Apple's DRM Whack-a-Mole

Mateo_LeFou writes "Gulf News has a nice piece exposing the last couple generations of Apple's DRM strategy (you didn't really think they were abandoning DRM, did you?). Article focuses on how quickly the tactics are worked around, and how nasty the latest one is: purchased iTunes now have your personal data in them. Author suspects that this is to prevent you uploading them to a network."

Comments

Couldn't be more ranty, or wrong

[daveschroeder]

I'm just going to ignore the DRM circumvention garbage that comprises the first half of the article, considering Steve Jobs is by far the most influential person in music, media, and computing to call DRM out for what it is.

The first half of the article is nothing but an anti-Apple rant, actually insinuating that Apple is on a mission to not let their users burn music to CD, which is completely and utterly false.

Then, the article drops this gem:

Turns out that Apple has been embedding its files with user information. iTunes customers have been downloading files that contain both their names and their email address.

"Turns out"? Let's continue...

How long this has been going on and just why Apple has felt compelled to do so is still a mystery - the company so far has refused to comment

A mystery? This has been going on since day one, and has never been a mystery. And even if it is a "mystery" on the non-DRM files, it was never a mystery on the DRM files, was never hidden, and was never secret. This has been known, never obfuscated, and obvious to anyone who clicked "Get Info" on anything purchased from the iTunes Store, ever.

but the reason seems obvious.

Oh, please. Do tell.

The embedded data won't prevent anyone from listening to their music files ...which is what I thought the purpose of calling for no-DRM was. You know, so we could all use our files we legitimately own on any device.

but it might deter them from uploading them to a file-sharing server.

O, the humanity! Really??? It might deter people from that?

Well, let's take a look at the logic, here. It was never secret on the DRM files, and it's not secret on the no-DRM files. But, Apple also never overtly publicized it. So, if it's not even talked about, how is it a deterrent, exactly?

But the message is clear: take our songs public, and we'll take you public.

Oh, that's the message, is it? So we've been calling for no DRM for ages, so we can legitimately and legally use our music files, and now people have problems with not being able to do things with them that are strictly illegal? If you want to bash copyright or the fact that you can't legally share anything and everything with anyone with no repercussions, do that. But don't blame Apple because an incidental name and email address is in a file that you shouldn't be uploading anyway.

And to all the idiots who think this could be somehow "used against them" without their knowledge, it would be easily, easily provable that someone never made such a purchase from the iTunes store. But that's a different argument entirely. All these fringe examples of how something MIGHT be able to abused that makes all sorts of suppositions that aren't necessarily even true - that Apple put the information there for this purpose, or that it would ever even be used that way, by anyone, or that falsifying no-DRM tracks from iTunes and then uploading them to P2P networks will suddenly become routine harassment - are starting to get old.

Sure, encrypt the data. But you know what? if it was encrypted, do you really think all the people howling about this wouldn't be complaining even more? After all, it's still identifying information, and now it's encrypted! Maybe the RIAA has the key, and they're all going to come after you! Why is Apple hiding this information??? Does anyone really think that wouldn't happen?

My favorite quote of all this was from an EFF attorney; to paraphrase: if someone steals your iPod, the thief would have the name and email address of the rightful owner!

Oh, yes, I agree: what a nightmare scenario that would be!

Re:Couldn't be more ranty, or wrong

[Dasher42]

Hear hear! I nominate "Area man oppressed, end to freedom to swing his fist where neighbor's nose begins" as the new title for this presumptuous, trifling article. People fighting the good fight for fair use hardly need the company of the no-social-contract crowd. So the file has been branded as yours. That steps on your legal rights how? And while laws may be right or wrong, the ones governing uploading of someone else's copyrighted work without permission are wrong... how?

Thanks for ripping this article a new one. Comments like this make Slashdot valuable, rather than the way the social anarchist whining seems to get a free pass to the postings.

Re:Couldn't be more ranty, or wrong

[Blondie-Wan]

"Found"? It was never hidden. It was plainly visible, clearly intentionally, from day one. I'm absolutely flabbergasted people think this is some insidious new development or that it's been sneaked in in hopes people won't see it.

Have the people expressing shock and outrage never used iTunes, or what? Seriously, the purchaser info is RIGHT THERE in the same tab in the "Get Info" window that displays the track length, play count, file format, bitrate, and other data that's clearly, readily, deliberately accessible to users, and IT HAS BEEN EVER SINCE THE STORE OPENED IN 2003.

Re:Couldn't be more ranty, or wrong

[Belacgod]

IAWTC. Filesharing is illegal, and any DRM that doesn't reduce legal functionality is alright in my book. I can put these files on my ipod, computer, other computers...that's all I need. Anyone who complains about this has revealed themselves as no advocate for freedom, but an advocate for theft.

Re:Couldn't be more ranty, or wrong

[vux984]

A mystery? This has been going on since day one, and has never been a mystery. And even if it is a "mystery" on the non-DRM files, it was never a mystery on the DRM files, was never hidden, and was never secret. This has been known, never obfuscated, and obvious to anyone who clicked "Get Info" on anything purchased from the iTunes Store, ever.

EXACTLY.

This is about as 'evil' as the time I bought a book on special order. The staff had put a paper insert inside the front cover with my name and phonenumber, presumably so that they knew who had ordered it. But they didn't tell me!! And it was personally identifying!!... why if I had started committing crimes with that book the police would have had my name and number!! I'm never buying a book from that company again! /sarcasm

My favorite quote of all this was from an EFF attorney; to paraphrase: if someone steals your iPod, the thief would have the name and email address of the rightful owner!

Heaven help the poor sap if someone were to steal his cellphone. or his wallet. or his briefcase. or his laptop.

Re:Couldn't be more ranty, or wrong

[tsa]

Yours was the only post this thread needed. And first post too! If I had mod points I would mod you up.

Oh, and one more thing... Please /. editors, sometimes no news is better than a random rant from a clueless person.

Re:Couldn't be more ranty, or wrong

[Doctor_Jest]

There's just no convincing some morons, though. I've been trying to say that for YEARS... there are some people that are CONVINCED the iPod won't play MP3s... EVEN WHEN I SHOW THEM... "oh that's an apple mp3" WTF? Are you TRYING to be stupidest person of the year?

This is such a non-story, it almost feels like they're SEARCHING for something to piss and moan about.

For chrissakes, people... BITCH WHEN THERE'S A NEED TO...

Retards

[Anonymous Coward]

Personal info has always been there. Didn't anyone notice that Apple is selling DRM-free tunes now? It's not Apple's fault if DRM is there. If it exists, it's because the record company wanted it there. Don't like DRM? Don't buy from those companies. Simple.

Nasty?

[Planesdragon]

Apple gives you a no-DRM file, and slaps a watermark on it so that, if you're so inclined to share it with wild abandon, they can ID you.

That's not nasty. That's fair. It's YOUR music file, and there are no technical limitations on what you can do with it. if you do the one thing you're not allowed to do with it, they'll be able to (*gasp!*) track down that you did it.

Re:Nasty?

[RalphBNumbers]

It's not even a watermark, it's just a couple of plain text metadata atoms (the MPEG-4 equivalent of ID3 tags).

This is basically the digital equivalent of printing your name on the receipt and putting it in the bag when you buy a CD. No one's forcing you to keep the receipt if you don't want to, and no one's going to read it but you anyway unless you choose to staple it to a public bulletin board for some odd reason.

I'm incredibly disgusted with the negative spin many people online have managed to put on Apple's move to sell DRM-free music. If you ever wonder why so many companies screw their customers, I think this illustrates one of the reasons. There's no upside in *not* screwing your customers; a lot of people can't or won't even recognize it when they're given everything they wanted.

Re:Nasty?

[TheRaven64]

It's not a watermark (there may be a watermark as well, but no one has found one yet). A watermark is something embedded in the actual data, changing it in an identifiable way. The tracks from the iTunes store simply encode the name and email address of the buyer, and the time of purchase in the standard metadata tags. This is fairly trivial to remove, if you want to bother. It's like a receipt; it allows you to prove that you purchased the track if you need to, but doesn't do anything more.

Re:Nasty?

[Tom]

Apple gives you a no-DRM file, and slaps a watermark on it so that, No, they didn't.

I know this is /. and all, but how about at least getting the basic facts right?

One, it wasn't added, it had been there before.
Two, it's not a watermark, it's some embedded text.
Three, the text is even embedded in plain text format.

Re:Nasty?

[NtroP]

Apple gives you a no-DRM file, and slaps a watermark on it so that, if you're so inclined to share it with wild abandon, they can ID you.

Except there IS NO watermark. There is only your name and email address, unencrypted, in a part of the file that's supposed to contain meta-information. This is no different than Canon deciding to put my name and email address in the EXIF data when I take a picture. Watermarking would mean modifying the actual photo (or music) portion of the file so that the identifying data was intrinsic to the media itself. Apple has done none of this.

All this hand-waving is people showing their true colors. They are pirates at heart and simply want to complain. Most of the music on my iPod is ripped from my CDs. A lot of the music on my iPod is purchased (w/DRM) from iTMS. Some of the tracks on my iPod are from P2P networks, downloaded illegally. Do I feel guilty? No. Should I? Probably. But at the time I acquired those tracks they weren't available on iTMS. I've also discovered new bands through P2P and have since purchased their albums from either their web sites (if they had CDs for sale there) or iTMS when I found them there.

I have no intention of sharing my purchases publicly. I like the fact that music I purchase has my name on it. I put stickers on my CD and DVD cases too, specifically so that when I DO lend them out to friends or co-workers, they know whose it is and can get it back to me. I lend quite a lot of my music and movies to friends and use Delicious Library to track who has it and when it is due back. If they like what they borrow, they know they should purchase it for themselves. My tastes are somewhat esoteric, but I've gotten a lot of people hooked on some under-the-radar, good shows and bands this way. Did some of the borrowers rip my CDs when they got them? Undoubtedly. Did they then share those tracks on P2P? Maybe. But now, when I lend a friend a copy of an iTMS file I can tell them not to share it because it has my name on it and I purchased it legally. The people I lend to won't have a problem with that and neither do I.

The rest of the whiners need to STFU. They are just proving the RIAA right to think that all we want to do is pirate music and so we must be controlled like little children. I don't pirate music unless I'm not given an acceptable alternative. I've found my acceptable alternative and I'm glad it has my name on it. After all, I paid for it. It belongs to me. If I decide to sell it, I suppose I'll have to change the name, but then, If I decided to sell my engraved bracelet, my engraved wedding ring or my headstone, I have to have the name changed as well. Good thing I'm not planning on selling off my music collection any time soon...

Re:Nasty?

[daveschroeder]

It's not a watermark (there may be a watermark as well, but no one has found one yet).

Actually, people already have found that Apple isn't using a watermark or steganography technique, either:

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/06/01/apple-using-st eganography-in-itunes-plus-songs/

The file differences are why some originally thought that Apple might be using steganography. It turns out, though, that the AAC data is 100% identical and that the differences were a result in different metadata (modification dates) in the files:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3696625 &postcount=123

So, Apple is indeed not using steganography or other hidden watermarking on the files.

Right click, Convert to AAC/MP3/etc.

[chasingporsches]

and don't forget that you can just right click the non-DRM file now and convert to another format that DOES NOT have your user information embedded in it. it's a very simple, fast process for the paranoid.

Re:Right click, Convert to AAC/MP3/etc.

[Mix Master Nixon]

Why would re-encoding even be required? In the absence of DRM, couldn't you just pass the AAC stream unchanged into a new MP4 container with no personally identifying information or even just delete that information from the existing MP4 file?

Re:Right click, Convert to AAC/MP3/etc.

[Tickletaint]

Yes. You can. They're fucking ID3 tags (or whatever the m4a equivalent is), nothing more, so you can strip them using your favorite tag editor. Even QuickTime Player will do the job, I believe.

Re:Right click, Convert to AAC/MP3/etc.

[blacklint]

Yes, you could. Quite easily. Heck, I don't even have an application installed for editing the metadata, so I just opened one of my iTunes Plus files in a hex editor, searched for my real and account names, and overwrote them with useless data (Anonymous User and someoneelse - same lengths). Done. That was hard.

Ok, granted, most people aren't going to open a hex editor to do something so simple. Which one wouldn't have to, since editing audio tags is a perfectly valid thing to do, so there are multitudes of programs to do just that. I'm pretty sure you could do it using Atomic Parsley.

I'm really tired of people trying to make an issue out of this. As has been pointed out many times, your account data has been in files from the iTunes store from the very beginning. Your name not DRM. Does having your name in the file prevent you from doing anything? No! And as the tags are not encrypted, they are obviously not intended for tracking files on peer to peer filesharing as I could change them to reference anyone. I find having the data there helpful, as I can tell whether a specific file was purchased by me or my dad. If you don't like it, just get rid of it!

Besides, didn't everyone cheer when some stores introduced audio watermarking which would actually prevent you from putting the original file on peer to peer networks, unlike this?

Re:Right click, Convert to AAC/MP3/etc.

[gig]

> They're not encrypted, but they are probably signed. The iTunes Plus files have blocks called "sign" and "chtb" which were
> not present in the old DRM'd files

Sigh ... this is a proof of purchase. It is advantageous to the legitimate purchaser to leave this information in the file so as to future-proof their music investment.

There were three big announcements with iTunes Plus: 1) no DRM, 2) double the bit-rate for higher quality sound, 3) PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED iTUNES STORE TRACKS CAN BE UPGRADED FOR A TOKEN HANDLING FEE TO THE NEW HIGHER-QUALITY BIT RATE.

In order to upgrade you now or in the future, iTunes needs to be able to identify "iTunes Store purchases" from "other" in your music collection, which thanks to Apple's progressive and practical user-centric policies may include audio from dozens or hundreds of different sources.

If a person follows the EFF's advice and strips the unique meta data out of their iTunes Plus purchase, iTunes will not be able to identify those tracks as iTunes Store purchases, and the tracks will never be upgradable to lossless, which is the next bump, within 3-5 years. After that, expect to see higher-than-CD bit rates and sample depths next, that is when you will START to hear the audio as it is recorded in the studio (even in my small project studio we have 24-bits and 192 kHz, but still to publish you have to distill down to 16-bits and 44.1 KHz using arcane and vicious audio hacking, a lot is lost). In other words, if you have anything other than a 24-bit 192 kHz lossless audio file, you are not done upgrading yet. Since there will be 3 or 4 jumps before we get there (and by then the music studio may have moved up ahead) you are looking at a lot of money to stay current if you insist on paying full price for every track every time out.

A few years ago I heard a record company executive from a big label talk about DVD-Audio. Was he excited that consumers would soon be able to buy much higher quality music? Not really. He could not wait to sell Sgt. Pepper's to baby boomers again for full price, he couldn't wait to sell someone the whole Led Zeppelin catalog for the fifth time, again at full price. What Apple is doing by upgrading your audio quality for a handling fee did not come from the record companies, I can assure you.

Monetary gain

[Space cowboy]

Let's see now, how to gain cash over the weekend - I know! The hottest topic in the computing sphere right now has to be Apple - with the keynote at their conference tomorrow. Let's do a hack-job on them...

Strike one - let's paint Apple as stupid - pretend that the company famous for 'rip, mix, burn' don't understand that the code *they* built into iTunes can remove the DRM. [ed - are you sure you're going somewhere here ?]

Strike two - we'll pretend that the bug in iTunes was put there maliciously. We'll claim that Apple were caught out by their users being too clever [ed - I thought Apple acknowledge [Roy B's post] this as a bug, they *are* human you know]

Strike three, they're out. They *embed* your email address into these "supposedly DRM-free" tracks! How are you supposed to upload and spread them around the net if they identify who did it ? That's it! Game over for Apple! [ed - but surely the people who *buy* iTunes music are the people who *don't* download free music from the 'net]

columnist: Trust me, ok, it'll make for loads of ad-hits. $$$ man!
ed: ok, ok. You know the territory, I'm just the business guy

Quite apart from the fact that the personal metadata has *always* been embedded, it doesn't prevent the exact same method of protection-removal if you really want to upload your tracks - lay it down to CD as audio, rip it, "share" it.

Perhaps what we have is simply that Apple didn't *remove* a piece of metadata that was always there, they just delivered on their promise to allow you to migrate your music to wherever you want to play it. But that's not a story that'll deliver ad-revenue...

Y'all just oughta be glad it's not *me* in charge... I'd have embedded the email address as an easy thing to spot & remove, and *also* embedded the binary user-GUID, spread around in the metadata block. Once you *thought* you'd removed all trace of your name, I'd still be able to track who'd uploaded files - enough files... time to emulate a ton of bricks. Given the pay-for timestamp and the appearance-on-the-network time, I ought to be able to tell who's just "sharing" files as a policy after a while...

Simon

Idiocy Alert

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Article focuses on how quickly the tactics are worked around, and how nasty the latest one is: purchased iTunes now have your personal data in them.

Holy crap! I haven't seen this poorly of researched or obviously clueless article in a while. Apple isn't suddenly adding your personal data to songs. They've always done that. They just did not remove that when they pulled the DRM.

Author suspects that this is to prevent you uploading them to a network."

Well since such behavior would be illegal in almost every country Apple does business, I'm not sure why people should be so concerned about it. If you're obeying the law, this affects you not at all. If you're breaking the law, well, you're probably not paying to buy music in the first place so you won't have any of this music. If for some reason you are buying songs and intentionally republishing them without a license, well hopefully you're not so idiotic that you can't strip this data off. This data is nothing to worry about in my opinion. It is plaintext and easily removable. If you are a criminal you should be worrying about watermarking of files, which Apple may or may not be doing and which all the other music stores may or may not be doing. That is something a lot harder to detect.

Personally, I'm just not illegally publishing copyrighted works (and not buying from Apple either) so I don't see why I'd care. Note, this is not DRM in any way. DRM stops you from taking actions. This simply might make it easier to discover who took an action after the fact. This is no more DRM than your own upload logs are.

Well it's clear..

[Rytr23]

That Mateo_LeFou is an utter moron if he/she can be describe this as a "nice piece". And Taco is just trying to get people all up in arms for posting it.. I beleive the first post perfectly illustrates the innaccuracy and trollish nature of the "article". Nothing to see here..move along

Re:So...

[daveschroeder]

Remove said personal information from the ID3 equivalent before uploading said file. Or is this information in some weird watermarking system I don't know about?

No. There is no weird watermarking system (though some people do suspect Apple of using hidden watermarks or steganography).

The information is stored in international standard MPEG-4 "atoms". In fact, they're even preexisting atoms for the purpose of storing name and email address. They're not secret, and not hidden.

If people are hell bent on uploading their files after they've purchased them, there's a number of ways the identifying information can be removed.

Plenty of people around who say, "But what if I then change the name and email to that of my most hated enemy and upload those??" though. Yeah. Okay.

It's stored in plaintext...

[FFFish]

...which makes it so damned easy to find and erase that one must conclude that the personalization has *NOTHING* to do with DRM. Honest to god, even the most retarded programmer would encrypt the information so that it isn't easily discovered.

There's a serious point here

[Budenny]

There is a serious point here. Not particularly about Apple or music. The question really is about electronic media and traceability and reading/viewing/listening habits. To get the potential issue, you have to fast forward a few years. Now most of the press and pamphlets and magazines have migrated online. Some minority book publishing has also. At this point, every book, record or mag anyone buys online has, imagine, a name and address in it that is verified to a credit card.

Do you really feel completely comfortable about that? Do you for example feel comfortable knowing that that little radical publisher whose mag you subscribed to, and that has just been raided for some good or bad reason, has put your name and address in everything you bought from them? Lets say you live in some country where there had just been a change of regime.

I don't. It seems that if someone wants to write his name and (email) address in his books, or on his record or DVD covers, fine, he should be free to do it. But I cannot see the vendor writing it in the copy as a default in a way that needs tools to take it out again.

Its not about Apple - to the extent that this is just repetition of an old story about Apple its silly. But there is a serious question underneath this. To what extent do we want to be buying online exactly the same anonymous stuff we buy physically? This is not a silly question at all.

Re:There's a serious point here

[Jeremy_Bee]

This is indeed a serious point, and one obfuscated by all the hoopla that the author of this article (and others), is creating over other, non-issues.

It's a basic tenet of any sane, decent, information privacy legislation and (I believe already the law in Europe), that you cannot embed or record people's personal data in a "secret" way. If a person is buying a product that has their personal information embedded in it, they have to *know* this is the case.

I (like many people), was originally shocked to find out the user name and email is embedded in the file being unaware that this was in fact *always* the case. Despite all the folks here pointing out that it was always the case, how many regular users of iTunes and iPods are aware of that? If it isn't commonly understood, then it's as good as secret.

It seems to me that if the embedding is not presented to the user at the point of purchase in a clear, obvious, "in your face" EULA type of way, then Apple should be in violation of European law or at the very least going completely against the spirit of personal data protection and privacy laws. Having never purchased on iTunes, I am not aware if this is the case or not, but the large number of people that were not aware of the practice suggests that it is not advertised much at all.

The point is that a person has to be able to maintain their own privacy if they need or want to. If a corporation is secretly (or even non-obviously) embedding personal data in a file, the user has to know it's in there in order to be able to manage or maintain their private information. Clearly, most users of iTunes had and have no idea that their personal information is being stored and may be at risk and no idea that they should have been protecting it.

Prevents Nothing

[nurb432]

My files were stolen. Prove me wrong.

File sharing is NOT illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be illegal to share some files, but the practice of file sharing by itself is NOT illegal. Don't go around claiming otherwise.

words...

[Tom]

Author suspects that this is to prevent you uploading them to a network. Author is an idiot. There's an important difference between discouraging something and preventing something. The important part being that DRM has lots of fallout and innocent bystanders shot (e.g. you not being able to hear your music on a different machine also owned by you), while discouragement has a human-choice element that prevents most of those troubles.

Besides, embedding personal info is not DRM. Wikipedia sums it up nicely:

Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term referring to technologies used by publishers or copyright owners to control access to or usage of digital data or hardware, and to restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work or device.

Firehose this article to hell, please.

[PMBjornerud]

I encourage everyone to access the firehose and vote this article down.

Sad to say, but whoever wrote that article is clueless, and it does not deserve to be on slashdot (or anywhere else).

I can only think that it made the front page because it mentions both Apple and DRM in the title, causing lots of people to flag it up by reflex. It should be buried.

Re:So...

[daveschroeder]

Hmm. Let's think about this a minute. How long until the first illegal music files watermarked to Dave Schroeder (das@doit.wisc.edu) turn up in P2P?

Running a little fast and loose with the term "watermarked", eh?

So a name and email address in a standard MPEG-4 atom intended for such purpose is now a "watermark"?

Since Apple maintains the authoritative purchase history of all transactions with the iTunes store for all users (and is also user-accessible), it would be ridiculously easy to prove that purchase was never made.

Still nice to know that there is such hatred of Apple that you'd insinuate that someone disseminating correct information about Apple should be targeted for online harassment, though!

Re:These guys are a joke

[VJ42]

I personally read every EULA I accept. Why bother, I just let my cat stand on my keyboard; if my cat wants to enter into an agreement with $Software_Company who am I to stop her? Besides, here in the UK the validity of EULAs are dubious anyway. My under 16 cousins are installing software all the time, no one can seriously enforce the terms of a EULA on them as minors can't legally enter into contracts anyway.

Apple's Encoded ID data is reasonable and fair.

[lucius.aemilius.paul]

I agree entirely with this poster. The original article is neither well-reasoned nor well-organized.

As I see it, the Apple encoding lets you do whatever you want with your purchase, as long as you are willing to take responsibility for it. If you believe that music should be free, there's nothing to stop you from standing up for your belief and posting your downloads anywhere you want.

If you do, you will earn public recognition --- and perhaps the admiration of those who don't want to pay for their own downloads --- for sticking by your principles. You may also earn the recognition of the music's copyright owners, and that may be less enjoyable. But if you're not willing to accept the latter recognition, then you don't deserve the first.

Fortunately there's an easy solution; just don't post your downloads. I doubt that anyone will punish you for refraining. You can still enjoy them however else you choose and much more easily than you could before.

Peter

Re:Apple's Encoded ID data is reasonable and fair.

[MoneyT]

Because if your laptop is stolen, the first concern you should have is that the thief might know your name and email address. The ipod being stolen is a bit more reasonable of an argument, but 99% of the people who steal your iPod will erase it and many people already engrave their name and contact info on the iPod anyway. Not to mention your name is usually in the name of the iPod. Honestly, if someone wanted your personal information, routing through your trash would be more effective and safer than swiping your iPod.

Re:shame on Apple

[duckbillplatypus]

Yeah right, because, if someone steals my laptop, my biggest concern would be my name and email address embedded in my iTunes music (Tongue-in-cheek). Please!

Re:Apple is Pro-Apple

[daveschroeder]

Believe it or not, it's possible for corporate leaders to actually have opinions and convictions about things. One mistake people like yourself make is that when you read anything that shows Apple in a positive light, you think that anyone agreeing with that thinks Steve Jobs is a "god" or some kind of savior.

Wrong.

It may be a "good business move" for Apple to start going down the no-DRM path. It may also be that everything Steve Jobs said in his anti-DRM "manifesto" of sorts is also correct, and something that he actually believes. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Also, if removing DRM is such an obviously good business decision for the "bottom line" and "profits", then why was Apple the first major entity to actually do it in any meaningful or high-volume way with mainstream music?

Being "pro-Apple's-bottom-line" is fine. But that doesn't preclude Steve Jobs from having personal opinions and motivations that shape the way he runs the company. This whole "a corporation's only duty is to maximize profits and nothing else" line is garbage. On your region code arguments, you make assumptions that Steve Jobs has single-handed control over how Disney does all distribution of movies. You also ignore the incredibly complex situation with regard to regions for DVDs, which, for better or worse and no matter anyone's own opinion on them, are designed to allow for rollouts at different times in different regions of the world AND support the simply truth that some products can reasonably be sold for more in some markets than others. The owner/creator of the content has at least some say in the fact that they may want to sell something for $30 in the US, but $7 in Asia, do they not? Or are we arguing for globalization after all? I can't keep track.

The fact of the matter is that Steve Jobs and Apple have now done more than any media, music, or computing industry company to tear down DRM where it counts, i.e., on mainstream content that is encumbered with DRM. I don't care if some indie artist is selling no-DRM music on eMusic. Good for them. We don't need to concentrate on indies who already sell without DRM, do we? We need to concentrate on the big labels who ARE selling with DRM. Apple has done more in the anti-DRM campaign in rhetoric, posturing, words, and now, action, than any other entity to date. Does that make Steve Jobs a "god"? Nope. It's just the simple truth. In the end it doesn't really matter if it's "good for Apple's bottom line", or if Steve Jobs really does believe everything he said about DRM, if it's good for you as a consumer, does it?

On the subject of iPod, you're arguing that Apple is somehow doing something any differently from any other peer vendor in this industry with regard to manufacturing. Would people pay $1000 or more for an iPod? You over simplify the situation by making everything mutually exclusive: Steve Jobs *could* make the iPod in better conditions, at the same time ignoring the fact that any such move would completely decimate the iPod. As long as a company is abiding by the laws in the countries in which they operate, I don't care where they are based or who they sell to: your problem is with the host nation (China), not with Apple. And sure, some people make the problem with the company instead of the country because they think their "action" will best be spent there. Fine. Good for them. Let them vote with their wallets.

I don't ever think anyone really said Steve Jobs was a god in all these straw man discussions. But believe it or not, individual opinions, convictions, and intent can shape a corporation just as much as any "concern for the bottom line". If concern for the bottom line was all that mattered, Apple should have been doing great under Gil Amelio. Some might say, "No, that just means Amelio was a bad businessman and Jobs isn't."

Or could it mean that there's more to the bottom line than these latent (or overt) anti-corporate arguments?

Dude, I think this is the perfect slashdot article

[antifoidulus]

Its:

a)Late, this stuff came out weeks ago

b)Wrong, as many posts have already demonstrated

c)Pompous, well, 'nuff said on that one

It's got the holy trifecta that all /. articles seem to want. Best /. article ever!

Re:DRM is not encryption

[timster]

If rights aren't being managed digitally, it's not Digital Rights Management. I'm sorry, but defining DRM as "any practice Whuffo doesn't like" is not worth your +4 Insightful.

Your assertion that M4A is an "unusual format" is completely absurd for starters, but let's go down that slope a little more. Are you really saying that it's DRM unless you put your files in the most common format available? That the entire industry ought to be forever locked in to 90's era technology with demonstrably inferior sound quality?

But what really takes the cake is your assertion that the tags (the information isn't "embedded") represent a "restriction" when the only restriction is copyright law. This is an empty and offensive line of reasoning. Next you'll be calling a vinyl LP DRM, because it's hard to extract the music in digital form. Or the plastic wrapper on a CD case will be DRM since it makes it harder to get to the music.

In short, you've created an argument that simply allows you to criticize whatever company you don't like, which today happens to be Apple. By the way, increasing the bitrate on music is a matter of diminishing returns; the difference in quality between 128 and 256 is way greater than the difference between 256 and lossless.

Re:shame on Apple

[mabhatter654]

it's a trust thing.. Apple is trusting you with somebody else's music file, they expect you to take care of that data file by putting your personal info inside the file. There's nothing "wrong" going on here. They expect you to protect that info that they sell for you to have the same as your own personal info... it's a CONTRACT you made when you paid money and downloaded the song.. even without DRM. No DRM does not mean no personal responsibility.