal." argument. Buying a music file means that you buy a music file. Not a music file with extra unwanted information that might violate my privacy.
I certainly won't do business with Apple is any way, shape, or form.
I don't respond to AC's.
One shared directory makes all the difference. Forget "computer stolen" stories - too many steps. More likely, someone drops an MP3 into a download directory or a shared directory with LimeWire - and if that preference isn't turned off (it's on by default) - instant distribution.
"FRANK WHY IS MY TUNE ALL OVER LIMEWIRE?"
"Gee I got that email you sent with that nifty tune and I dropped it into my shared music directory like always!"
An easy way for me and my 1,203,382 roommates to keep track of what belongs to who ;)
I simply don't need another way for somebody to get my information.
Who is going to get the information in your ID3 tags?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
More like what happens when your buddy, who you burned a CD for, puts those files up on the p2p services? How do you prove that he put them up, not you?
The "spotlight" feature in OS X is supposed to be able to search metadata of many filetypes. Is it possible it will be enhanced (or can already?) search this info inside the music that's cataloged in iTunes?
If so, this seems like it could be beneficial if, say, you received a number of songs from a friend (ok, let's assume this is done "legally" for the moment), and you wanted to search for all of those just by searching on your friend's name.
I'm not trying to defend Apple here. I think any additional info of this sort that's tacked on to your files should at least be disclosed, with an option given to strip it back off of the files if you wish. But Apple has always been a company that enjoys (and seems to profit from) keeping little secrets about their products. OS X has loads of "undocumented features", and most of their apps have similar hidden "extras" built into them. I can easily see them incorporating this not because of any intention of actually gathering up your personal data or assisting in "copyright enforcement" -- but more because it would make another powerful "ability" of their search tool that the public didn't expect it was capable of.
Heck, even iTunes can work with multiple song libraries by holding down the "option" key when it first boots. Does it ever tell you that's an option when you run it? Nope!
why is the person sharing the MP3 file guilty of copyright infringement.. they're simply holding an imaginary CD out of their window, they didn't ask anybody to drop by and copy it. The person downloading the file is the one guilty of infringement, making a copy of information they did not pay for.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again."
--The Decider, 2002
why? forty-two.
Wouldn't it be trivial to write an application to replace your (or other people's) names from these file headers just by replacing the strings with "Benny Beanfart" or similar?
The account names are plaintext, but there may also be a digital signature of the names, which would make it effectively impossible to replace the strings to "frame" someone for copyright violation. You could still delete the watermark, though.
I often see people saying "you can just encode it into MP3 but with a loss of quality", like it says ITFA, but can't you just decode the AAC file and then recode it back without any loss but stripping the user info from the songs?
Like zipping files?
I don't see what the problem is. In fact this issue seems like a good way to distinguish between those who are against DRM because it restricts their rights to legally use their music, and those who actually just want to pirate music but use rights-based DRM arguments as a cover
You don't see what's wrong because you have your head shoved too far up the MAFIAA's lie. The question you should ask yourself is why you pay taxes to "protect" this content. The RIAA and MPAA have made it virtually impossible for non members to proffit from broadcast media, so copyright reduces to simple extortion. It's unnatural and immoral to keep people from sharing but digital restrictions will do that forever. The extreme lengths the industry has gone to protect their government imposed monopoly only highlight how wrong the laws are to begin with. You would be hard pressed to find anyone, let alone a majority of any population, who would jail their neighbor and confiscate their house because their neighbor gave them coppies of movies and songs. Yet that's what the law prescribes, $500,000 per offense and jail time. How can you fail to see what's wrong with that? Do you think libraries should be burnt before they go digital?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Who would be "outraged" by this, regardless of who does it? It seems perfectly reasonable.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I think at some point we have got to compromise. There must be a balance where our fair use rights are preserved and the copyright owners are protected from infringement.
I don't like the idea of my personal information being embedded in a file but unless someone breaks into my computer and rips a copy it won't really impact me. Well except I'll not be able to buy online music for anyone else but I've never done that anyway.
This or something similar may be the compromise we need to allow us to backup and play our music where we want while allowing corporate bean counters to sleep a bit easier.
On the other hand, the files might be watermarked in other ways, obviously more difficult to detect.
Of course it's entirely possible that Apple has actually decided to use this information in some way, which will affect mostly non-technically inclined people who are unaware of the tagging. And would be supremely stupid.
Imagine if they managed to trace back all those Bruce Wayne Campbell tracks in your collection? Oh the humanity.
...what's to say that they aren't already encoding this into the audio? If they really want to "nail" people, there are better ways to do it.
When has Microsoft or Sony ever done "something like this?" This does not stop me from taking any action I want with the files I buy. This does not even prevent me from breaking the law if I so choose. What exactly has Apple done here that you're comparing to MS and Sony? Do they take some action with these files that stop me from burning CDs with them? No. Does this in some way stop me from playing them on all the computers and players I own that support this open format? No. Does this stop me from sharing these files with millions of others? Not really. It might provide a slight amount of evidence if I were caught doing that, but since nothing is stopping me from encoding anyone else's name and e-mail address into files like these and uploading them, that does not exactly make for a good case against me by itself. And what about uploading files to P2P networks? Am I going to do it with these files? Hell no! I assume all files I purchase somewhere have unique watermarks that are a lot harder to find and remove than this plaintext info. Apple is probably watermarking these files as well. It is a lot easier and safer to simply download files from P2P if I plan to upload them as well and if I don't care about the law, why would I pay Apple in the first place?
I'm definitely not approving or defending any company doing this kind of thing, but I do expect a bit of a disconnect as to the reaction. Call me cynical.Call me an optimist but I hope there is a disconnect between the way people react to a guy who goes to target practice at the shooting range and a guy who goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of people because they are very different things.
Wasn't the deal that DRM be replaced with some kind of watermark? Kinda nasty that with the plaintext name and e-mail though...
It's worse than you think. You should expect the invisible watermark to contain the same information on both the DRM'd and non DRM'd versions. The text tag has made their intentions clear, so you should expect them to use all means available to carry out those intentions. Digital Restrictions suck life, deal or no deal, because the penalty for sharing is outrageous. The ultimate deal is given to you in "FBI" warnings everytime you play a movie: share and you can lose your life's savings, spend time in jail and have your career wrecked. The draconian measures are required because laws against sharing are immoral and people have to be cowed into obeying them.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Who is to prove i *Gave* it away? In todays world its far to easy to have your drives contents copied without your permission or knowledge.
Also, can i not sell the song down the road if i delete it from my HD? I can do that with a CD.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And the irony is that the industry in general has made a ton of money from people buying a copy of something and giving it to four or five of their friends. I even recall some type of study about how much money they were making from "tape traders," who for some odd reason would buy music just to make copies for their friends...and replicate that all across the country, and you have a lot of money changing hands. The study even went so far as to have a psychological profile of a "tape trader" as if it was almost some type of disorder.
I think a lot of shareware was registered like that as well, and now that everyone is getting so anal about locking it down on one computer (as if computers never crash), it wouldn't surprise me one bit if everyone in general was making less money with everything locked down then they were back in the good ol' days when everyone had a little freedom.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Why should you have to prove anything? The fact that your name is on the file proves nothing about what you did. Given how many examples people have given demonstrating that fact, how easy it is to spoof, how easy it that it could have been ANYBODY, no judge/jury would ever convict anybody based on having their name on a file.
Or perhaps you think I can successfully sue "Brandie Matthews" and "Araceli Cruz" and "Darwin Ellison" for sending me spam in the last 5 minutes? (Assuming they are even real people...)
Even if they did exist the fact that their name return address is on my spam means squat. They could be infected, they could have had their information harvested off some web forum, they could have been spoofed by an 'arch enemy', the could be the victim of a random name generator that just happens to have found a result that coincides with a real person...
Unless the files are ACTUALLY watermarked and don't just have some obvious bit of metadata this is completely irrelevant. (And even if the files ARE watermarked, that would be a completely independant finding, as this metadata would not be even a peripheral part of any halfway competent watermarking scheme.)
I am happy that I know that my account info is embedded into the tracks! Could have prevented a legal problem. I may or may not have aquired 90+% of my music from pirate torrents. However, I never plan to -- nor have I ever -- posted my legally purchased CD or AAC files to a pirate site. I seed any torrents to at least a 2.0 ratio and that is where my (and most peoples) contribution to piracy ends. This just makes posting the files even less appealing. Anyway, I'm sure someone will figure out how to mangle the data shortly...
I will buy MORE music (but only my favorite singles) from iTunes Music Store than I did before. DRM really did not sit well with me... dependance sucks.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
This is not a huge deal. It allows them to potentially track the big offenders while leaving the little guys--even the ones who distribute a few odd copies--alone. Quite the opposite of DRM where everyone has to think about it--i.e. authorizing new machines to play a song--whether they're doing legit transactions or not. In fact, there are those who would say that DRM, even the fairly friendly fair-play, was more of an inconvenience to legitimate users than it was to pirates, who would just clean out the DRM before distributing anyway.
Believe it or not, people aren't always more forgiving of apple because of some cult thing. People are more forgiving of Apple because there is less to forgive.
The CB App. What's your 20?
So who wants to be the first to try to sell one of these DRM-free songs on eBay?
I'm thinking it should be easier since the buyer doesn't need the original purchasers account info to activate and play the song. Or will eBay just pull the auction like last time.
Quit being so paranoid. It's there so if you lose your MP3s whoever finds them knows where to return them!
the only restriction is that you can't illegally share it online. It's focusing on punishing people who share music illegally, while at the same time not hassling the end users who just want to use their music. This is exactly what DRM should be.
Ah, but why should sharing be against the law? What do you think of public libraries? Why doesn't every library have a large collection of songs and movies? Why shouldn't those libraries distribute that content digitally? As much as you might want it to be, a song is not property.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Is this watermarking? Or is this an account-identifying atom (like the same atoms they use in DRMed iTMS songs)?
If it's the latter, you can just extract the AAC samples and dump them in a fresh m4a file (with libmp4v2, for example).
karma: ouch!
...why they don't encode some kind of customer ID instead? Embedding your name and e-mail seems a bit strange. Is this Apple's revenge against those that distribute among P2P networks, hoping that some sucker forgets to remove his info and gets a slew of spam?
Some people pay extra for that. Unless you think that the guy who buys your old shirt from the thrift store and robs a 7-11 is going to be mistaken for you, of course. So don't forget to remove those monograms before making that donation to Goodwill.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
So the people who "shared" copyrighted material on P2P networks with a couple of million "friends" were "right" as well?
I agree. Who cares?
The only people this affects are those who use the file in an illicit manner (distributing it on P2P). It's not like DRM where it punishes legit users significantly, often forcing them to piracy just for the sake of compatibility.
Oh, and it's nothing new. The old DRMed files had it too. In fact, back in the days of PyMusique and whatever that program was that stripped Apple DRM after the fact (as opposed to PyMusique not applying it in the first place), neither program did anything about this identification data because unlike the DRM, there was no legit reason to remove it. It's always been there, albeit in many cases encrypted.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I've been so looking forward to being able to buy a wider variety of high-quality non-DRM music, but this info has really dampened my enthusiasm. Once again, I'm trying to be a law-abiding citizen for the most part, but here again they're treating me like a thief right from the start.
Am I going to put the files up on bittorent? No. But do I email a couple of my friends some songs or burn them onto a CD and say "Here, check out this great band I just discovered." Yes. That's what people who love music do. Is that technically illegal? Yea, it is. But God forbid that we actually show some enthusiasm for the bands we like and discover. And I can't even fathom how many music sales that's lead to. It's a HUGE number.
But now, I have to be careful with these. If I give one to a friend as a "check out this song" thing, I have to worry what he'll do with it. It's got MY info in it. And what if he's equally enthused by the song and tries to introduce someone else to it and THEY go and do the wrong thing and spread it wide and far?
Damn it! I just knew the record companies would find some way to screw this up. And I'm sure stripping the personal info will be utterly trivial, but that's not the point, is it? I just thought for once they'd do the right thing. I was wrong.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Half the music you can download is tagged anyway by some leet speak name such as H@v0k as their calling card, "i ripped this". Now Apple does it for them.
Interesting. This creates an easy way to back up my media, share it with friends, etc. However, if I put it on a public P2P network, every spammer in the world will have my e-mail address. If someone steals my computer, I already assume that any account information, such as e-mail, is compromised. Having music on the stolen computer, with my e-mail address embedded, doesn't really add to that.
iTunes isn't available for Linux, so I've never used it. Is a current e-mail address required to maintain an iTunes account? If not then I suppose it would just be a matter of using a spam e-mail account to sign up. However, it would be a good deterrent for many people.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
Not sure how smart modern P2P programs are, but would this mean that if x users shared the same track (but with each of their names in it), the P2P programs wouldn't detect the songs as the same song as they have different hashes? Or are P2P programs more clever than this and only generate the hash on the binary portion of the file (which would make sense to account for differences in tagging information)?
automatically replace the user id field with "sjobs@mac.com" on all outgoing files?
Will you get the watermarks with the same information? I don't think so.
You just can't trust non free software, not even a little. Imagine iPod or WMP was ported to GNU/LInux. It could watermark all of your files as a background process without changing size and date information. Digital restrictions are the ultimate expression of non free software. From the very beginning, it's owners have sought to keep it's users divided and helpless. The end game is money and that requires ownership of your news and culture.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I agree. There's a discussion about this over on Slashdot, you should join in on it... you can find it here. There's a whole bunch of people talking about how bad it is, with a few people saying they don't mind, and the rest are either talking about how to work around it, spouting off random useless facts or posting obscene links. You should really check out this Slashdot website I'm talking about.
so my name is in my file. I don't even care if my name is impossibly well hidden in the file such that when my wife gets a copy she has my name in it. I would happily trade being able to play my music on whatever device I want and also take some responsibility for it not getting all over the internet over the current hassle-fest of today.
To me, it's no different than the VIN number on a car. You take that VIN number and it will tell you everyone that's ever owned the car. If they've got a same/similar thing for the music file, great.
To me, watermarking is the only solution fair to content owners and users, and NO I don't work for anyone involved with any of this.
One of the most effective anti-copying methods is putting a splash screen up with the original owner's name. Okay, you just register a copy under a different name. Or you find a way to strip it out or replace it. But still, the thought of your computer pantsing you is surprisingly effective.
the files might be watermarked in other ways, obviously more difficult to detect.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons you should never trust non free software.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Are the songs, in fact, DRM-free?
Yes.
Are they at a higher bitrate as advertised?
Yes.
Is there any physical restriction on what you can do with them?
No.
When you buy a DRM-free song, are you buying a "share them with teh intarweb" license?
No.
Is there a whole batch of metadata in the songs you buy from iTunes, protected or not?
Yep.
Nothing to see here, move along.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
This isn't really anything new. ALL music bought from the iTMS contains this information. I would be more surprised if they DIDN'T include it with DRM-free music.
CATS/Diebold '08- All your vote are belong to us!
I'll pay a reasonable amount for a shareware tool that will let me turn that e-mail address into anything I want...
How many days until we see such a tool?
a) I don't expect to be tracked by items I purchase forever after purchase.
b) I don't want every song in my collection that might be shared (legally over say iTunes sharing) to contain my email addr;
c) If I paid extra for DRM free music I should be able to do whatever I want with it within the same bounds as ripping a song from a CD. That is what I thought I was paying extra for.
Richard M. Nixon!
Seriously, when you know they're tracking you, defeat the tracking mechanism through obvious means.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And that's still breaking the law. If this makes it easier to catch you, so be it. Don't break the damn law. If you want your friends to hear the song, then you have many valid choices:
(a) iTMS has a song preview, which have definitely affected by purchase decisions
(b) point them to Imeem.com or a site like it
(c) tell them to quit being cheap asses and pay the $1 for the song
(d) play the song the next time they're over
Plenty of options that don't make you a criminal.
Any copy - and I mean ANY copy - made in use on a computer counts as a copy in terms of copyright law.
. html
pop quiz: did you know that it's illegal to run a binary of a program you have on your hard-drive unless you are given permission from the copyright holder? It has been ruled that the copy from the hard-disk to system memory counts as a copy in terms of copyright law. Lame? Yup. Still legally valid? According to the federal courts, sure is.
Further reading on the topic:
http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise20
In exchange we pay a levy on recordable media.
There's no reason to speculate:
michael-chaneys-computer:~ mdchaney$ strings 1-06\ Mother.m4a
[lot's of snippage, just pulling out the obvious]
nameMichael Chaney
data
Mother
data
Pink Floyd
"aART
data
Pink Floyd
data
The Wall
gnre
data
trkn
data
disk
data
$data
2000-04-25T07:00:00Z
pgap
data
(apID
data
mdchaney@mac.com
cprt
data
Digital Remaster (P) 1994 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Pink Floyd Music Ltd under exclusive licence to EMI Records Ltd
So, it has my name and the id that I use with iTunes (mdchaney@mac.com) along with the standard metadata that one might find in a song. If I stick it into iTunes on another machine, and bring up the info box, it says:
Purchased by: Michael Chaney
Account Name: mdchaney@mac.com
Purchase Date: 5/30/07 5:37PM
right on the summary page.
I guess I just don't get what the big deal is. How is this "hiding"?
Do you have ESP?
Isn't that what everyone said would be a noticable improvement over DRM-restricted music, and we all wanted it, and it would solve the company's problem?
When I bought the PDF of Programming Ruby, I got a PDF with my name in it. Makes sense to me!
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
If they're going to try to use this for prosecution of copyright infringement, they're in for a rude awakening: It's called "reasonable doubt."
"Someone visited my home with a thumbnail drive."
"My box got r00ted."
"I don't know how they got that song with my name on it, but I didn't send it to them. You'd better investigate."
The name and email address does nothing to PROVE a physical violation of copyright, only the identity of the purchaser, and so, if they try to take this kind of thing to a court of law, they're going to find themselves in the losing corner.
This is nothing more than FUD, and nothing less than insulting. I won't be joining iTunes any time soon.
--
Toro
The way I have always freed my tracks from DRM was to buy them on iTunes, immediately burn a CD (onto a handy CD-RW disk), then iTunes immediately recognizes the audio-CD and asks me if I want to "import" it. I have my import preferences set to MP3, and iTunes even asks me if I want to replace the existing DRM tracks with the MP3s I am ripping.
No $.30 upcharge, or DRM hassles...iTunes practically coaches you on how to do it. The CD-RW disk can be reused many times, so there isn't even a cost. Or even if you use a regular CD, it's good to have a hardcopy audio CD of the albums you buy anyway.
The whole process takes almost no time at all.
-h
So will they be able to identify my stolen ipod with 100% accuracy if all the files on it have my personal information? Sweet.
Oh, what if somebody copies that off and uploads it? Well, that'll be good actually, if we can determine the IP address we have a very simple legal case against them for stolen property, both music and hardware. And people understand stuff gets stolen, Apple isn't some giant computer where everything is YES or NO only, people understand stuff. Sometime it just takes some arm twisting to find the human.
I'm pretty sure eMusic watermarks their music too. Can anyone confirm this? I can't say it really bothers me, unless of course my iPod/computer gets stolen.
Google "private copying" and you should find what you're looking for.
a) Then remove it. Guess what? iTunes has a built in way of changing your musics information.
b) Then remove it. Guess what? iTunes has a built in way of changing your musics information.
c) What? This isn't even an issue. First, I'll pretend that you didn't pay extra for the increased bit rate. Second, how does this stop you from doing what Fair Use dictates you can do? In fact, how does this even begin to stop you from doing anything illegal at all? If you don't want it there, then remove it. Guess what? iTunes has a built in way of changing your musics information.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Oh dear god! If what you're saying is true, than trying to play music someone else downloaded from an online music store wouldn't work for people not authorized to play it! OH SWEET JESUS NO, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Moron. That's what they just took a step AWAY from.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
couldn't they have just generated a unique user id that referenced to the customer in some database? or was that method already patented?
Kind of reminds me a bit of Beyond Life with Timothy Leary or Perfume Tree. I might have to buy their album now...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Except you didn't file a police report, because it wasn't stolen - you left an ipod on the crosstown bus. You've got nothing - you probably don't even know that the lost-ipod was the vector for the distributed files. You just know that you got hit with a lawsuit because you're stuff is being used to commit crimes. Bummer. Of course, you might win the suit, but the more relevant question is, why would you want to deal with this to begin with? Yet another disincentive to buy music.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Cue the wriggling about while people think up fanciful scenarios that makes name embedding a bad thing too, and a violation of their rights. Just as long as you don't get the idea that the real problem they have is with anything that stops file sharing. Nope, definitely not that.
a) I don't expect to be tracked by items I purchase forever after purchase.
Who's tracking? They are simply stamping the info in as metadata on the track you purchased. Until they find a way to read this info for everything you do with the song there's nothing to track.
b) I don't want every song in my collection that might be shared (legally over say iTunes sharing) to contain my email addr;
So strip the info out, there are lots of programs that can edit the metadata on a music track.
c) If I paid extra for DRM free music I should be able to do whatever I want with it within the same bounds as ripping a song from a CD. That is what I thought I was paying extra for.
You can do anything with these tracks that you can do with one you ripped from a CD. There is no technological measure put in place to prevent that. DRM free has never meant that you now have a license to redistribute the file to anyone via P2P networks, it simply means there is no technological measure put in place to prevent it.
Honestly, this just sounds like whining because you want to be able to share your files illegally and are afraid of having it come back to bite you.
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
Every time theres an apple story posted people go nuts to explain why m4a's are supperior to mp3s. They quote licensing requirements of the mp3 codec vs the m4a's open license (whatever it is). Funny now, im pretty sure you cant watermark and mp3 (comment field aside) without breaking it. I would never buy something from the apple store with this new information. Its too risky for zero reward. I can always get it off p2p after all with NO watermarking.
Personally I dont get what the difference is between sharing something with 5 friends and 500 friends. It seems to be a popular talking point here so let me get into a gray area. Suppose I go to a lan party, or run a file server for my apartment building. In both cases its signficantly under 500 users that are copying my music, if they chose. Now suppose one of these people then takes my track and uploads it somewhere world accessable. How is that my fault? Am I supposed to do thorough background checks on everyone i want to share some track with? Thats the world you want to live in????
I think to make this work, you would have to be living in a world where either you dont share any music period, or have complete trust in all your friends and people you give access to your shares. This to me is unrealistic. The problem most people have is that they think mp3s are CD's. MP3's, wma, w4a and whatever are RADIO. Do you see anyone care about people listening to the radio for free? What mp3s (by extention of playlists) allow you to do is have radio without all the annoying ads and filler tracks that you would get commercially.
There will never be a shortage of music. It's just not going to happen.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
a) I don't expect to be tracked by items I purchase forever after purchase.
How are you being tracked? Your name is in the file. Do you also refuse to buy products with serial numbers or object to using a credit card to make purchases?
b) I don't want every song in my collection that might be shared (legally over say iTunes sharing) to contain my email addr;
iTunes sharing is streaming. If, on the off chance, you can actually see that info, put a password on your iTunes sharing! It's an existing feature that will prevent anyone you don't want to have access from getting access.
c) If I paid extra for DRM free music I should be able to do whatever I want with it within the same bounds as ripping a song from a CD. That is what I thought I was paying extra for.
Guess what, you can do whatever you want with it. How is having your name in the file preventing you from doing anything?
You should care to some degree considering who the people running around with lawyers suing practically anyone who owns an mp3 player (or perhaps even owns something that looks like white headphones might plug into it).
Not that it bothers me that much, but RIAA/MPAA have been going a little insane with their rather prolific and rediculous legal action.
You may not share music at all (and i dont), but you may share it with a friend who sticks it up on p2p or someone hacks into your computer nicks off with an mp3 or 2 and uploads it to p2p. Or perhaps your laptop is lost/stolen and your entire mp3 collection ends up on a p2p network and suddenly your responsible and identifiable. You'll probably get away with the last one but how much will it cost you to be cleared of any wrong doing?
Thats what I fear, I dont want to have to fork over the thousands its going to cost to defend myself from that kind of action personally.
There's no provision requiring the copier to have bought an original copy. It's perfectly legal for your friends to borrow your cds and copy them. Given that it's impossible to prove who actually made the copy, yes it is legal for you to do the copying.
Further, it's perfectly legal to make a backup copy for your own use and ask your friends to store it for you.
i wouldn't really like all my purchases (i'm talking about real things bought at supermarkets) be stamped with my full name and ssn. i'd bet you wouldn't either.
what i would be totally ok with is having some unique transaction id (like real-world serial number) embedded in every track. so that the leaked files could be tracked by apple (or third parties, after court order), but not by my teacher or your wife.
is that people will trade music like baseball cards. They do this as a way to share their culture.
It's normal human behavior.
The music industry has tried to protect their product like it's a product.
it's not really a product. it's culture.
They're using their grammar skills there.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
I suggest you read the portion of the US Copyright Law that pertains to fair use.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
The reason why this is an issue is because even if you use the music completely and 100% legally, you could still have your computer compromised and have one of your music escape into the net. If a few weeks after some of my music finds its way into P2P through completely innocent means, I get an order to hand over my computer and the RIAA gets records from my ISP, I would be fairly pissed off. Apple doesn't even need to play role of the villain. It isn't like the RIAA needs Apple's permission to download songs off of a P2P network and go after the poor bastard who the music is tagged with.
I know it is Apple and we all heart Apple because their products are shinny and we can't find a $ sign into their name, but this is a serious and completely unnecessary flaw in their privacy protection. This is a wide open invitation to the RIAA to go run down innocent people who have committed no crime other then not completely securing all of their data. Even if there is deniability (the virus stoled it, not me, honest!), it won't change the fact that few sane folks have the time and money to sit down and fight that battle with the RIAA.
Apple should be admonished for this obvious and blatant flaw in protecting the privacy of their users. There is not a damn good reason why this vulnerability in privacy should be allowed. I personally have absolutely no intention of exposing myself to such risks. Sadly, I doubt the average user knows that such risks exist, much less how to defend against them.
''What happens when your computer or mp3 player gets stolen and 6 months later there's files all over the p2p nets with your name on them. How could you prove you weren't the one that put them on there in the first place?''
I don't know how it works in the USA, but in Britain, if your computer or iPod gets stolen, you call the police and tell them. They will give you a piece of paper saying that you reported your property as stolen, which you will need to get money for a new computer or iPod off your home insurance. No police report, no insurance money.
If -whatever the RIAA is called is Britain- asks you why songs with your name and email address are all over the internet, you tell them that your computer was stolen and you have a police report to prove it. And if they find out who posted the songs, you and the police and your insurance would like to hear from them.
'' Except you didn't file a police report, because it wasn't stolen - you left an ipod on the crosstown bus. ''
If you left your iPod on a bus, just write a letter to your insurance asking them to replace it. They will either send you cheque for a new iPod, or a letter telling you that it is your own stupidity to forget your iPod and they won't pay. Either way, you have documentation that shows your iPod is gone.
Is this really how you spend your time?
If you buy an album in DRM-encrusted form, and it later becomes available in DRM-free form, it sucks to be you... because albums cost the same with or without DRM for new customers, but you have to pay to upgrade.
For example, "Demon Days" by Gorillaz costs $12.99 whether you get the DRM version or the iTunes Plus version. But if you buy the DRM version, the policy above states that you have to pay another 30% of the album price (about $4) to upgrade to the iTunes Plus version.
So if you feel tempted to buy an album on iTunes, thinking you might upgrade it later, don't. Wait for the DRM-free version to become available, unless you want to get charged twice.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Are you referring to the software or the user being smart?
I don't believe I've encountered either.
Just hypothetically speaking.
The very quote in the grandparent supports what I said. Note that the right to make personal copies is not limited to the owner of the original.
There's no reason to trust free software unless you either
audit entire code tree and build it yourself or get it from
a 100% trustworthy source.
Former is impractical, latter is non-existent. So free or
not, the chances of getting bent over by a publisher if he
is really out to get you are pretty much the same.
If this does not "sound right", consider what would happen
if Apple would open source the iTunes (say, under the BSD
license) and would also provide a prebuilt binary from its
own website. I think it is obvious that a vast majority of
users will be using Apple's binary.
So there's nothing that would prevent Apple from building
this binary from "slightly different" sources and adding
some "extra" functionality to it. Even if the binary file
discrepancies are discovered by the public, they can always
be blamed on differences in a build environment & such.
Any further _detailed_ analysis will be very slow and
complicated due to the amount of work required.
Free or not, it all boils down to whether the user has the
trust in a developer/publisher. People tend to assume that
free software developers are more trustworthy, but it is a
very dangerous and costly assumption.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Au contraire. Anyone who tells you that X definitely is or or that Y definitely isn't fair use, more likely than not, is wrong. Fair use is defined in 17 USC 107. In relevant part, it reads:That statute, and the common law definition of fair use that underlies it is many things, but it is in no way clear or explicit about what uses qualify.
Making copies to give to your friends? Gotta run it through the test. Selling copies on the streets of Manhattan? Gotta run it through the test. Some outcomes can be easily predicted (e.g. "hahaha, nice try. Pay up.") But most small scale, private uses are not. . . and precisely because they are small scale, private uses, as the grandparent alluded to; nobody would drag you to court to have them run through the test, so there's no precedent and therefore no way to say with any certainty whether such a use is fair or not.
Copyright maximalists have their perspective on the issue, and that's fine, but it's not the law.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Just another crappy blog
Conversation over.
Putting your email address into music that you download means that if you put it on a large pirated-music sharing network, then anybody there can see your email address. So not only can the RIAA's lawyers send you nastygrams asking for $3000, but all those Nigerian Dictators' Widows can send you mail about how you've won the Microsoft Herbal V1@Gra Lottery and if you provide them with your bank account and snailmail information they'll send you your share of the winnings, a hot stock tip, and a bottle of their latest pills.
This will cost them a less than actually bothering to sue anybody, and it's probably a *lot* more annoying
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
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.
They were waiting for Steve Jobs' birthday.
Q for you: what does Fission give you that Audacity doesn't? I like their software, but I don't see the need for Fission when I've Audacity. Other than stripping the MP4's of their spydata, of course.
I was wondering... Could someone grab some kind of debugging software and actually watch every file-change process iTunes makes when you download the song? I remember I could look at my RAM contents with MacsBug back in the day... I'm just wondering if iTunes would download the song, THEN add your name and email to the file. Then again, I would guess that those metadata are added on the iTunes server side, rather than embedded after the fact on your own machine... Any comments??
Audacity won't save losslessly so you will lose audio quality. Fission will do this losslessly.
Has anyone actually run a packet sniffer to check on this? Can someone post some wireshark output?
It's not even fingerprinting (at least not as far as anyone knows yet). What's been reported is that Apple tags the files with the username of the person who bought it. It's similar to the tag they put in for the song title and artist name, except that the purchaser name isn't able to be edited within the iTunes interface. It can be edited, just not through iTunes.
This isn't "hidden", it's not a secret, it's not anything new (Apple's been doing this all along), and it's not sneaky. It could just as easily be claimed that Apple did this for the user's convenience. iTunes notes which songs in your library were purchased from iTunes, as well as telling you who purchased them. If you have multiple users purchasing music on your system, that could be useful information. The only way it's going to hurt you is if your purchases hit the P2P networks without stripping the tags first. In that case, I'd have to ask: are you stupid or something?
I for one welcome our apple overlords...
in other news, microsoft has opened it's source code and has dumped $10B into open source software development projects.
aah, RL fantasy... why I quit playing WoW.
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...
This is a good point-- that you purchased the files doesn't necessarily mean you committed copyright infringement. It seems to me that, legally, this should be comparable to police finding your fingerprints at the scene of a robbery. It's circumstantial. It wouldn't be sufficient evidence to convict you of anything, even though it might be enough for them to investigate you.
Folks who are going to "share" files in a big way probably aren't buying them for a buck a piece in the first place, so, while there might very well be "sharing" of some of these watermarked files, it won't be anything sinister. Besides people who cared enough to buy the song in the first place are probably the industries best customers.
Of course my userid is probably about as real as my slashdot name, but still.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It's not like there isn't an easily available way to circumvent this if you know what you are doing and want to pirate the stuff.
Just keeps honest people and stupid dishonest people honest with minimal intrusion.
When I play World of Warcraft, I walk by pressing both buttons on the mouse. This gives a lot more turning precision than you get with the keyboard. However, you can't do that on a Mighty Mouse. Its physical design can only distinguish whether you're pressing the left side or the right side - it can't recognize pressing both sides at once.
I'm sure WoW's not the only game that has a use for left+right.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Hex edit the bastard. Save file. Done.
EFI is a great replacement for a crappy old BIOS, any day of the week. With that said..
:-)
I am a new Apple convert. I bought an Intel iMac with the Core 2 duo, and a MacBook with the Core Duo this year. I was a heavy Linux geek and I have been a programmer on MS systems for the past 12 years. I have to say that I love OS X. It is really great.
Seeing things about DRM and Apple makes me a little nervous though. I will quickly sell both my Intel Macs and jump back to Linux if I think Apple is trying to push DRM crap on me. However, so far, that doesn't seem to be the case. For example, there is no crappy MS "activation" crap with OS X. I could use my OS X install DVD's and install OS X on any number of Macs, no questions asked, and most importantly, no crappy "activation". So as of now, it seems that Apple is trusting its users to buy the right number of licenses to install their OS. That is a far cry from what MS does with their activation junk.
Even though I love OS X, I do have some problems with iTMS and iTunes. Out of the box, iTunes doesn't play many non-Apple or non-proprietary formats. Thanks to projects like Perian that can be taken care of, though I personally just use VLC which blows away Quicktime. The biggest problem I have had is that all the TV shows I have bought from iTMS has been trapped in a DRM-only format. I wish Apple would provide a way to transcode to a DVD MPEG-2 format so I can watch the shows on my TV. No, I don't want to have to buy an AppleTV to watch my iTMS-only content. If AppleTV allowed me to watch the Divx/Xvid rips I made of the DVD's that I own, then hell yeah, I would buy it.
So to sum up and get off my soap-box, I love OS X, I am just very weary about where Apple may go in the future WRT DRM. I really hope they do not take the Microsoft path. If so, I will get rid of all my Mac's and switch back to two PC's. One with Ubuntu Linux and one with WinXP. Though I hope I don't have to do that. After 6 months with OS X, I really don't want any other OS. Though, my freedoms are worth more than any OS to me.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
Seriously, this is a huge step forward to getting rid of DRM. Moving back to the times when you bought something, you can do with it as you please (read as: play it from your iPOD, computer, home theater, car ect..). Apple's iTunes just got another customer here. So there is a watermark, my question to people is simply; And?
"For example, there is no crappy MS "activation" crap with OS X. I could use my OS X install DVD's and install OS X on any number of Macs, no questions asked, and most importantly, no crappy "activation"."
There is a good reason for the difference between Apple and MS (in relation to how they control their respective OS): Apple makes OS X to run on their hardware ONLY. Therefore, if you are installing on ANY Mac, they have already made their money from the hardware. Remember, they are a hardware company.
MS, on the other hand, makes an OS that runs on ANY PC. They don't sell the hardware, so they try to make sure you have purchased the software. That's where they make their money.
You have to look at the reason why each company chooses to implement DRM or any other form of IP control.
Apple already had a perfectly good BIOS replacement, you fool! It's called "Open Firmware" and -- unlike EFI -- is a widely-supported open standard.
There were exactly two reasons for EFI to exist, and neither of them are good: Intel's Not-Invented-Here syndrome and DRM. That's it.
How do you know? Can you cite a source that actually disassembled a Mac to check? 'Cause what I heard is that Apple just made it so that the TPM doesn't show up in the device manager, but is still there (in fact, I recall hearing reports of people with Macs that most certainly had TPMs noticing them mysteriously disappear after a software update).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Now, I must say that at least embedding the original owners information in the data stream is at least closer to the issue of the actual problem. Unfortunately for the RIAA, debuggers still do their job, and the human ingenuity of the "few" that sit back to conceptualize, design, and sell this DRM cruf to the RIAA exec's is completely dwarfed by the the shear MAGNITUDE of the intelligent people who still feel ripped off by them. Honest people who just want to listen to what they legitimately purchased, and that DRM will never be the solution to this. Until the RIAA address the actual "social problem" they themselves have created, in that they are despised by all the honest an legitimate owners of "unusable" content, the RIAA will never be able to solve the file sharing problem that they actually created.
Ok, RIAA, solve the REAL problem, your perception of greed with selling a completely unusable product, and then we, yes, WE, the ones with the M-O-N-E-Y, might just start to pay attention to what you are saying! Me? Yes, I DO have money, but I spend it wisely, and not on completely "unusable" content, no matter how much money you pour into your defunct concept of DRM, or advertising of that same unusable crud. I don't file share, I don't even crack your DRM (though I have everything needed to do it should I have a mind to, or some day if I just get bored enough), but I also have VERY strong principals to live by. When you have something I want bad enough, I'll let you know. In the mean time you had better think about what I might actually want from you. Think long and hard, as that obviously does not come easy for you lately.
This has absolutly nothing to do with open source, at all.
Free softare will never do things you don't know about, so sure, Apple's underhand tagging has nothing to do with free software.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Coming soon.. iTunes Plus PLUS! Where for just $1.99 a song you can get tracks with no DRM and no identifying metadata!
Privacy issues aside, when you plug an ipod into another computer itunes prompts if you would like to transfer authorized itunes music store purchases from the ipod onto the computer. With the DRM-free music, there would be no way to differentiate between purchased music and ripped music. My roommate and I were wondering the other day how apple would make this distinction, and aside from not allowing transfering the DRM-free tracks, this is the only solution. I'm sure statistics will be collected all the same, but I do think the information has a legitimate, non-malicous reason for being stuck in the files.
If you're only using the music you paid for, for personal use (ie, copying to your own devices) no one else will ever see it.
If you're distributing music without license to all and sundry on a massive scale, you deserve to get pinged by the watermark id - it's not "invasion of privacy" if you're distributing things illegally on a massive scale.
If you don't agree with copyright, don't use copyright material...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
There's 2 camps in the anti-drm crowd it seems. Those who genuinely want "Fair use" and the scumbag pirates who are part of the reason we have drm in the first place...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It's not like they've added this in today. The account information has always been there; it's been in the tags since the store started. IIRC, one of the first DRM strippers left this account info in (on purpose).
Anyways, there was a perfectly good reason for the info being there (with the DRM); you can authorize your computer for more than one account. Handy to know what account the song was bought under (if there were any authorization issues).
I chalk this up to people not realizing that the info was already there and Apple not changing the fact that the account info was in the metadata.
Who is planning on uploading files they have purchased anyway? That's just dumb.
It's not dumber than lending your CDs to a bunch of people from time to time, it's music you've paid for and let others use it. Yes, I know the scale differs, but we're talking about intentions here which are generally the same.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Apple should have embedded the purchaser's credit card number into the music, then it would very unlikely to be released into the wild! LOL.
:-|
P.S.
At least for five minutes until they figured out how to strip the data out from the music.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Yep! And about for 1/5th of the price too (compared to Vista Ultimate, here around).
My sweetie has the 12" power book and loves it. I don't think that every latest and greatest incarnation of OS/X is necessary for her. But when we upgraded to 10.4. I sure as hell ordered a copy at the Apple shop. Despite the fact that I could have borrowed it drom a friend.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Couldn't they put the info both clearly visible in a comment-field an watermarked throughout the sound file? That way, they can announce that they store the info in the file, people will verify that it's in the comment-field. The trivial hack would simply be to strip the info from the comment-field unknowing of the watermark (that's hard to detect). Then distributing a file with a modified comment field wouldn't help, since they would also use the watermark to identify the origin.
Or am I missing something here?
LIAR!
You must work for Microsoft.
AAC is a 100% open non-Apple audio standard codified by the ISO (all countries)
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is one of the audio compression formats defined by the MPEG-2 standard.
Have you ever heard of MPEG 2 audio ?
MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer 3) is provably less quality than MPEG 2 AAC
That is why Apple chose it.
Apple did not ger to a market cap this week of over 103 billion dollars and thus the 52nd largest company in america by being idiots.
Even Microsoft market cap this week is under 3 times the size of apple.
Read abook sometime and quit being a liar-troll
# strings foo.mp4 | grep YourName
I wonder if it's easy to remove?
Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
Note that this is `widely supported' as in 'supported by a lot of platforms' not 'supported by a lot of systems.' To my knowledge, there is no OpenFirmware implementation for x86. OpenBIOS has started, but not finished. Since they went to Intel to get a complete solution (motherboard, chipset, and CPU), writing their own firmware would have been somewhat counterproductive.
That said, I'll take OpenFirmware over EFI any day of the week.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
iTunes doesn't show any of the personal information from songs it's playing from a shared library, so you can strike b) from your list. Regarding c), you can do exactly the same things with your iTunes Plus songs as you could with a CD rip, but you can't magically break the law just because you paid another 30 cents. Real sorry about that.
Amit Singh has something to say on this...
http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter10/tpm/
There are no guarantees, but it's not looking like Apple is keen to enforce the TPM on Mac users.
Usually, if you lend someone a CD, it's so they can listen to it and decide if they like it, with the assumption that they will buy music from the same band, if not exactly the same CD. This helps you, because it encourages more people to give money to the creators of the work you enjoy, which allows them to continue creating, and encourages others to create similar works.
The existing P2P networks are different in that they are inherently 'pull' technologies. You won't find something unless you are specifically looking for it. That means that the people who are downloading it will do nothing that benefits you, except possibly make their collections available for download. If you are buying music, then uploading it is a losing strategy for you.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The British RIAA is the BPI (British Phonographic Institute), by the way.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
- Richard Stallman
We should resist terms like "stealing" when talking about music. The word has a lot of connotation from thousands of years of usage, but it has only been possible to record music for less than two centuries. (You can see RMS's article about intellectual property for more than just the sound-bite).
Another thought, from a recent blog entry I found on Digg:
Regardless of your thoughts about the value of copyright for music, using the word "stealing" to describe copying music is fundamentally dishonest.The songs also contain the time of purchase. You would not only have to know your arch-nemesis's taste in music, but also the exact time at which they bought it. If you got this wrong, then Apple would be able to provide the evidence to exonerate them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I believe they have been doing this for some time. It makes economic sense but you have to think it would be a nightmare if your player got stolen.
I can just see the scenario at the police station, "No, officer. This is SERIOUS. I could be sued for TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. I want to file a detailed report because you have to put finding the person who took my music player at the top of your investigative priorities." Complain loud enough and long enough down that theme and you'd probably find yourself in a cell just on principle for being a pain in the ass.
To activate purchased software, I have to add a serial number...which can identify me since the software vendor knows who owns that serial. How is a "serial" of foobar@gmail.com different from a serial of 12345678 other than possibly being more discernable to casual observer?
"Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated"
And the info is gone or changed. What the hell is wrong with people that they need to hype this kind of stuff up all the time? There are so many posts under this topic that are totally misinformed, but it only took me 5 minutes to get an account, download a song and try to edit it in Textedit in order to see how little there is to this bullshit.
http://pax-europa.com/temp/kraftwerk.png
Nothing to see here, move along...
Yes, it is dumber. First, lending CDs is not copyright infringement because you're not making a copy, just loaning your copy. If they make a copy of the CDs, then they are breaking the law, but that is not implicit in the act of uploading the way it is with digital files.
Second, we know how CDs are made for the most part and it precludes watermarking each CD or song with a unique, invisible identifier. Thus, even if you make copies of the CDs and give them to everyone, they will probably not be easily traceable back to you. The same is not true of music purchased online and it is quite likely that Apple and every other manufacturer is doing just that; something a lot harder to find and discover than plaintext info such as is described here. An intelligent person should assume that his or her files may be watermarked if they're purchased from an online store, and thus avoid sharing them in their original form.
still they don't get it.
I want my music with NO strings attached.
the cd(rom) model is what we used to have (and the LP and cassette). there was no watermarking, no DRM, no restrictions. you bought the media and the mafiaa DID stay off your back.
now they try to sell you a 'benefit'. and SO many of you are falling for it!
initially there was DRM and they knew we didn't like it. then there's this 'new' drm-lite. no copying restrictions but now a tagging restriction (so to speak).
this is STILL not acceptable.
again, the younger market (most of who buys/listens to commercial music) will either pirate or get TOTAL drm-free music from a*mp3.com
I still see this as backwards progress. the industry is testing the waters. its STILL our job to stand our ground and say 'nice start - but keep going - and let us know when the cd(rom) style model is back again, but via downloads'.
the cd(rom) model has NO drm and NO user ID crap in it.
nothing less than that will be acceptable. it IS nice that 'they' are starting to relax some of the ultra heavy handed techniques, but they still aren't 'getting it' quite yet.
don't accept partial 'test the waters' solutions. hold out for what you KNOW you really want.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
So you're upset because Apple puts identifying info in their files and that could cause you problems when you're breaking the law by giving copies to incompetent criminal friends of yours? Here's a news flash for you. If you're buying files as downloads from an online store, it is not very hard to apply a digital watermark to the music that will uniquely identify that copy. It is a lot harder to find and remove than this plaintext info.
Does Apple add watermarks? I don't know. Do other online stores? Again, I don't know. Probably some of them do. If you're planning on continuing your illegal enterprises before the laws are changed I recommend you do not do so with files from online stores, regardless of if they have your info in the plaintext metadata fields.
I actually have no clue what point you've been trying to make, aside from acting like a child and making an ass of yourself, but whatever it was, you could have saved yourself the embarrassment with 2 minutes on Google and probably answered whatever questions you had.
Here's the English version of the government website: Canada Copyright Act (Section 80)
This states you're free to make yourself a private copy of a copyrighted work, so long as the intent is not one of: (a) selling/renting it (b) distributing (c) communicating to the public (d) performing to the public.
In idiot-speak: you can borrow your friend's CD and make yourself a copy; your friend can borrow your copy and make himself a copy; his friend can copy that copy -- all so long as the intent isn't distribution.
If the Act itself is not clear/detailed enough for you, and this is a topic you're actually fanatically interested in (as opposed to just being a means satisfying your urge to argue about topics you don't actually care about on Slashdot), then I'd suggest using Canada411 to look up a Canadian intellectual property lawyer who can answer your questions.
This is an obvious thing, really. Apple has never maintained that they would offer "pure" mp3s, just that they would remove DRM. This seems like a perfectly acceptable compromise. It will stop the "average Joe" from sharing their music; but really won't stop the dedicated person. (There are utilities that can strip the info out, just as they could remove the DRM before.)
As for reporting? They have always said you could have one music file on five computers; it didn't specify that all five had to be "registered" to the same person. For example, I have songs from my account authorized on my main computer, my wife's main computer (which has her iTunes account as primary,) my son's main computer (again, his iTunes account is primary,) plus two spare PCs that don't have of our iTunes accounts as "primary". Am I worried that Apple will sick the RIAA on me because I have songs authorized on five computers that are registered to five different names? No, not one bit.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
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.
Artificial scarcity has been with us since the beginnings of civilization. There is always someone acting as the gatekeeper, the middleman, the person who keeps the system from working at maximum efficiency, so they can skim off the top. In an ideal world, I suppose we'd have no middlemen.
But what about the idea that while artificial scarcity has always been with us, unnatural abundance has not. Digital files are by their nature capable of being perfectly copied. Coupled with the Internet, they can be distributed globally. What other thing that can be bought or sold has these characteristics? Digital files over the Internet really are unnatural, in the sense that they go against thousands of years of human economic experience.
So what is the value of something that has the characteristics of unnatural abundance? Based on what I've seen in the university, a huge number of my peers think the value is zero, as they are unwilling to pay for music. The value of something that is so readily available is not determined by the traditional constraints of supply and demand, because in no other realm of economic activity can something be copied so perfectly and distributed so broadly and rapidly. This is not a trivial problem for individuals and companies that spend a lot of time and money to create digital goods, which is why the content industries are so freaked out about digital distribution.
Sorting this out will take time - probably a lot more time than we'd like. Also, I suspect that some of that "society will agreee on what the right value is" will involve legal, rather than economic constraints. People may agree that if left to their own devices, they will simply take digital content for free, so they will enact laws in order to prevent a tragedy of the commons situation.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"You have to look at the reason why each company chooses to implement DRM or any other form of IP control."
DRM's end result on the user is the same, regardless of Apple's or MS's reasoning for implementing it. In other words, no, he doesn't have to look at the reason why each company chooses their DRM scheme: it's still a hassle.
damaged by dogma
Share your music => give away your email address => drown in spam. Even the RIAA weren't so vindictive... (I jest, but only just!)
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Limewire isn't illegal. It's used illegally of course - but it's not illegal. If you don't set your upload preferences to OFF - you may end up breaking the law inadvertently. That's was my point.
In other news - you're a fucking moron.
I don't know if these are lossless or what, they only offered 2 tracks which I bought on iTS and I own the cd's of them anyway now so I'm not interested in being ripped off again for the tracks...
But anyway... if they are lossless, just burn them to CD, rip them to whatever you want, and your name magically isn't there. Wow.
If they aren't lossless, well your just wasting even more of your money. Go buy the CD, it's cheaper.
Your example was that you gave it to a friend who ignorantly put it in the shared limewire directory. In your example, you broke the law by making him a copy in the first place and then he broke the law by republishing it on the internet. If you or your frined downloads and installs software that they don't understand the purpose of, then I don't have a lot of sympathy for you when that software works in ways you don't understand to break the law. The same thing can be said of shared Windows directories.
In other news - you're a fucking moron.What are you, 8 years old or something? "I'm rubber you're glue..." Grow up.
So... suppose I happen to be a fairly loud proponent of civil rights, and I also use iTunes. Suddenly the RIAA / iTunes decide I'm uncomfortable. Would you be surprised if suddenly a large number of songs with "my" watermark on it would appear on P2P networks? Heck, who cares about stolen iPods or Trojan's, I can avoid that. What I can't do shit about is if the record industry decides to leak something with my watermark in order to nail me in court. The only possible way for me to prevent that is to never ever purchase a song through an on-line service that uses watermarking, or move to a country where such watermarks are not recognised by law. Basically, what we need is a legal precedent or law making clear very damn quickly that this sort of thing will not be acceptable as evidence in court.
I could use my OS X install DVD's and install OS X on any number of Macs, no questions asked
Not true in my experience. You must provide a name and other similar information during install. To me that's "questions asked". And I believe that you are automatically "registered" if your computer is connected to the Internet during the install. However if you aren't connected during installation you aren't forced to register later.
Just delete the timestamps, it only makes him look more guilty like he tried to clear out the identifying info and only got part of it.
There's always one.
You must never sacrifice your privacy for the sake of security. Especially not someone else's security.
Let's go live in your world.
The police can search your home without warrant at any time. They listen to your phone line. They open your mail and read it. They keylog every computer you use. They maintain a database of you and your friends, connections, activities, purchases. They have a GPS tracker in your car and an RFID chip implanted in your skin.
This is okay, in your world, because the only reason you would object to this is because you're a criminal.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Yes I mentioned the email distribution model which is illegal. Granted. But a purchased track migrating to a shared directory that LimeWire keys on isn't improbable. The legality of finding an embedded tab in a massive array of preferences is an issue. The issue is that default settings create another example of an industry that can and will continue to define lawbreakers ad-hoc. I think it's great that an industry that has decided to consider it's customer base as nothing but criminals regardless of mitigating circumstances is dying on the vine. Once you kick your core constituancy in the nuts long enough, the market will deviate eventually rather than sift though a legal minefield. Home taping and time-shifting prevented this from occuring in the 80s. So much for that idea.
As far as "you're a fucking moron" Al Franken isn't 8. One of my favorite uses of the phrase is in his book "Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot" - "Why would people so woefully lacking in the basic facts of an issue think they were the best informed? Social scientists call the phenomenon 'pseudo-certainty'. I call it 'being a fucking moron'. Great use of the language. In fact I love it as a concluding device. Here's an idea - read a book. Perhaps you can convince me YOU'RE not 8 fucking years old. Language nazi.
Embedding trackign devices, opening your mail, keylogging, etc is a COMPLETELY different ball game to watermarking of legally protected content, and i'm quite sure you realise this.
It just doesn't sit well with your argument, or (I suspect) your complete lack of respect for paying artists for their work.
If you have your legal MP3s on your computer, then you're fine. If some asshat steals them and they get busted and have your name on them, it's THEIR problem for obtaining/posessing the protected media, not yours.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
If you have your legal MP3s on your computer, then you're fine. If some asshat steals them and they get busted and have your name on them, it's THEIR problem for obtaining/posessing the protected media, not yours.
Now we get to the true crux of the matter. Can you believe, after seeing the activities of the RIAA and their new ally, Apple, imbedding your details into songs, that they wouldn't blame you for making the files available and sue you for copyright infringement? Actually I think you would believe that, which will make it even more of an unpleasant surprise for you when the subpoena arrives.
When I buy a music CD, the clerk at the record shop doesn't write my name on it with a marker pen. When I buy a novel from a bookstore they don't print my name on every page. Why not? There is no need to do this unless you are treating your customer like a criminal and telling them what they can or can not do with the material they just bought. Telling people what they can and can't do with the material they buy, managing their rights... well it's called DRM. Apple just has a different way of making sure you are liable and a suitable target for the RIAA to continue to control you. They've sold you out.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Actually I think if you don't configure a network connection at the time of the install, then it doesn't send it out and bugs you later. Turns out the registration info is simply placed in a file on the disk which you can easily remove or rename to avoid this. It's not dead simple, but it's so easy for the average person to avoid it's not really worth complaining.