DVD Jon Creates DRM Killer

Firmafest writes to let us know that 'DVD Jon' Lech Johansen's company has released an open beta of DoubleTwist, a desktop application that allows the user to copy media to any device. There's a Facebook app too. The software is available for download at Doubletwistventures.com. Currently only Windows is supported, but a Macintosh version is on the way.

Comments

I wonder who will be first..

[jskline]

I wonder who will be first to be contacting these guys and threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

"You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"...

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[infonography]

I wonder who will be first to be contacting these guys and threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

"You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"... I would guess it would be Prince.

Who else?

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[jskline]

LOL...

You are probably right. Technology or not, tie it up in the courts and soak your listeners for millions of dollars that you'll never ever see...

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[unlametheweak]

Well if we can get everybody here on Slash to keep this little secret to ourselves, I'm sure there won't be any problems with the MPAA, DMCA or any other organizations harassing the company with lawsuits, etc. To quote the eloquent and charismaticSteve Jobs, "Loose lips sink ships".

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

"You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"...

From the DMCA:

Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.

This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.

I am not a lawyer, or by no means competent in reading laws. However, from what I can gather, unless the DRM is designed to prevent you from accessing the content (e.g. napster after your subscription expires), then you may circumvent for fair use. It actually does prohibit "making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure", but not owning or being in possession of such goods or services. That means that as long as DVD Jon's actions are legal in whichever country he chooses to stay, he can continue to make and distribute his DRM-circumventing programs, and we can legally download and use them, so long as we don't distribute the programs ourselves (e.g. give it to a friend).

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you're crediting a 40's-era propaganda campaign to Steve Jobs?

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[McFadden]

Wait, you're crediting a 40's-era propaganda campaign to Steve Jobs?

It's like mp3 players, smart phones, slim notebooks etc... None of them existed until Apple invented them. I thought everyone knew that.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[unlametheweak]

Wait, you're crediting a 40's-era propaganda campaign to Steve Jobs? Of course not. If you read my comment more carefully, and actually take the time to understand it, you will note that I was equating something that SJ said (in this case you can take this as being metaphorical, because I'm not going to take the time to look up SJ quotations) towards his charisma, and more specifically to the Reality Distortion Field that is attributed to him. The emphasis should be put on using this rather tired 1940's cliché and equating it to his charisma. I do remember reading that SJ had a poster in his office that had this phrase; and in regards to his behaviour he liked to read people's outgoing email to see what they were saying about him and the company. He is also not shy about threatening to sue people; thus the meme of Steve Jobs lives on. But I digress, having to explain a piece of humour defeats it's subtleties.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[edwardpickman]

He knows it's a safe bet suing them since they'd rather settle out of court than admit to having a Prince song on their iPod. That should teach people for bulk downloading without checking what they are downloading. If you've downloaded 30,000 to 50,000 songs then there's a good chance there's a Prince song in the wood pile so you might want to cull them out.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[nightcats]

The setup won't finish here -- craps out during download of MS device components.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, but name a popular "personal computer" before the apple II
A popular mp3 player before the ipod
A popular GUI before the mac's, well lisa's.

I can't do that before checking with wikipedia to see if my vague recollections are correct.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[electrictroy]

Well...

In the 1970s I never even heard of Apple II. My first "love" was an Atari 400. Commodore PET was also popular around that same timeframe.

Sony Walkman is the first MP3 player I ever heard of. I don't know (or care) which was first. What I do know is that I'll never buy an ipod - what an overpriced luxury! (Like buying a Lexus, when all you really need is a Toyota.) My current MP3 player is a $10 gadget from best buy. Works great!

A popular GUI before Macs? Hmmm. GEOS on my Commodore 64 is the first GUI I ever used (the C64 was the most popular computer in the mid-80s; outselling even Microsoft DOS machines). My second GUI was the Workbench on the Commodore Amiga. I never even heard of a macintosh until circa 1990 (my first thought: "No color? No music? How dull!").

POINT:
Just because YOUR life is apple-centric,
does not mean the rest of us are.

I have always prefered to use affordable, yet fun computers. My childhood memories don't include visions of apples dancing around. They includes visions of Ataris and Commodores and Amigas.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[Anonymous Coward]

Prince hasn't been relevant for about 20 years.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[infonography]

Prince hasn't been relevant for about 20 years. Actually it's been 9 years.

We're gonna party like its nineteen ninety nine. Oh crap, now I am gonna get sued.

Oh really

[Vexor]

Can it strip the DRM of iTunes songs and put them in a nice .mp3 format?

Re:Oh really

[Zebraheaded]

Yes. From the article.

The software automatically plays the song files in the background (sans volume) and re-records them as MP3 files so they can be transferred to any device. Note: DoubleTwist only does this for songs you own or are authorized to play in iTunes.

Re:Oh really

[QMalcolm]

Yes, it's called Freetunes.

Re:Oh really

[ditoa]

So it is basically doing a software based line-out to line-in (aka loopback) encode? How is this anything special? I have done this for years using nothing but simple audio tools. Or is it doing something more intelligent? (I fail to see how though as it is still lossy -> lossy conversion).

Re:Oh really

[Romancer]

It's special because of two things, the history of the name and the goal of the product. DVD Jon is creating a friendly all encompasing media bridge between online media, local collections and portable devices that "your parents could use" according to the article. This means mass adoption if it works and doesn't get legally raped.

Re:Oh really

[compro01]

How is this anything special? it's simple, automated, and usable by pretty much anyone.

Re:Oh really

[MBGMorden]

I hate to break it to you, but ANY conversion from AAC is going to be lossy->lossy. There's not way around that because the compression algorithms are different. The best you could hope to achieve would be to convert from DRM'd AAC to non-DRM'd AAC. That's the only way you can avoid the quality loss incurred by a format conversion.

For a similar example in non-DRM terms: take an image. The less simple it is the quicker this will become obvious, but even on a photograph it will show soon. Save it as JPG. OK, now save it as PNG. Save it as JPG again. Go back and forth like this several times. Open and view the image. Notice that regardless of the fact that there was no-DRM involved and this was a completely legit "no workaround" conversion between formats, it looses information every time.

Re:Oh really

[Wolvie MkM]

Try J-Hymn brother! That's what I've been using worked pretty damn well so far

Re:Oh really

[Anonymous Coward]

JHymn has been broken for years. There are a number of recent developments (MyFairTunes, ffh, Requiem) which do the same job, though.

Re:Oh really

[somersault]

It's the digital equivalent of growing seamonkeys!

Re:Oh really

[squidfood]

The best you could hope to achieve would be to convert from DRM'd AAC to non-DRM'd AAC.

But that would be worth achieving, otherwise this is just an unexciting automation of the analog hole.

Re:Oh really

[Wolvie MkM]

Shows how much I pay attention, thanks!

Re:Oh really

[pixelpusher220]

I used JHymn a while back but stopped after one of the Apple 'updates' killed it's ability. Is it back up to stripping the most recent version of iTunes DRM?

Re:Oh really

[Wolvie MkM]

Judging by AC's reply of my post I guess not. Seems the music I had used an older Apple DRM on it and that's probably why it worked. Looks like the new stuff no worky.

Re:Oh really

[ditoa]

Yes I understand the technical differences between AAC and MP3. It was just this application seemed to be advertised as a DRM remover not a frontend to a few transcoding applications. I was hoping it would be a bit more impressive by doing as you say and removing the DRM from AAC files, not just playing them in the background and encoding them.

Re:Oh really

[ditoa]

I understand that I just thought it was something more than a frontend. I guess I have expect more from DVD Jon. It is a bit of a disappointment to me.

Re:Oh really

[somersault]

Well, if you must know, there are magical anti-DRM pixies inside the code that lovingly polish every bit as it passes through the transcoding process just to get its guard down, then they sprinkle them with magic pixie dust to remove the DRM, and finish the process with a nice close shave and boot polish. It's a trade secret though so don't tell anyone.

Really though - a DRM remover is a DRM remover, and this just goes to demonstrate that you will *always* be able to break DRM with the analog hole, the whole thing is such a joke.

Re:Oh really

[Sparr0]

There is something wrong with your JPEG encoder. Which isn't unlikely, since most of them fail this test, but there is no reason an encoder could not do the conversion you suggest (jpg>png>jpg) losslessly, because png is a lossless format.

Re:Oh really

[wolrahnaes]

I fail to see how you expect it to be possible to convert from lossy to lossless and back to lossy without losing more information when discussing modern compression algorithms.

Maybe if we're talking something like simple audio compression (I think G.711u as used in the telephone system counts here) or dithering to 256 colors for GIF compression where it just drops off data that doesn't meet certain requirements...

If I save an image as a JPEG or an audio file as MP3, artifacts are introduced. If I then save that file back as a PNG or WAV, it's now in lossless form but it still has the artifacts and missing data. When I then go back to save it in its respective lossy format, now the compressor has to deal with the artifacts and in the process introduces new artifacts as well as discarding more data to make room for the data describing the previous artifacts.

Transcoding from one lossy format to another or even re-encoding with the same encoder is as bad as if not worse than copying analog tapes in terms of quality loss. The first one will usually be reasonable, the second bearable, and beyond that it just goes downhill dramatically.

Re:Oh really

[Rudolf]

How is this anything special?

it's simple, automated, and usable by pretty much anyone.

From TFS:
Currently only Windows is supported

Where "anyone" means people running Windows. How much of the Slashdot crowd is this supposed to appeal to?

Re:Oh really

[Sparr0]

now the compressor has to deal with the artifacts and in the process introduces new artifacts as well as discarding more data to make room for the data describing the previous artifacts. I would call that a failure of the encoder. We know there is (at least) one jpeg bitstream that losslessly describes the data as it sits, including the already-jpeg-d artifacts. If the encoder cannot find that solution, and instead opts to use another solution that results in more loss, then it has failed.

Re:Oh really

[piojo]

I'm with you. And to think I got really excited at the title of this story.

Re:Oh really

[wolrahnaes]

So...you're saying to use JPEG in a lossless mode? While I believe such a thing does exist, no one uses it and it would be pointless to argue.

Obviously going from anything to a lossless format, assuming the new format is capable of handling the number of channels, frequency, and bit depth of the original, will be lossless as long as there is not a major failure somewhere in the chain as that is pretty much the point.

What I'm saying is that with the exception of very simple lossy compression schemes if you go lossy -> lossy you will lose more data. In most cases the encoder has no idea what format the data was in previously, it simply sees the raw decoded output and whatever parameters were given to control the encoding process.

Now, I will concede that there may be some tools designed specifically for re-encoding at a lower quality which work within the already compressed data to reduce the size with less or no impact from existing compression artifacts, but those would have to be designed specifically for a format and the efficiency of such a process would vary dramatically by the format chosen. The reduction in data will still cause more loss than if the original compression run had targeted that file size (as it could have optimized things better), but it could be better than just using the same compressor over again.

Re:Oh really

[CSMatt]

Any idiot can plug the line-out and line-in jacks together to record the audio, but video is a bit more complicated. While it would be trivial to disable hardware acceleration and use screen capture software in some cases, the only thing a non-technical user would think of doing is mounting a camera in front of the monitor (which of course won't work because the camera would easily expose the refresh rate).

It's also significant in that it can work against any and all DRM'd media, including those that haven't been cracked yet.

Re:Oh really

[CSMatt]

If you have found this magical "perfect" encoder, please share it with the world.

Re:Oh really

[RalphSleigh]

While one could probably create a jpeg decoder that can take a lossless copy of a jpeg and reproduce the original. I assume most encoders don't know that the original was a jpeg so assume the compression artefacts present are part of the image so try to replicate them, instead of understanding they are unwanted.

Re:Oh really

[Anonymous Coward]

Where "anyone" means people running Windows. How much of the Slashdot crowd is this supposed to appeal to?

How many of the /. crowd
1) own DRM'd media and
2) can't break the DRM on their own?

Re:Oh really

[compro01]

Where "anyone" means people running Windows. How much of the Slashdot crowd is this supposed to appeal to? or a mac (that version coming soon (possibly Real Soon, but anyway)). and there isn't a whole lot of DRM (in the context of this discussion) on linux systems AFAIK.

Re:Oh really

[demonlapin]

Already done.

Blu Ray Johnny

[rvw]

I wonder when he will request a new nickname!

Supported Formants

[milsoRgen]

Supported Media Formats

Video: 3gp (used by most cell phones), MPEG4 (.mp4, .m4v), wmv, avi and MPEG2 (.mpg, .mpv, .mpeg) Audio: mp3, aac/m4a, wma, wav Pictures: jpg, gif, png, bmp

Re:Supported Formants

[ILuvRamen]

is that for just input or output? And can it use other codecs installed on a computer like Divx or Xvid?

Re:Supported Formants

[arodland]

Formants? So it has speech recognition then?

Re:Supported Formants

[_KiTA_]

Supported Media Formats

Video: 3gp (used by most cell phones), MPEG4 (.mp4, .m4v), wmv, avi and MPEG2 (.mpg, .mpv, .mpeg)
Audio: mp3, aac/m4a, wma, wav
Pictures: jpg, gif, png, bmp I'm hoping they add PDF support someday. I have a few PDFs using a DRM system called "KeyringPDF" that makes it pretty much impossible to backup (although they have a scary, use-once backup "bookmark" system that you can use to reclaim your media), and you can't even do the screenshot trick -- your screen captures nothing but "Protected by KeyringPDF". I finally backed it up to JPGs via a second copy of WinXP and "Virtual PC 2007", though.

Re:Supported Formants

[milsoRgen]

Considering the effort you went through to back them up, I'd say saving in a lossless format like .PNG would be a good move. And could you not print them out? Then use a scanner to import them back on to your PC?

Re:Supported Formants

[Just Some Guy]

Audio: mp3, aac/m4a, wma, wav

It won't crack Vorbis? Lame.

Re:Supported Formants

[CSMatt]

Considering that MP3 and all of the listed picture formats have no place to contain DRM, I'd say those are the output formats.

A utility to copy media to any device

[kcbanner]

I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness).

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[maxwell demon]

I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness). I've tried to use it to copy a CD to my mouse, but it didn't work, even when run as root.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[just_another_sean]

I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness). Yes, DD which, as it's name suggests, makes an exact duplicate of whatever it is copying, including whatever DRM is in the file.

And while there are a lot of tools for stripping DRM available Jon is saying he wants to bring it to the masses. To quote (paraphrase?) "I want your parents to be able to do it".

It's not about hacking DRM because it should all be free, it's not about mass distribution of "pirated" (Arhh!) material, it's about making the exercising of fair use rights by consumers as easy as it was with VHS/Cassettes/CDROM (the real CDROM, the one that is allowed to use the logo).

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[Tony Hoyle]

Sending copyrighted files to your friends over facebook is not fair use by any sane defintion of the word.. it's *all* about distribution of pirated material. The only reason it's not mass distribution is facebook sucks too much to manage it.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[nschubach]

So, if/when it becomes possible to create objects from electronic signals easily enough for my parents to download and run the "make me a Volvo" script, will it be illegal for them to do so? Are my Star Trek dreams of nutritionally balanced lasagna whenever I want a foregone fantasy?

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness). I've tried to use it to copy a CD to my mouse, but it didn't work, even when run as root.

Maybe try sending it directly to your speakers for pure digital delivery?

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[Tony Hoyle]

Well yes actually... it'd be a breach of copyright and probably a few hundred patents to 'make a volvo', even if you supplied the parts.

Star trek isn't going to happen I'm afraid. The lawyers got there first.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[lgw]

Beither copyright nor patents prevent you from making your own Volvo to drive around town, or to give to family members. Just don't sell it. Trademark law might have something to say about attaching the "Volvo" logo to the result.

Distributing the "Volvo recipe" to friends with replicators would run afoul of IP law in the distribution step, not the manufacturing step.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[larpon]

no noo dude use sudo! Works flawless!

haxon@deathstar#sudo cp /dev/cdrom /dev/input/mouse0

I'm watching Cloverfield through my optical mouse right now!

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[ZX3 Junglist]

I've tried to use it to copy a CD to my mouse, but it didn't work, even when run as root. You're doing it all wrong.. it works fine for me. check it here:

sudo dd if=music of=mouse
Output:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/06/the-little-music-mouse-pad-that-does-everything/

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[Atario]

DD which, as it's name suggests, makes an exact duplicate of whatever it is copying

Clearly, you've been using *nix too long. What its name suggests, to me, is the ideal bra cup size.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[langelgjm]

Yes, DD which, as it's name suggests, makes an exact duplicate of whatever it is copying, including whatever DRM is in the file.

Shhh! Not too loud. I don't want dd to end up on a list of 'pirate tools.'

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[Anonymous Coward]

I once copied /dev/random to my speakers, that was a bad idea.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[just_another_sean]

But my point is that it won't because DD makes exact duplicates. If their is DRM in a file DD will faithfully reproduce it.

I love to burn a CD to an image using dd. It's fast, easy and doesn't require any other software. But it doesn't work with protected game CDs. It generally fails when it hits the "dead" spots or the deliberately corrupted spots. Or whatever it is people do to muck up a CD in order to "protect" it. dd is not CloneCD and if using dd works to copy something then the creator of the original probably intended for it to be copyable*.

* intended to be copyable as opposed intended to be copied. There are sensible developers/vendors in the world that still rely on copyright law to protect their interests as opposed to some weird form of copy protection.

One-trick pony?

[Wesley Felter]

This looks like the same old FairPlay crack, just with a better GUI. It doesn't strip any other kind of DRM.

Re:One-trick pony?

[compro01]

how do you figure that? as far as i understand it, this is practically an automated analog hole trick. theoretically, it should be able to bypass pretty much any DRM scheme.

Re:One-trick pony?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except services like HDCP.

Also, I'm not too impressed if it has to go back and reencode these lossy formats. Pretty lame.

Re:One-trick pony?

[Anonymous Coward]

The original FairPlay hack is to make a "virtual iPod", connect it to iTunes and trick iTunes into thinking this virtual iPod is real. They really are not stripping any DRM out...hence it's not an actual DRM killer as the headline would suggest. It's more a form of spoofing if anything.

Re:One-trick pony?

[insertwackynamehere]

I'm pretty sure when music is transferred to an iPod the DRM is stripped, but I could be wrong.

Re:One-trick pony?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. The iPod is just authorized to play the files.

But can it...

[Thelasko]

1)Convert all of my HD DVD movies into Blue Ray movies?

2)Run on Linux

Re:But can it...

[Thelasko]

What? -1 overrated? Come on that's funny! Let me explain it to you since you obviously didn't get it. It's funny since HD DVD is dead and if I actually owned any HD DVDs I would be stuck with them. A good business model would be one that converts all of those orphaned HD DVDs into Blue Ray disks. But this program doesn't do that. It does things that several other programs on the market already do. Those other programs are available for Linux. This program is not. Making the above joke doubly funny. Plus it is so very close to the old Slashdot meme "does it run on Linux" making it triply funny. Come on, it's funny, laugh!

Re:But can it...

[arj026]

You mean convert all the new blu-ray movies into HDDVD so i can watch it in my defunct player..

Re:But can it...

[Thelasko]

That works too. You get the point.

Re:But can it...

[The Mu]

1) Why do you have HD-DVDs in the first place 2) No, it's on MS .NET (just when you think "hey, maybe this guy isn't an asshole...")

VAC?

[Compuser]

How is this different from Virtual Audio Cable?

Re:VAC?

[boourns]

Virtual Audio Cable isn't free, while DoubleTwist is.

Re:VAC?

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on where you download it from.

(What, the makers of pirate tools get offended when someone pirates their stuff?)

Yes

[garett_spencley]

From TFA:

"DoubleTwist also recognizes and imports all iTunes playlists and will read instantly which ones are protected by digital rights management technology. The software automatically plays the song files in the background (sans volume) and re-records them as MP3 files so they can be transferred to any device. Note: DoubleTwist only does this for songs you own or are authorized to play in iTunes."

So it will create DRM-free files but only for files that you are "authorized" to play. So it's not like someone sends you a DRM'ed file and it will happily remove the DRM and let you play it. Of course the whole point is that people can use this to share any kind of media with pretty much anyone.

Re:Yes

[moderatorrater]

Of course the whole point is that people can use this to share any kind of media with pretty much anyone It could also be used (and correct me if I'm wrong here, i'm going way out on a limb) for being able to play your music on any device that you want to. Incompatibilities have killed my (legally bought) media before, and that's what I'd use this software for. If I wanted to freely share my any kind of media with anyone else, I'd just download it with limewire or bittorrent.

Re:Yes

[infonography]

Slips out of a tricky situation with regards to breaking DRM. By using a already owned DRM key it doesn't have to break the protection. This keeps the software maker (you know who) out of any sticking 'breaking their encryption issues'. This makes it fairly immune to DMCA attacks thus reducing it to an automated method of converting files. These already methods already exist and it just makes the task easy.

*YAWN*

[Anonymous Coward]

Looping the audio and creating a non-DRMed second generation copy?

That's so last century.

DVD John is losing his edge.

One question

[Protonk]

Is this just a frontend for the same technology that exists now? I mean, is this just a program that centralizes DRM cracks for common media?

Oh, great...

[XxtraLarGe]

Every time this dude releases a hack I'm not interested in using, I end up being forced to download a new patch from Apple for my iTunes/iPod if I want to buy new music.

Re:Oh, great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Such is the life of a complete tool, Go back to fantasy land with your psychotic leader Ron Paul. Maybe you can help him save future criminals from abortion. No one likes you anyway.

Re:Oh, great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad news... this time they're going to have to plug the analog hole. From TFA: "The software automatically plays the song files in the background (sans volume) and re-records them as MP3 files so they can be transferred to any device. Note: DoubleTwist only does this for songs you own or are authorized to play in iTunes."

I guess we're going to hear reports of the latest update 'bricking' iPods? ;)

Re:Oh, great...

[pla]

Every time this dude releases a hack I'm not interested in using, I end up being forced to download a new patch from Apple for my iTunes/iPod if I want to buy new music.

And every time you sheep blindly install a new patch containing no actual end-user functionality rather than telling Jobs to go fuck himself, we need to wait for a new hack from the likes of DVD-Jon.

I'd consider us even, but you (and others similarly complacent) rolling over and accepting DRM in the first place has led to the situation we have now where we need cracks just to listen to music we legitimately own however we want. Baaa-aaa-aaa!

Re:Oh, great...

[kehren77]

From TFA: "The software automatically plays the song files in the background (sans volume) and re-records them as MP3 files so they can be transferred to any device.

Does that mean it needs to convert these files in real-time? If so, this is a useless program as it would take weeks of constant running to convert my iTunes purchases.

Re:Oh, great...

[XxtraLarGe]

I'd consider us even, but you (and others similarly complacent) rolling over and accepting DRM in the first place has led to the situation we have now where we need cracks just to listen to music we legitimately own however we want. Baaa-aaa-aaa! Why don't you just buy CD's and rip them then? Also, you're blaming the wrong company here for DRM. If Apple was so hip to DRM, why do they offer non-DRM songs via iTunes plus? It's the music companies that insist on Apple implementing DRM to sell their music.

Registration

[lucifig]

The install page doesn't mention anything about having to register for some reason. I think I'll go ahead and pass on that until after the subpoenas come through.

Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[Anonymous Coward]

On a whim, I tried installing this. Once the setup is complete, it wants my e-mail address to create an "account" for me... and it installs a couple of other programs I didn't agree to. Sorry, not interested - deleted.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[d3ac0n]

Looks like this is an "Online Only" program. Basically, if you don't have an account to sign into, it doesn't work. It is NOT a standalone application, but a networked application.

Looks to me like they are trying to create another Kazaa or Napster.

Too bad. It seemed much nicer when I thought it was a standalone. I have no interest in running yet another networked application just to gain access to what should be a standalone function.

Excuse me, I have to go uninstall this now.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[drdanny_orig]

>Sorry, not interested - deleted Ditto that. It also installed something called "ffdshow" and doubletwist's uninstall leaves ffdshow intact. *sigh

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[Anonymous Coward]

Its probably online only so when you try and copy data from something it can go out and get the latest virus ^H^H^H^H^H definitions so it knows how to move the media. Sure it would be nice if they let you store that locally and only checked for updates. However this way it is more likely to work all the time. Rather then have Mom wonder why she can't move the music from that new "CD" she bought when she hasn't connected to the internet since you were last home half a year ago.

Or it could be laden with spy-ware crap. [shrug]

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[d3ac0n]

ffdshow is just a media codec. Nothing to worry about there. I already had it since I have the Matroska community pack installed on my machine.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[NeutronCowboy]

ffdshow is an open source video codec. This sounds more like an issue with their uninstaller. I'm curious to see what the other "programs" are that people are complaining about.... I guess that's why I run Windows in a VM these days. Easy to roll back in case something goes wrong.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[Sangui]

ffdshow is like an audo/video codec. Except it does many of them, and very well.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Um, if your sig is accurate, how the hell did you end up replying to an AC?

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh I don't mind if ffdshow is legitimate software... I would just think that you would a) tell me you're installing it, and what it's for, and b) remove it in the uninstaller. As it is, they're basically saying "trust me, it's all good." I've learned long ago that that's usually not a good sign - if nothing else, it indicates programmers who don't know how to write an installer.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Um, if your sig is accurate, how the hell did you end up replying to an AC?"

Um, if your sig is accurate, why did you reply instead of abusing the moderator system?

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[complete loony]

From the FAQ:

16) What can we expect in the coming weeks?
Ability to launch doubleTwist in offline mode

They don't seem to be pushing this product solely for its DRM removal features, but offline batch conversion is still on their TODO list.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[Sark666]

Just let you know, ffdshow is pretty handy for decoding mpeg4 variants (xvid,divx etc) without having to install a full encoder and decoder, as ffdshow is just for playback. It's great for people who just view and will never be encoding files. Also even if you are encoding, it's nice to use for decoding as you have the same interface/options for setting brightness, filters etc.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[Dan100]

Whenever software or a service wants my e-mail address, I simply give them a mailinator address. Mailinator has dozens of aliases, so there's no problem with sites that try to reject "free" e-mail accounts.

I hope RIAA doesn't arm twist DVD Jon into

[ptr2004]

halting DoubleTwist development.

Re:I hope RIAA doesn't arm twist DVD Jon into

[Jaysyn]

Yeah, thats a very interesting point considering he's no longer living in Europe. He's actually legally "touchable" by the media cartels now.

Re:I hope RIAA doesn't arm twist DVD Jon into

[MacWiz]

If it's new, the RIAA is obligated to sue it.

Currently only Windows is supported, but a Macintosh version is on the way.

Everybody always says that, then they get sued out of existence before they ever do.

What is property?

[Anonymous Coward]

Property is theft.

Re:What is property?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anarchists are so cute!

Re:What is property?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is property? Property is theft.

No! Property is imaginary. (Do try to keep up.) Basically it doesn't matter how much it cost to produce a program, a movie or a song: because it's imaginary property, you can give copies to whoever you want. All IP licences are unenforceable relics of a bygone era, so pirate away!

Re:What is property?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought it was the feminists that were "so cute."

Re:What is property?

[infonography]

Anarchists are so cute! Actually it's Anarchists are so cute when their Angry!

Of course its just the structure fires that make it look that way.

Re:What is property?

[Capsaicin]

Anarchists are so cute!

Q: Why do Anarchists drink Herbal Tea?

A: Because proper tea is theft.

Re:What is property?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

No, the DVD in my hand that I burnt from an ISO is quite real, so is this hard drive full of DivX encoded movies. So are the profits to be made from pirating movies.

However, the losses involved from no-sale piracy are quite imaginary.

Re:What is property?

[electrictroy]

The issue is not property (a poor choice of name).

The issue is labor.

I'll use an example to illustrate:

You are a good office worker, and your boss has tasked you with writing a 100-page document. You spend all week writing said document and when it's done, you hand it off to your boss. He says, "Thanks; beautiful work." You then go home and wait for your check.

The check never arrives.
Meaning that you labored to produce a work,
but never got paid for it.

Okay. Now imagine that your name was Stephen King, and that 100-page document you created was your latest short story, and that your bosses (the customers) took that work without ever paying you.

What they've stolen is not property.
What they've stolen is another man's labor.
Like the planatation owners did to slaves.

Bottom Line: I believe that the authors, writers, et cetera deserve to get paid for their labor. They don't get hourly wages like we do, but they do still deserve to be paid for the labor that they performed. BUYING the short story is how we customers pay them for that labor.

If you don't pay, you've stolen another man's labor without just compensation.

You've turned that man into your own personal slave (labor without payment).

Re:What is property?

[Itsacon]

That's absolutely true.

However, once I've bought that book, I don't plan on paying Stephen King each time I intend to read it. If I have bought the deluxe-bigass-hardcopy edition, and plan on reading it while backpacking, it is my good right to photocopy that book.

That's what this software means to achieve: Use stuff you've bought legally, in the way YOU want it, not hindered by commercially-imposed limits of device, location, etc. I don't have an Ipod, I have a minidisc. If I buy stuff from Itunes, I need to get rid of the DRM in order to listen to it, even though I've bought it fairly.

Re:What is property?

[electrictroy]

One one hand, I agree with you.

On the other hand, the world is filled with pirates who will not just make a photocopy to go backpacking - they will make 1,000 copies to share with friends. That's what DRM is supposed to prevent from happening.

Unfortunately the way DRM is designed now, it doesn't just punish pirates.
It also punishes the innocent user trying to copy his Stephen King
book over to an Ipod or CD or email. Thus DRM is too heavy-handed.

There's nothing wrong with the concept of DRM - just the nutjobs in the RIAA who insist that even legal users may not copy their goods over to other devices. The RIAA needs to stop being so paranoid, and adjust the DRM so that it will allow reasonable use (like letting each user have 5 copies of his book, rather than just 1 copy).

Re:What is property?

[Itsacon]

On the other hand, the world is filled with pirates who will not just make a photocopy to go backpacking - they will make 1,000 copies to share with friends. That's what DRM is supposed to prevent from happening.

There's nothing wrong with the concept of DRM - just the nutjobs in the RIAA who insist that even legal users may not copy their goods over to other devices. The RIAA needs to stop being so paranoid, and adjust the DRM so that it will allow reasonable use (like letting each user have 5 copies of his book, rather than just 1 copy).

  The problem with DRM is that the people it's intended for know how to circumvent it, and all other pirates get the illigal, non-DRM version. Meantime, the paying customers are stuck with crappy DRM-limited versions.

I could go on a rant about unreasonable prices, the RIAA/MPAA being a mob-gang etc, but it's not the point here. Likewise, I agree that pirates are spoiling it for the normal people, but that's also not the discussion.

The point here is that this software enables paying customers to do what they want with the stuff they paid for. And as a user who buys a lot of CDs, but likes to listen to them from a PC, that's a good thing (not that I need this, my ripping software can take care of DRM perfectly).

Re:What is property?

[mech_knight]

Or...you are the co-worker of that good office worker who spends all week surfing the web and at the end of the week you hand off to your boss a 100-page document full of gibberish you typed up just so you can go home and wait for a check. You've done this numerous times so you don't really care about the quality of your work so long as you get that check. What you've done is worthless. What you've done is taken money for worthless labor on your part. Like what the RIAA is doing to consumers. Bottom Line: Until consumers are allowed to choose the value of the media being produced, worthless crap and great works will share the same value to them--either worth paying for or not at all. What you've done is

Re:What is property?

[t0qer]

That's what this software means to achieve: Use stuff you've bought legally, in the way YOU want it

DRM is the result of mass pirating, not the other way around. Remember when we had things on non-drm CD's? We had these things called "Brick and Mortar" CD stores. The Wherehouse, Tower Records, all wiped out.

I've compiled some charts based on 2 factual sources in regards to karaoke . You're more than welcome to dispute the facts any way you want, but please show sources.

My two sources are.
NAMM Global music reports. Namm is considered to be the definitive resource for music sales info.
Microsoft Netscan. Netscan provides statistics on newsgroups. I took a sampling of the newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Sales 111.1 173.5 200.2 193.4 169.7 111.91 89.19
Posts 12223 29265 106531 155724 169060 288622 302124

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on. You can see that pre AI(American Idol) karaoke had some decent yearly sales which were on a nice upward trend. The volume of posts in alt.binaries.sounds.karaoke was not really epic. Then came AI in 2002.

What happened was a shift in karaoke's popularity. Post count almost quadrupaled. Now sure, you can say "Oh karaoke just apexed" but that's bullshit because AI is still on the air with a ton of copycats. Not only that, there are more karaoke shows now than ever before. What was once considered *just* a Japanese oddity was now cool with most Americans. The post count would decrease if suddenly millions of people just suddenly decide "Oh karaoke is lame, I don't want to do it no more".

Let's get back to the subject of DRM though....

People are responsible for thier own behavior, but what technology has done is to aid in anonymizing copyright infringement. It's the old addage, "Would you do it if you knew you couldn't get caught?"

Do I mind DRM? Not at all. I have a napster account I pay $10@mo for. I listen to what I want, when I want. I have a really nice Jazz radio station (KCSM) in the car. I can access Napster from home or work.

Right now publishers are in a bind. If DRM isn't the answer, then what is the answer to stop people from anonymously stealing music? Education? Ha, don't make me laugh.

I'm sorry DRM is so inconvenient for you.

Re:What is property?

[electrictroy]

>>>"The problem with DRM is that the people it's intended for know how to circumvent it, and all other pirates get the illigal, non-DRM version. Meantime, the paying customers are stuck with crappy DRM-limited versions."

Yes true, but with Bittorrent even casual users can become pirates. Rip a CD, create a torrent, and within just one or two months, you've created 10,000 copies for whoever leeched off that torrent.

Hence the need for DRM.

The only problem is that the DRM needs to be reasonable (say 5 copies per purchase), not a 1 copy per customer limit. That's just nuts. Or greedy. Given how RIAA operates, probably greedy.

I don't know

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it strip the DRM of iTunes songs and put them in a nice .mp3 format?

IDK, try RTFA!

in related news

[circletimessquare]

RIAA Creates DVD Jon Killer

Re:in related news

[Unique2]

DVD Jon? Come with me if you want to live.

Re:in related news

[SpydeZ]

Except when they sent it back in time, the orders got a bit scrambled and it ended up trying to kill someone named John Connor...

It Required MSdotNET

[Soloact]

Went to give this a try. Upon starting the installation, the application required MS' dotNET and started to download it. That's when I hit the CANCEL. Don't want that dotNET on my computer at all.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[mozzis]

A disciple of Ned Ludd, I see.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[saider]

Judging by your knee-jerk, I'd say your reflexes are fine.

Seriously, dotNet is just another environment, like Java or Gnome, except that it comes from *gasp* Microsoft.

Any technical reasons why you do not want dotNet on your Microsoft platform?

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Soloact]

Any technical reasons why you do not want dotNet on your Microsoft platform?

Too many bad experiences with some applications requiring one version of dotNET, and different applications requiring another version. In both such cases, the apps wouldn't work with the different versions that other apps used. Also, had the bad experience of a Trojan that had installed itself at the same time that dotNET was installing, which made me even more dissapointed in dotNET.
I then uninstalled all dotNET versions, and uninstalled any software that used it, and feel I'm better off now without it.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Soloact]

LOL! Actually, I was quite ignorant on who Ned Ludd was until I did a search for the name. My reasons for not wanting dotNET are from bad experiences with it, and better experiences once it, and all applications requiring it, were removed.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Oldstench]

I used to feel as you did. Then I realized that it was just that .NET 1.1 sucked. 2.0 is much better.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Billly Gates]

Hmm

Your argument is what alot of .NET proponents love to bash Java on with all the different version dependancies.

The more I find a difference between the 2 environments the more I see the same. I would not be surprised if c# and .NET came from Java itself after MS settled with rights to the source code.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Billly Gates]

How can the mac version run if its written with .NET?

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[springbox]

dot net is a mess. I'd rather not have it, but if you want to have developer tools that aren't completely out of date, you're forced to install it. And there are *almost* as many versions of the runtime as their versions of vista. (Time will tell.)

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[springbox]

Another thing I forgot. The most recent .NET runtime that was installed enabled an "optimization service" by default in the background. Apparently it goes through bytecode and crunches SOMETHING for a long peroid of time (it noticably degraded system performance.) It's really annoying if you're not a .NET developer of have absolutely no intention of ever touching it.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[zoips]

You're probably referring to the ngen service. ngen converts bytecode assemblies into native code; basically prejits the application. If the bytecode assembly is modified then ngen needs to update the native version. The service is there to basically keep the user from having to do a "ngen update"...and so stupid developers can't forget to do it when they update their code.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the service sets itself to "disabled" when it finishes compiling, and only runs the compiler when your screensaver is on or your monitor is off. Not so bad, if you ask me.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[pigsflew]

Because of the wonderful OpenSource folks who created Mono.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Johnno74]

Its a good thing. Its Pre-JITing (creating NGEN binaries) some of the base class libraries. Earlier versions of .Net did this as well, but they didn't have a mechanism to update the ngen versions of these libraries when you installed a later version of the library.

So .Net has a service which does this, so if you install a new DLL that has been pre-JITed it automatically updates the pre-JITed version.

so 99.9% of the time this service does nothing. Its no big deal.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Blakey Rat]

Still waiting for that technical reason you don't want it...

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[cizoozic]

Wait, what's wrong with .Net? (As an honest question, not a jab/personal attack/flamebait)

I mean I'm all for keeping fluff and bloat off my system, but I feel like a lot of things use the framework, and it comes from the same company that produces the OS.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Billly Gates]

Mono is not dotnet nor is there a mac port.

Its a totally different beast and I can't think of a single cross app developed that has been ported to linux from c#.net on windows.

Paint.net has been along how long and the mono developers still can't port it.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[pigsflew]

From the site: "Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix." (word for word, their own emphasis.)

From their FAQ: "The Mono API today is somewhere in between .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0"

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[springbox]

Read the post below this one..

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Anonymous Coward]

THey can say whatever they want.

Until I see apps being cross compiled like any other cross platform api I will stay away from it. ALso has com+, GDI+ and ISAPI been ported yet? I didn't think so and they never will. Until these 3 api's get ported it will remain closed and proprietary.

Re:It Required MSdotNET

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of Mono?

"It Won't Be Apple"

[Wandering Wombat]

From Another Article:

The company is confident there will not be any legal challenges from Apple. "All we are facilitating are friends sending things to one another," Ms Farantzos told the Reuters news agency.

Windows....Mac.....?

[LordPhantom]

Any reason there isn't a linux binary for this?

Re:Windows....Mac.....?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any reason there isn't a linux binary for this? Because you are a fucking moron.

Re:Windows....Mac.....?

[porkmusket]

Let's see... might it be because there is no iTunes binary for linux?

Re:Windows....Mac.....?

[Bearhouse]

Because there's plenty of ways of doing this already on Linux, without installing crap like this.
On windows and (OK, a little harder), Mac too...

Of course, if you really want it, just use Wine.

Re:Windows....Mac.....?

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine it's for the same reason there isn't a binary for Syllable, Haiku, SkyOS, etc. Whine all you want, but they've gotta draw the line somewhere....

Re:Windows....Mac.....?

[SillyWilly]

You probably meant to say "Wine all you want"...

Just read the license and Priv. statement

[wethion]

Umm.. after reading them relatively carefully, I don't think I'll be using that software. Basically, you give us your info, we update ourselves on what you're doing, we send it to the Cayman Islands and we promise promise promise never to give it to anyone else unless you agree, we're bought, subpoena'd or otherwise compromised. Somehow... I don't think so. Peace.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device MOD UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

MODDER UP TEH PARENT!

this is a lynucks news site after all

Same same

[themushroom]

Yes, it does appear to be a centralized way of converting A to B. And contrary to the article title, it does not kill DRM -- it just converts what you rightfully own to another format. You still have to purchase those iTunes songs in order to convert them, you can't just convert what you find on the net, thus is no different than using WMP or iTunes to burn to disk then rip the disks to files (if those two programs don't convert directly to MP3 or your preferred flavor without the intermediary disk step).

Keep trying, Jon, you'll liberate some oppressed music yet. :)

Re:Same same

[Protonk]

Cool, that what was I was thinking, but the article was pretty slim on details. Thanks. :)

Re:Same same

[Protonk]

Also, totally out of curiosity, where did you come upon the expression "same same"? :) I have a friend who used it constantly or said "same same, only different". It was also quite common in Hawaii.

Re:Same same

[M-RES]

I think the term 'same same' originally came from Hong Kong (1800's era?) where it was part of what became known as 'Pijjin English' (Chinese merchants dealing with the English in the colony). A way of saying 'the same as that' or some such. I think I read it in a Lonely Planet guide once, but I could be wrong.

Aww, no Blu-Ray?

[Thagg]

At some point, I do expect that very large organizations will break the DRM on Blu-Ray, and they'll probably present it to DVD-Jon, much like they did with DVD's. Probably be a while, though.

Re:Aww, no Blu-Ray?

[tm2b]

It's more complicated than that. Blu-Ray players have their own JVMs, so every Blu-Ray disc could have a distinct type of DRM.

The only way to generally break DRM on Blu-Ray will be to emulate the Blu-Ray JVM and simulate playing the disc.

Stay tuned for DVD Jon's Autobiography...

[jpellino]

"My Life As A Nail"

Probably...

[Anonymous Coward]

... if you care to pay the 200$ cost(tax) for a Blu-ray burner.

DoubleTwist

[Otter]

The name DoubleTwist has been used for a decade by a bioinformatics company (where it makes a lot more sense), but Johansen seems to have gotten the doubletwist.com domain away from them. I guess that given his manifest concern for intellectual property rights, it was obvious that he'd have gotten his legal ducks in a row.

(Trying to find a link, I see this old NYT story about how they discovered 105,000 of the 20,000 human genes we have today. Those were the days, huh?)

Re:DoubleTwist

[Muffinmasher]

they discovered 105,000 of the 20,000 human genes we have today. Wow, they are good.

Re:DoubleTwist

[Otter]

It wasn't just them -- between Incyte, DoubleTwist, HGS and other companies, they probably patented at least ten times as many genes as are now believed to exist.

I assume...

[Anonymous Coward]

...by "related news" you meant "Soviet Russia". This is Slashdot, after all.

HOLY SHIT STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean I can drag FUCKING COMMON MEDIA FORMATS to my device, by now using a special app instead of the previous EASY METHOD?!?!?!?!? OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!

Does it really work this way???

[Anonymous Coward]

"The software automatically plays the song files in the background (sans volume) and re-records them as MP3 files so they can be transferred to any device."

This is not stripping DRM, this amounts to a generational loss of quality when its decompressed and recompressed. Why would someone known for cracking DRM protections start a company that recodes the files with loss of quality instead of strip the DRM from the existing file? Isn't this the same thing as connecting a SP/DIF cable to your output and feeding it back in so that you can recompress the digital signal as mp3? That's not what I called cracking DRM. Thats a poor mans solution to overcoming DRM.

Re:Does it really work this way???

[Eric(b0mb)Dennis]

Don't be foolish, it is cracking DRM. It does it seamlessly and in a way transparent to the user. Sure, you get negligible loss of quality.. but the concept is what media sharing is all about.

If you can see it or hear it, it can be replicated, no matter what you do.

Re:Does it really work this way???

[zoips]

Thats a poor mans solution to overcoming DRM. It's also a legal method that completely bypasses the DMCA.

Re:Does it really work this way???

[argent]

Decompressing does not cause a loss of quality. Recompressing in a lossy format may, but there are a variety of lossless formats you can use if you find that you can hear a difference (I can with some files, but not with most), or if you want to retain the option of recompressing the music with a different codec in the future.

Quotable Quotes

[milsoRgen]

The EULA
The Privacy Policy
The Terms of Service

Quotable Quotes

Please note that this Privacy Statement is not a binding contract and does not create any legal rights. It is made available to you so that you can make an informed decision about using the doubleTwist website and services after considering the steps doubleTwist takes to protect your private personal information

doubleTwist" means the SpiceFlow Corporation, a company incorporated under the laws of Cayman Islands, having its registered office at PO Box 309GT, M&C Corporate Services Limited, Ugland House, South Church St, George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, and any SpiceFlow Corporation subsidiaries or affiliated companies.

You acknowledge and agree that doubleTwist, in its sole discretion, may modify or discontinue or suspend Your ability to use any version of the doubleTwist Software, and/or disable any doubleTwist Software You may already have accessed or installed without any notice to You, for the repair, improvement, and/or upgrade of the underlying technology or for any other justifiable reason...

We may use Personal Data to: provide services and customer support You request; resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems; enforce our Terms of Service; customize, measure, and improve doubleTwist Software, VoIP Service and Website content and layout; inform You about targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers (unless You opt out)

Re:Quotable Quotes

[Ragzouken]

SpiceFlow Corporation? I sense plans within plans.

You did it wrong.

[Nursie]

Real winners dd the mouse to the CD.

Now that's music!

Get Torrent here

[Anonymous Coward]

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4036678

DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[SethJohnson]

threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

I'd like to see US law enforced over in Oslo, Norway. Wouldn't that be a hoot.

Seth

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[aitikin]

Too bad Doubletwist was founded in California in the "USofA" and, as such, is subject to DMCA, regardless of where its programmer's reside.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[unlametheweak]

From what I can gather from TFA the only thing that is happening with this technology is that it is merely making a copy of the analogue version of a song. With 64-bit computers that support hardware and software base Trusted Computing Platform, and the 64-bit versions of Windows which support TCP software and hardware, this application may become antiquated in the not to distant future.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[Nazlfrag]

Pardon? How does trusted computing plug the analogue hole, and what has 64 bits got to do with it?

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[lgw]

Not trusted computing, but Vista attempts to plug the analog hole by not alowing high fidelity analog output (at leats of video). Trusted computing could be used to prevent driver-level work-arounds, but that's the direction Microsoft took. Instead they just invalidate all of your DRMed content if they detect a driver not on their whitelist (at least according to the NEtflix story a few weeks back).

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[unlametheweak]

Pardon? How does trusted computing plug the analogue hole, and what has 64 bits got to do with it? The 64-bits is just a product of history. Microsoft's plan is to have all there 64-bit operating systems support TCP, and Microsoft plans to phase out all their 32-bit operating systems (much like they did with their 16-bit operating systems) circa 2010. One of the goals of TCP is to in fact "plug" the analogue hole. The idea being that hardware would be harder to crack than software, and the hardware thus helping the OS to police the software and policies set forth within, that designate user rights (such as copying). As lgw points out, the analogue hole is itself not fully plugged ATM (probably only because of compatibility issues with TCP High Def monitors and video cards for example (and those that are not fully compatible yet [we here such marketing phrases as HD-compatible for example]), and the marketing and PR issues that ensue when people cannot adequately use the products they purchased).

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[SethJohnson]

all I could find on their company website was mention of venture capital incubation in Oslo Norway.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[kennygraham]

You're both wrong. They're based in the Cayman Islands.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[wvmarle]

Pardon? How does trusted computing plug the analogue hole, and what has 64 bits got to do with it? One of the goals of TCP is to in fact "plug" the analogue hole. The idea being that hardware would be harder to crack than software, and the hardware thus helping the OS to police the software and policies set forth within, that designate user restrictions (such as copying). There, fixed that for you.
Remember, DRM stands for Digital Restrictions Management. It doesn't give you any rights, it at most takes away some. DRM just adds restrictions.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[Scruffy Dan]

Not exactly. Vista only restricts "premium content" from being outputted on analogue outputs ( or at least degrades it) only with DRMed content and only when the DRM asks for it. Regular content isn't affected at all. Non-DRMed media (which is all I would buy) is not affected.

In that sence it is similar to the way the ipod does DRM. The DRM only kicks in if you buy DRMed content. Otherwise it has no effect.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[Nazlfrag]

This must be their master plan to get Linux on the desktop. Yeah, can't believe I'd forgotten how purely evil that whole encrypted bus/tiltbit/clusterfuck was. It's sad to see the hardware companies squeezed between Redmond and Hollywood. Seriously, they're off the planet with that plan, trying to encrypt against the intended recipient.. nevermind all similar systems have been cracked within weeks. I guess it keeps both the brainless moron & bedroom hacker industries going, so it can't be all bad. Glass half full and all that.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

So, wait a minute, lemme get this straight . . . M$ decided the best way to fight the war on piracy is to cripple your computer like it was a cell phone? Aren't Vista sales bad enough? They are fighting this war like they actually think they have a chance at winning it.

REPENT, YE SINNERS!! THE YEAR OF LINUX IS NIGH!!

If you have a linux machine nearby, ...

[hummassa]

1. configure cups-pdf
2. configure samba and share the cups-pdf printer
3. print the PDF to said printer
4....
5. profit??!! (serious, now you should have an unlocked PDF for your document)

Re:Oh really (Oh really?)

[yoblin]

Not true.. just convert to a non-lossy format like FLAC. You won't get quality better than the original AAC file, but you won't get any worse either...

Tried it. Just causes my PC to reboot.

[Kris_J]

I installed it this morning (finally, after the downloader managed to complete successfully) and each time I click on the "Sync" button my PC reboots. So much for that.

Can't you already do this?

[Mesa MIke]

... by starting up your favorite audio recording software and selecting "wave out mix" as the input device while whatever DRMed thing is playing?

This works for WMA and RealAudio files.

They Are After Our Spice!

[milsoRgen]

Spiceflow... you're right... I was blind, but now I see. It's the goddamned House Horkonnen at it again. Probably in league with House Ordos.

10 Years Down the Road...

[BoRegardless]

After you've bought 250 movies, and the DRM they made "back then" is no longer supported, DVD Jon will have made sure you can still see what you bought.

OK?

Oh yeah, well top this

[heroine]

My startup is a Web-based social network portable media player plug & play standards based open media file swapper with AJAX Google enhancement.

GUI for Sox, Image Magic and ffmpeg

[flyingfsck]

It sounds like a GUI front-end for Sox, Image Magic and ffmpeg. As such, it should be immensely useful, since running those utilities from a command line is quite a challenge.

Orb

[Comrade Kat]

How is this different from Orb?

Re:Orb

[sucati]

how is this similar to orb?

Re:Orb

[Comrade Kat]

You can access all of your media from any device...

Keep reading

[Kaseijin]

Firstly, that's not the DMCA. It's a Copyright Office summary, which is interesting but not law. Secondly:

By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.

Most interesting copying, like excerpting or converting to another format, requires access. You might think that the rightful owner of a copy of a work is implicitly authorized to access it in any way they wish, but this view has not prevailed in court.

It actually does prohibit "making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure", but not owning or being in possession of such goods or services.

The actual law also punishes "importing", which includes downloading from a foreign server.

Re:Keep reading

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Most interesting copying, like excerpting or converting to another format, requires access. You might think that the rightful owner of a copy of a work is implicitly authorized to access it in any way they wish, but this view has not prevailed in court.

I would think that. Do you know of any specific examples? What happened?

Also, after reading the actual law, I also noticed that the technology (in order to prevent distribution and importing) must be either "primarily designed" to circumvent copy protection, "have limited commercially significant purpose" other than to circumvent copy protection mechanisms, or be marketed as a program that circumvents copy protection mechanisms. Would that mean it would be possible, say, to create a program that integrates copy protection into its design, but design and market it to fulfil a legal purpose? For example, you could create a P2P program that, as part of its service, breaks popular DRM formats, and shares the broken files throughout its network? It has significant purpose other than breaking copy protections, and it's legal so long as it doesn't advertise as being a tool for either copyright infringement or copy protection circumvention. As another example, perhaps a fully-featured DVD-ripping tool that doesn't advertise its CSS-breaking capabilities? Or has there been other legal precedents that stop that kind of behaviour?

Oh, and you are a lawyer, right?

EULA is interesting

[teg007]

Now dont you guys do anything that we would do... From their EULA (http://www.doubletwist.no/dt/Legal/EULA.dt) "C. You agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the doubleTwist Website and/or Services or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any Content or enforce limitations on use of the doubleTwist Website and/or Services, and the Communications Content made available by use of the Website and/or Services." I guess only DVD Jon is allowed to do that.

yes, and more...

[Anonymous Coward]

1)Convert all of my HD DVD movies into Blue Ray movies?

2)Run on Linux

-----

3) Profit!!!

Why tell them the truth

[tkrotchko]

make up a phony name/email address (disposable email addresses are a dime a dozen or cheaper) and use it without revealing info.

If your not sure what will happen, install it in Sandboxie.

Might be a bit late, but...

[rampant mac]

My understanding is it takes line out and loops it back to line in and re-records it for later use on non-Apple devices with only a 5% degredation of sound? How is this any different from taking the audio files, burning them to a cd and re-ripping them? A bit of audio loss? Check. Ripping to whatever format you choose? Check. Avoiding DRM? Check. Yay, I'm a hacker for figuring this out! :D

Re:Might be a bit late, but...

[rohan972]

My understanding is it takes line out and loops it back to line in and re-records it for later use on non-Apple devices with only a 5% degredation of sound? How is this any different from taking the audio files, burning them to a cd and re-ripping them?

You don't need a CD? As I understand it, this is not really designed to do anything that couldn't be done before, it is designed to make those things doable by computer illiterates. You could already recapture audio, you could already fileshare. This lets grandparents and parents do it without even really understanding what the technical obstacles being overcome are.

Re:Oh really (Oh really?)

[CSMatt]

Except that the file will be significantly bigger. Considering that most people I know seem to have made it a mission in life to max out their gigabytes of space with as much audio as they can, I don't think that most people would take kindly to such a larger file unless the quality had suddenly increased by two orders of magnitude.

Review of the doubleTwist EULAs etc

[ghostrider_one]

Dale Clapperton has posted a review of the doubleTwist EULA, ToS and Privacy Policy on his blog. These agreements purport to prohibit the very activities that made DVD Jon infamous (such as reverse engineering, and DRM circumvention), and Dale opines that these agreements are 'rank hypocrisy' and a sign that DVD Jon has become much like the corporations he has fought against.

been doing this for ages

[oliverthered]

All you have to do is play your crippled songs and use the record what you hear feature on windows to reencode them as mp3s

How it works for music is not so impressive

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I read on another site how this works for music files. It's not so impressive. It does not remove DRM. It simply plays the song, using a valid license if one is required, and records the song to an MP3 file, which of course is DRM free. This might be OK for some users, but it's definitely not going to be what others will want. Perhaps a similar mechanism is done for video files, but the article I read did not discuss that.

No DRM is broken, hence lawsuits may be difficult.

Linux Version

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it will work under wine? iTunes does.

Re:Oh really (Oh really?)

[MBGMorden]

The original question was about converting to MP3, not FLAC.

Mono port of Paint.NET

[SEMW]

Paint.net has been along how long and the mono developers still can't port it. http://code.google.com/p/paint-mono/ ?

Re:Mono port of Paint.NET

[Billly Gates]

ITs a complete rewrite and the screen shot shows it can not even render text properly at the bottom left of the pic.

More information is mentioned here and appearently the layers are so proprietary they have to be rewritten.

Not a good way to show off mono as its one of the most proprietary platforms developed. Only c# as a language without any libraries is open.

Re:Mono port of Paint.NET

[SEMW]

ITs a complete rewrite and the screen shot shows it can not even render text properly at the bottom left of the pic. More information is mentioned here The link you give completely contradicts you. The only part which is being replaced is SystemLayer.dll; the main codebase requiring changes in only "a few places". Hardly a complete rewrite!

and appearently the layers are so proprietary they have to be rewritten. I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion; since the entirety of Paint.NET, source included, is released under the MIT license...!

Re:Oh really (Oh really?)

[wazza]

Fair enough for them. I'd still be happy to consume even up to (as a roundabout figure) 4x or 5x the space, if it meant that my files were freely usable.

  DRM is only something scared content producers want - I don't want it at all. Don't force it on me.

IT'S ABOUT LABOR not property

[electrictroy]

>>>"You've done this numerous times so you don't really care about the quality of your work so long as you get that check. What you've done is worthless. What you've done is taken money for worthless labor on your part. Like what the RIAA is doing to consumers."

That does happen sometimes. For example I downloaded Prison Break season 1, determined it was crap afer watching it, and promptly erased it from my computer's disk. Not worth paying money and I'll never watch that show again. However....

There are many users with 100+ DVD-Rs
(or 1 terabyte drives) filling their shelves.

If the work is worthless, why are they hanging on to it? Apparently the content on those DVD-Rs/hard drives must have SOME value to them, since they are keeping those works on their shelves. Therefore they should pay up, and pay for the labor of Stephen King, et cetera rather than steal the labor.

It doesn't work both ways.
You can't complain "this is worthless"
and yet horde it on your bookshelf.

If you're keeping it, that means it isn't worthless. That means you should pay for the labor of the creator, rather than turn him into an Unpaid slave/employee.

Single Sales are UP, not down.

[electrictroy]

CD sales didn't drop because of piracy.

CD sales dropped because single sales (itunes, rhapsody, et cetera) have gone through the roof. People want individual songs, not whole albums.

(Of course the record companies conveniently keep that statistic quiet. They don't want us to know that Singles Sales are setting new records. That would ruin their anti-piracy campaign.)

You're still skipping bits

[Kaseijin]

You might think that the rightful owner of a copy of a work is implicitly authorized to access it in any way they wish, but this view has not prevailed in court.

I would think that. Do you know of any specific examples? What happened?

• Sony v. Gamemasters: Playing a video game from one region on a console from another is unauthorized.
• RealNetworks v. Streambox: Viewing free streaming media can be unauthorized.
• Universal v. Corley: Viewing a DVD on an unlicensed player is unauthorized.

Would that mean it would be possible, say, to create a program that integrates copy protection into its design, but design and market it to fulfil a legal purpose?

I think you mean circumvention, not copy protection. The DMCA restricts "any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof" that meets any of the criteria.

Oh, and you are a lawyer, right?

Yes, as well as a neurosurgeon, physicist, rock star, and everything else I didn't say I'm not.