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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?'"
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
This doesn't really bother me. I buy music and don't give it away, which is as it should be. TANSTAAFL!
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.
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."
How does having my name associated with a file I paid for prevent my friends from playing my purchase?
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.)
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)
So what happens when you just replace the name and email address? Or blank it out? Does the file not play? At best this might discourage casual copying or allow them to "punish" those who do it. It pretty obviously won't discourage anything, since they're not making it known and most "casual" copiers won't even know their name and email address are in the file. Serious "pirates" (AAAAAARRRR) will just replace the names anyway. Or rip from a CD like they do now anyway. How is this even news?
The Farewell Tour II
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!
Giving the songs to five of your friends has never been the problem. They haven't really cared much if you made a mix tape or mix CD and given them away to people you know. You certainly have the right to do that and no one has really tried to stop that. In fact, they encourage that by distributing blank media and recording hardware.
Even selling used CDs hasn't come under fire. There are plenty of record stores that buy and sell CDs.
No, the problem has been uploading the songs to some P2P network and allowing millions of your "friends" to download the song. That is what they're really trying to stop. The difference between the five and the million has to do with the numbers. You are likely to have five friends, not a million. Five copies don't hurt the companies, but a million copies do. That never came up before since you would never buy a million blank CDs to copy and pass around to complete strangers.
Why should I be outraged? Why do I care if my name is in a file that I purchased? Please explain.
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.
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.
An easy way for me and my 1,203,382 roommates to keep track of what belongs to who ;)
Or if your mp3 player or laptop are stolen.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"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.
A smart P2P client should be able to strip out the identifying tags automatically. Not that I would ever advocate copyright infringement, just hypothetically speaking.
It sounds like this instance isn't very well-hidden, but watermarks can be pretty clever. They may have some secret checksum-like formula to identify properly marked files, and I've heard of a system where common watermark removal methods still end up fingering at least one of the collaborators.
In any case, if you happen to notice that your copy of $SONG and your friend's copy have different checksums, take a closer look at them: chances are they're watermarked. A bit of work can identify the bits that hold the extra info. It's also very difficult to make a watermark that can survive a format shift (especially when compression is involved). So, actually, working with friends may help you here.
(IANAL)
Atleast in Finland we pay outrageous prices for blank media so that we could legaly make copies of music.
Funny enough, I think it's still illegal to copy music. It's a weird situation. But Teosto and Gramex are the evil brothers of copyright.
Those are the local RIAA. I'm member of both and it's not even easy to resign from them. I tried once but was told to mail in my resign letter in certain time frame when they "process such requests". Surprisinlgy enough, I never remembered to do it at that certain time. I think they have a ton of guys like me who have like one registered demo tape from their teens. Atleast they can boast to have beeelliyons of members whose intellectual property they are protecting.
Oh yeah. If I register a song with them, I'm not allowed to even publish it on my web page anymore without paying royalties. Royalties which should be paid to me ofcourse. In reality all the small guys pennies will go to a common pool which will be divided to the artists "fairly" based on other visibility. eg. The big artists take the 2 cents which would be rightfully mine!
Bot Assisted Blogging
If you remove those two atoms ('name' and 'user'), the file will play just fine. This is effectively Apple using a pin lock on the front door rather than a deadbolt. "Keeps the honest people honest" and all that.
Even better, they've been doing exactly this ever since the iTunes Music Store opened. The HYMN Project was specifically designed to leave your user information in the file. The idea was that if you are stripping the crypto for legitimate purposes (backups, interoperability, etc.), you wouldn't mind having your name attached to the decrypted files.
This is the very definition of not-news. It's like that guy on Full Disclosure earlier this month who was going on about how Macs clamp the output of 'ps -aux' to the terminal width and how this prevents users from seeing the full process name. The 'w' flag was probably added before that clown was born.
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?
My licence plate is an anchor, you insensitive clod.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
4 point at the bottom? The headline is a lie -- there's nothing "hidden" about this. The summary info in iTunes displays the account info for each file.
Truth is, somebody decided long ago that they'd use this sort of nonsense to criticize what's really an industry-changing development. I don't know how you possibly see it as underhanded. The file has some informational tags... duh.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
1. Download music your arch nemesis listens to and has downloaded.
2. Replace your name with his name in the file.
3. Accidentally leak the files onto P2P networks.
Woops. I missed the ??? and Profit!!! steps in there.
This comment is probably a bit late for anyone to read, but a REALLY smart P2P client would strip any identifying tags and replace them with the details of RIAA executives
Anyone who puts a file with their id embedded in it onto a bittorrent site deserves eveything that they get.
I'm no shill for the RIAA, but I think people would be wise to avoid putting paid-for DRM-less files on any P2P network. For years, people have harked on about how they object paying for DRM'd files, and that the main objection is the restriction of personal rights. Now a record company has released it's catalogue in a non-DRM format. If these files start cropping up on The Pirate Bay, it just demonstrates what a crock of shit the "restriction of rights" argument always was. People just want music for free.
Flood the P2P networks with these files, and it just gives strength to the RIAA's argument. To an extent, they can justifiably turn around and say "we gave you what you asked for, and you still abused it." Furthermore, it's hardly likely to encourage other record companies to follow suit. Granted the prices are too high, and you still can't get a high enough bitrate, but they've made a move more-or-less in the right direction. We need to show a bit of restraint, otherwise this little experiment will just be terminated by the rights owners and we'll be back at square one.
"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.
Do you know if giving music, not fixed in a tangible medium (like a CD), is legal? These tracks are licensed, not sold. So are you just complaining that Apple's actions make it less convenient for you to perform a possibly illegal act?
In countries like Germany this is perfectly legal (unless you break a copy protection scheme). There, Apple's behavior might even be a violation of privacy laws.
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