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Apple Sends Cease-and-Desist To the Hymn Project
Troed writes "Tools for removing DRM from iTunes-purchased songs (myFairTunes7, QtFairUse6) have been available from the Hymn Project Web site for some time. These are legal in many countries. But on the 20th Apple sent a Cease and Desist note to Hymn's ISP, forcing the site admins to remove all download links. It is speculated that this is due to a new tool being created (Requiem) that attacks Apple's FairPlay DRM through cryptographic means instead of by copying the unprotected music from memory while it is being played. But since the tools are no longer available (after several days there are still no public mirrors), discussion around this topic has died out. Many users buy music from the iTunes store and rely on DRM removal to be able to play the content on their mobile phones. Apple may be on dangerous ground here, since those users might now start checking out competing services."
Now tell me how is this not evil and not unlike Microsoft?
I assume that anyone who has the original installer could upload it to the pirate bay as a torrent, right?
Fuck Apple, and fuck DRM.
P2P. You could call it stealing, but I call it sharing.
Apple wants you to pay for music!
http://harrier.net/songbook/S/shorth.html
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Another draconian legal tactic by a truly evil company! I would never touch on of their prod... oh wait, Apple?
Ooh, look over there! Shiny!
So that the Hymn Project people can buy their own island nation to continue their work. More realistically, what's to stop them from hosting everything in a different country? Could they get arrested in the United States for "exporting" DRM cracking software?
I'd put money on http://www.doubletwist.com/ being next. Given the cross platform, Zune, iTunes etc applications it covers, Doubletwist would be a pretty high profile target to hit with a C & D.
G4 Hackintosh
Apple fanboys (and fangirls) don't have a marked tendency to try to argue their way around the DRM issue; in my experience they're more likely to just stay silent on the topic. Which has a net negative effect as well, of course. You may know more feisty Apple fans than I do, however.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Why does anyone still shop at the iTunes Store for music if they want DRM-free songs? Just use Amazon.
Look, they are a business, and need to make money, at the very least just to pay the bills and survive. Running iTunes must cost a bundle. If everyone pirated their music, this great service would be gone. Additionally, they have no choice - they have to pay the RIAA etc for the music to begin with. It's like stealing a coke from a small grocery store owner - you're not screwing coca cola over, your screwing the store owner over.
Apple on dangerous ground? They may lose .01% of their market! People who crack the DRM on iTunes (and their purchase hinges on that) are a tiny part of the market. I can understand both sides here (Apple kinda has to do this or the record companies, who don't like Apple enough as it is, will get even more pissed, but the crackers want fair usage of their music), but saying that Apple is on "dangerous ground" is more self-important internet crap.
If someone gets a Cease & Desist letter threatening them with harm if they don't c&d, then fights it in court and shows the C&D was invalid, the court should treat the sender of the C&D letter like any other bully making threats. Fine them, count a strike against the attorney who wrote it (and start disciplining/disbarring them after some number of strikes in some period of time). And find damages to cover the time the recipient had to spend to straighten this out when they weren't wrong.
And when the C&D sender loses such a case, every other recipient of such a letter should be able to file to get the same results applied to their own case, if they can prove it was the same circumstances (which should be cheap, easy and quick if they were indeed the same). That should load up the fines and strikes on the sender and their lawyers.
Which in turn will deter lots of these C&D letters, especially when they're just bluffing (and they know it). Why should a law license and a retainer let these bullies litter the land with their C&D letters that get enforced with just the threat of intimidation, but which don't have a legal leg to stand on (or ever have to demonstrate they do)? They should have to face some consequences for abuse themselves.
--
make install -not war
I will have be forced to stop using the iTunes store if the Hymn project disappears. I don't own an iPod—I don't *want* an iPod—but I do want to play my music on the Linux-powered media box in my living room. Is that really too much to ask?
you got picked on a lot in school, didn't you?
Like it or not, utilities to break encryption are illegal in the USA and in many other countries that have aggressive intellectual property laws. In addition, using these utilities are against the license agreement between the purchaser and the copyright owner. Although you may have perfectly good intentions, breaking DRM is simply illegal.
Happily, there are legit ways around many of these problems. For one, many music stores (including iTunes) are selling higher quality, DRM-free tracks. Secondly, you can simply buy a CD and rip it. Thirdly, you can simply burn a CD from iTunes, and then rip that.
There are rumors that iTunes will be going DRM-free in the near future. It'd be very cool if that worked out.
A whois lookup for hymn-project.org says the domain's REGISTRANT is in India. A Netcraft lookup shows the netblock owner as "NECTARTECH, LLC SAN JOSE CA US".
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
You really need to get an iLife.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I don't. Apple's stance on DRM is twisted and self serving. But....there are forces at work not solely apple. As much as we might like to think that record companies are useless here, apple has a fiduciary duty to protect their revenues. so lets say apple makes itunes, and has DRM, because the studios want it. But apple doesn't really want ir, so they make it easy(easier) to break. And they never update it. Consequently, anyone who wants to break it for personal use, can. What do you think will happen to apple?
I'll tell you. They will lose the contracts or more likely be sued by the companies for lost revenue for failing to aggresivly pursue DRM faults. This is the same issue. Apple wants to (and has to) go after these guys. They want to because itunes sales mean direct revenue. they have to because they are contractually obligated to ensure the DRM stays current. The cease and decist is mostly because the supposed method of cracking is "teh bad" because it might circumvent, rather than just listening and re-recording.
The easiest way to remove Apple iTunes DRM is to burn an audio CD with your tracks. Then, rip the CD to MP3. In fact, Apple tells you this explicitly on their website in the tech support section. There are several advantages to this, the number one being, you don't have to run fly-by-night, I-don't-know-this-person, hey-ma-look-at-that-keylogger-go greyware to do it. You just need a fucking CD BURNER. And I thought /. kids were smarter than this.
The only dangerous ground apple is in is with record companies if they don't aggressively pursue DRM faults/breaks/violations. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that apple has clauses in their contracts with these companies that force them to maintain their DRM updated, track offenders and litigate where necessary.
This is not to say that apple is blameless. They aren't. Apple, at this point, has had the chance to shame record labels (at least them. It appears we are doomed to repeat this nonsense with video) into changing their contracts. They took the opportunity to sound like a white knight in copyleft circles for a few weeks and did nothing. Maybe this was because companies were intransigent in negotiation. Maybe it is because apple's commitment to DRM free media was less than sincere. Probably both.
Part of what is allowing this silliness to happen is the dMCA itself. These folks can be send a CnD because they might be cryptographically breaking DRM, but regular old listening and rerecording is ok. The anti-circumvention clause allows companies to litigate in the absence of real infringement. That is the problem.
a thousand internets for the first link to a working mirror two thousand internets for everyone who subsequently mirrors it ten thousand internets for the first person to get it hosted on apple.com
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Any mirrors yet?
Let's be realistic here -- the number of people who hate DRM is pretty small to begin with, and the number of them who continue to buy from iTunes (especially now that Amazon has just about everything DRM-free) is even smaller still.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
So he bashes DRM http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ and then turns around and has his company issue a take down for anti-DRM software? That's awfully two-faced.
Apple is not under threat, they still sell bulk music, people still durn their own CDs etc. The difference here is that cracking DRM via an attack on the cryptography is illegal in most countries, while other, simpler methods, are in a grey area.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
A C&D ORDER on the other hand, comes from a court and you'd better do what it says or risk pissing off the judge. Almost always a bad idea.
In any case, a C&D Letter can be responded to by a letter of your own back to the sender requesting "clarification", setting off a torrent ( :-) ) of correspondence that could level a forest while consuming time as you continue to do as you please. Or you could just use it to pre-emptively go to court and threaten the sender with attempting to interfere with your business/life/whatever by harassing you. And you will have the letter/evidence in hand, signed by the sender.
And of course, in the greatest of Slashdot Traditions, IANAL.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
If you were to download a song or software program off of a p2p network, you haven't prevented the bits from being sold to other people, the business is no better, or worse, off than it would have been had you chosen to not use it at all. In some ways, the company might even be better off for you having done it, because if you've downloaded an installed their program in that manner you haven't joined a competitors install base, and they can use the install as an indication of prevalence anyways.
I wish trolls like you would come up with a better set of analogies, because this is just as tired as it always was, and it isn't even logically consistent.
I don't personally agree with downloading content without respecting the licensing agreement and paying any relevant fees, but it really undermines the interests of the content producers to have trolls like you trying to make analogies which are as severely distorted as this one is. This isn't any different than any other situation where you have free riders using a resource without contributing to its creation or upkeep.
that removing software from its original website means no one can get it off the internet anymore
Actually, your analogy is flawed. Downloading music is more like walking over to a barbershop, taking notes on the hairstyle of a person walking out the door, then going home and giving yourself an identical haircut. Uploading is walking out of the barbershop after you've purchased a haircut, and screaming "ANYONE WHO WANTS TO LOOK AT MY HAIRCUT IS WELCOME TO".
Today's lucky number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
You deprived a paying customer, who could have received that service, of the service which you did not pay for. You deprived the person providing the service of the ability to make money from that service during the time they were servicing you. Yes, I would say that is theft. More so, even, than stealing a CD, where you are only preventing the owner of the CD from using it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
/. kids are smart enough to know that transcoding decreases the sound quality, and burning to CD is a waste of money.
But judging from the other comments here, while they're self-righteous enough to bitch about DRM, they don't have the fucking backbone to just not buy DRM'ed music.
A self-serving corporation?! Oh snap! (I'll still buy their Macbooks.)
Exactly! I've said this for a while now.. been modded to hell and back over it many times..
Anytime you end up with something you didn't pay for, it's theft. Everyone focuses on the method of obtaining and claim, that's not theft, it's infringement - and completely neglects what the infringement gained. People need to stop looking at the means of transfer as the problem, and that they deprived someone else of payment as the problem. THAT'S THE THEFT (with a count of copyright infringement)!
Your analogy is equally flawed.
If you want to listen to a song, take notes, and then record your own cover of that song (for your own enjoyment and not for distribution), you can. That would be identical to the haircut.
The original thread is here: http://hymn-project.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2496
I don't have an mp3 player or an Ipod. Don't need one. I don't use P2P or torrent sites either. I use free direct-download sites and burn the songs I download to CD.
>I thought /. kids were smarter than this.
They are. That's why they want a process which preserves every little bit of audio goodness possible under the already less-than-CD-quality, marginal-bitrate-file circumstances. They'd rather NOT use a process which takes the files and transcodes them TWICE, thus compromising the audio quality even further.
They may not be audiophiles, but they DO prefer to save what little quality they started with.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
> But since the tools are no longer available (after several days there are still no public mirrors)
Umm... a simple Google search for "myFairTunes" got me a working download for version 7 as the first result. Am I missing something?
This message will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3...
The new commandment of Slashdot: "Thou shalt not believe in Imaginary Property. Unless said Imaginary Property happens to be free software, in which case it most definitely is not imaginary. Anyone violating the GNU GPL will suffer the death of a thousand slashdottings."
It's not a site for tech professionals any more, it's a circlejerk for pirates seeking moral justification from each other. Hey guys, if it's fine to break an IP license for a movie, song or game, it's fine to break it for the Linux kernel as well, since that "property" is no less "imaginary".
This is yet another reason I refuse to purchase an Apple product.
I'm glad they are making some contributions to open source. That's lovely. I'm also glad they abandoned their mess of an operating system for something unix based -- I find it a lot easier to help out friends with their computers now, if they are Mac users. I even for some time recommended to friends / family that they get Macs.
However I will never allow myself to give this company any money. They do a pretty good job of masking their ridiculous greed and destruction with a slick PR campaign, but some of us are still not fooled. It's interesting that Apple was born out of the hobbyist computing community, yet is continously the one stomping on the little guy hardware/software hacker these days. Apple has absolutely no interest in openness, other than when it helps their bottom line -- if they only had the power and money of Microsoft they'd likely be even worse, considering Jobs' ridiculous Messiah complex and the number of idiots who buy into it.
The tag on this article says it all: Fuck Apple.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
I didn't pay for Linux, Firefox, Apache, PHP, or The GIMP. Was that stealing?
I don't pay for air and sunshine. Is that stealing?
I don't pay for the music I listen to on the radio. Is that stealing?
I don't pay for the music I listen to. Is that really stealing?
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
But....have I deprived someone else of payment? I prefer some forms of music that I prefer. However, my preference isn't $15 strong per CD. If I couldn't get the music for free (or at heavily reduced price), then I would choose to have it unavailable. Their price isn't worth it to me; my next choice would be radio and streaming audio, by which I would also be "deriving someone else of payment".
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I used to use Hymn to make copies of my legally purchased iTunes songs. It was only because I *could* make m4a files out of iTunes downloads that I purchased music from Apple in the first place.
Now that Amazon is in the mp3 business I've been buying all my music from them. I've bought more music from Amazon in the last two months than I did in the last year from iTMS. iTunes was great when there was no other legal way to get a large selection of artists. That's changed now.
-EvilMagnus
The hair-cut analogy is a one-to-one example of a service-delivered to a single customer. Of course, everyone understands that when someone performs a service, that they should be compensated for it by the person receiving said service. Hair cuts work very well because the value of the barber's time is about the same as the value of the haircut to the person receiving it.
But, what about services with a lopsided value, where the "cost" (in time, training, materials) to the provider is way in excess of the value of the service to an individual? Those type of services will then generally not be available in the general market, because there are no customers. Unless the service can be performed once, and be sold to many customers. In those cases, a group of people split the cost among themselves. Like in the case of a theatrical performance. There is no way an average person could afford to hire an entire acting troop for one private showing. But by selling that showing to several thousand people that show up at the theater, it all works out.
But what about the person who sneaks in. Assume there are a few unsold seats. That individual isn't depriving the theater of money from a paying customer, since there are still seats available. But I would still say that individual is committing a theft of service, even if there is no way that he would have paid for a ticket even if he wasn't able to sneak in. Yes, the legal term may or may not be "theft of service" in this case, but he is still enjoying the fruit of someone else's labor without paying his fair share (and potentially causing other customers to pay more in the long run).
I suppose this is a reasonable point to make one thing clear about myself:
I don't hate Apple.
In fact, I rather like them. They make good stuff - both hardware and software - and I enjoy using it.
For what it's worth, Apple is entirely within their rights to request that I cease distribution and development of this software. The WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act (a component of the DMCA), 103, says that "manufacturing" and distributing software (i.e, ffh) to circumvent a protection system (i.e, Fairplay) is illegal. While I don't agree with this law, I don't really have much of a choice but to follow it.
If you disagree with this as well, good. Tell your senator as much. Apple isn't to blame, though.
It's also probably worth considering that Apple is probably bound to pursue any violations. Although I'm certainly not privy to the details of their agreements with record labels, I strongly suspect that one of the terms of those agreements is that Apple must maintain the integrity of the Fairplay system (or - I imagine - risk dire penalties, either in terms of cash penalties or in companies breaking off music licensing contracts). I certainly can't fault them for doing what they've got to do.
The cryptographic attack on Apples DRM (And Vista's protected video ) could be aided by the so-called "Cold Boot Attack" discussed a couple of days ago. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/21/1543234
In fact, this could be useful for cracking BD+ under Vista as well....
My rights don't need management.
Sorry, I hate DRM as much as anyone with common sense, but this is not going to hurt apple's monopolic music store
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I hope everyone on this site will be going after Apple with the same fervor they would as if Microsoft had taken similar action.
Wait, what am I thinking? This is SlashDot.
Summon your strength and try to complain. I know it will be hard, seeing how Jesus just slapped you but give it a try.
_____________________
Ever notice that Microsoft fans don't find the need to bash Apple every chance they get? Think about it.
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
I modified the GNU C Compiler and then redistributed the binaries without the source code. Was that stealing?
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
Ever try getting a single real Beatles song from any other service now that Cr^H^HApple owns them? >:(
Let's say you go get a hair cut. Then you walk out without paying for it. You haven't deprived anyone of physical property, however it is still "theft of service".
Let's take it the step further that copyright law would require...
If we were to apply copyright law to your analogy, I couldn't give anybody a haircut in the style of your barber without your barber's permission. So every time you wanted to get your hair cut by a different barber, that barber would have to obtain a license to give you your style of haircut or be sued. That is the copyright model.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
I mean, it's quite possible now that both of the people who buy music from iTunes to play it on a portable device other than an iPod may switch vendors!
Anytime you end up with something you didn't pay for, it's theft. Everyone focuses on the method of obtaining...[and not the lack of payment]
/any/ images, am I "stealing" from all the sites with banner ads? If I'm browsing with Lynx (and thus can't display images), is it still stealing? What if I display the images and just choose to ignore them?
I imagine you'd feel that blocking advertisements with a proxy or similar would be stealing. If I don't install Flash, am I "stealing" from sites that have Flash-based ads? If I choose not to display
Do you ever borrow a book, CD, or movie from a friend or the library? THIEF!
Do you ever skip the previews (aka commercials) on a DVD? THIEF!
Do you ever get up to use the bathroom during TV commercials? THIEF!
Do you ever pay your credit card bill in full, thereby depriving the CC company of any interest for their loan? THIEF!
Have you ever walked by a street musician without dropping money in the case? THIEF!
Have you ever written a research paper in which you cited material you did not personally own? THIEF!
Have you ever sung "Happy Birthday" and forgotten to pay the royalties? THIEF!
Jeez, by your flawed definition of "stealing" (that any time you "deprive someone else of payment", you've stolen from them), Linus Torvalds has stolen millions of dollars from Microsoft for all the lost customers. And GM better watch out before they get arrested for stealing from Ford!
Backpedalling begins in three... two... one...
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
It doesn't have a car in it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
But taking a copy and conveying it multiple times, with each person retaining his copy, is distribution, and that's not a right you have. You agreed that the artist/label/owner retained that right when you entered into the bargain. If that was a right you wanted to maintain, you made yourself a bad deal.
It's not as simple as merely "depriving someone else of payment"--it's doing that where you're not entitled to do so. All these "but what about this; I got it and didn't pay" are just cheap attempts to water down the issue to something it's not. You're not depriving anyone of payment when you listen to the radio or when you sell second-hand goods, because they're not selling those things.
Depriving someone of payment by taking something that is theirs to sell and giving it away isn't allowed. If you're giving away your old computer, that's yours to dispense with; you can't simply become a distributor of something when you are expressly denied that position. However, my preference isn't $15 strong per CD. Then get something else. If it's not a fair deal for a fair price, do without. If it's theirs to sell and there's no legal alternate source, you're out of luck. Why you think this should be any different than any other situation is beyond me.
It doesn't matter that you think what they do is without value. It's theirs to do with as they please, and you don't have any legitimate need for it or any kind of right to it. If it truly didn't have any value, you wouldn't want it in the first place.
Wait, shouldn't the barber be the artist and the hair be the medium?
and seriously, how many times do we have to read permutations of "Your analogy is flawed" today!
Ice Cream has no bones.
The person that's sneaking in is not stealing anything. He is, at most, trespassing.
Different analogy: A band has fenced in a section of a city park and sells tickets for the event. I can't sneak in (trespassing), but I can certainly listen to the music from my apartment window, if the location provides it.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
The only reason why I ever got iTunes is so that I could have legal means to buy my music. Now that Amazon MP3 popped up, there's really no point in having that piece of bloat anymore.
In Texas if you get a ticket you can then be charged a service fee which you are informed about via mail within 30 days of getting your ticket. I don't know about you but if I am paying a fine I would think that I shouldn't have to pay another fee. That is like charging me twice.
Alternatively, if your web host offers you a discounted rate in exchange for an ad frame and you disable that ad frame, then you're stealing because you're enjoying both the benefit of the lower rate and the benefit of the non-advertising. What if I display the images and just choose to ignore them? What of it? Advertisers pay per impression, not per read. Do you ever borrow a book, CD, or movie from a friend or the library? THIEF! Wrong! The library doesn't charge for its services, and borrowing isn't permanent possession. You're not taking what's being sold, unless of course, you take from the library and start your own collection with it. Do you ever skip the previews (aka commercials) on a DVD? THIEF! Wrong! If the advertisers decide it's no longer effective and pull the ads, the DVD price goes up and life goes on. You're not taking something being sold by the seller. Do you ever pay your credit card bill in full, thereby depriving the CC company of any interest for their loan? THIEF! Idiot! If they didn't offer in their terms that provision, you'd be in collections. Because they specifically gave that to you, they're not entitled to charge you that interest. Have you ever walked by a street musician without dropping money in the case? THIEF! They're not charging as a prerequisite for listening. There's no obligation to pay. Have you ever written a research paper in which you cited material you did not personally own? THIEF! Not unless by 'cite' you mean 'insert another work beyond a critical excerpt' or 'plagiarize'. Have you ever sung "Happy Birthday" and forgotten to pay the royalties? THIEF! Urban legend! Unless, of course, you're a film studio or professional musician performing in public. Linus Torvalds has stolen millions of dollars from Microsoft for all the lost customers. Really? What did he take from Microsoft that Microsoft was selling? And GM better watch out before they get arrested for stealing from Ford! They've certainly paid each other handsomely for it over the years.
I bet you think you're so clever. Nice try, though.
Whenever I purchase music from the Apple Store, I burn a copy for backup purposes. Re-Ripping the CD eliminates the DRM. A little inconvenient, but you can't have it all. I honestly prefer to purchase physical copies of my music whenever possible, but that's a discussion for another topic.
music-industry-supported musicians are paid for by the music-industry, who understand that they're not going to get everyone. You're not taking something that the musician is selling, unless you're a musician and you're inserting your own audio files into his pages without paying. Then you'd be stealing.
open for comments.
1. Burn purchased music to CD.
2. Rip with a decent ripper, using lame --preset standard
3. Listen and enjoy. There will be the slightest of loss in quality.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Depending where you live, it might have been complitely legal thing to do, but in many countries, it is copyright infringement. Oh, and ofcourse it depends where to you distributed those binaries and if you are willing to send the modified source code when requested by a person who has recieved those binaries.
- Raynet --> .
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
'You're not taking something the distributor is selling, unless you're making yourself a distributor and inserting your own terms without negotiating them. Then you'd be stealing.'
If this is a launching-board for a tirade against the labels and their exploitation of musicians, it's not the place. I agree with you, but it doesn't change anything.
You're taking something the label is selling without paying for it. The sale of CDs and digital downloads isn't the same as web advertising. Your analogy simply doesn't hold.
How, exactly? If I don't want to buy a song and decide to either not consume it at all or consume it in ways that do not give them money but are otherwise not forbidden by law (listening to friends' CDs, listening to the radio and turning it off while the ads are playing, etc.), how does that not prevent them from selling it to me?
See, I knew it wouldn't take long.
Earlier, you said, "Anytime you end up with something you didn't pay for, it's theft."
Later, you say, things like "it's okay if you cite a little bit" or "you didn't agree to pay before hand" or "but that's not illegal". So what?! You made a big deal of taking the moral high ground and screw all of us for seeing shades of grey. You said very clearly that ANYTIME you end up with something you didn't pay for, it's theft.
And now you're backpedalling, as expected. (And hurling insults to boot. Don't get mad at me because you made a ridiculous claim.)
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
I knew we'd get there, eventually.
I don't expect you to understand that, because you can't even grasp basic facts like who you're replying to.
2. Public domain works are entrusted to society and all within it. No one retains control of public domain works. You can't steal what is given to you freely by someone authorized to give it.
So, downloading music is like walking into a barbershop, seeing someone with a haircut you like, scalping them, and then wearing their haircut like a wig?
Ye gods, can we just stop with the analogies already? They are inflammatory, unenlightening, and not even entertaining.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
It reminds me when we were buying t-shirt to get printed. Most of us wanted to do it cheap (the money was going to a good cause) and get the shirts for 5 bucks (printed on two sides, one color). Our hippy friends wanted to get American Apparel which would have caused more than twice the price but the mexicans who work there get more than minimum salary, so we had to support the company.
I told them that the sleazeball who runs the company is a major league pervert and even found them the interview for Jane's magazine where he pulled out his weiner and jerked off in front of the reporter, to 'release tension'.
We ended up going with AA because a guy who jerks off in front of his employees is ok AS LONG as he pays them well.
As long as you pimp 'cool' to the masses, you can do no wrong.
Heck, most Apple fans would consider it an honor if Jobs were to bukake them.
Apple should cease and desist pretending to be anything other than a company who cares about their corporate profits, and nothing else!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hymm should just host their updates on WikiLeaks. Since Wikileaks.org is now shut-down, Apple will never be able to find out about it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You could (re)use a CD-RW.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It's funny how people will rant about how OOXML and Office format lock-in is evil, and then go buy stuff on iTunes. iTunes is worse:
- No even just partially compatible alternative at all. Your Farplay songs MUST be played with Apple stuff. Doc files CAN be opened with other software.
- It's even arguably illegal to open FairPlay files with another sotware/hardware. Imagine if MS did that with their formats !
-> apart from the lock-in, Fairplay is risky long-term: who knows how long apple will release good/cheap or not-so-good/not-so-cheap hardware-software for you guys to acces you FairPlay files ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Apple does not sell most of the music (and I use the word lightly) on iTMS without DRM.
They can find a new competitor to flock to.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
the project was different from myfairtunes. From what I understand the source was being distributed, but I haven't seen it yet.
My next computer will run ubuntu, you hear me apple?
My favorite thing is they named the project so it's impossible to find amongst all the hollywood rubbish
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
But suppose one of the neighbors decides he doesn't want to pay. Maybe he doesn't care about having a paved road because he drives a 4x4, or maybe he's just a cheapskate. The other neighbors can go ahead and pay for the road to be paved, splitting the cost 11 ways instead of 12.
Now, is the cheap neighbor doing anything wrong by continuing to drive on that road once it's paved? I say no. The people who paid chose to pay, and the pavers chose to do the work, knowing full well that it's impractical to prevent other people from driving on the road once the work is done. (Preventing copyrighted work from being shared is even less practical.) But what about the person who sneaks in. Assume there are a few unsold seats. That individual isn't depriving the theater of money from a paying customer, since there are still seats available. But I would still say that individual is committing a theft of service, even if there is no way that he would have paid for a ticket even if he wasn't able to sneak in. I wouldn't. He's trespassing against the theater owner, because the space inside the theater is a limited resource. But he isn't committing any harm against the actors themselves; they're working exactly as hard no matter how many people are watching them. You're right that the legal term in that scenario isn't "theft of service" - because the service (the actors' labor) isn't what's taken. he is still enjoying the fruit of someone else's labor without paying his fair share There's nothing wrong with that: we all enjoy the fruits of other people's labor without paying for it. Payment isn't something you're obligated to give whenever you benefit from someone else's labor; it's something you choose to give in order to convince them to perform that labor.
For instance, you don't pay the barber for your haircut because there's some moral law that says money has to change hands whenever hair is cut. You pay him because he's free to spend his time however he wants, and he's decided that he'd rather be doing something other than cutting hair unless he's going to be paid for it. (Typically you pay after the service is performed, which means the promise of being paid is what convinces him, but by making that promise you're entering into a contract, which is what actually obligates you to pay later.)
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
USA laws do not apply to 99% of the globe they can send DMCA notices all they like, they have no legal bearing in Europe,Asia,Russia,Africa,Middle East, Australia, S-America, Scandinavia, UK, it would be better to list the countries that do respect the DMCA but so far i can only think of one and Jon doesnt live there or do business there they tried once to take jon down and failed over the DVD CSS code, so they will fail again
Freenet.
its time to take ALL content underground, since what you today may be banned tomorrow.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think this is interesting. You make the assumption that the analogies you provide are any more relevant the one you're responding to. I think the problem may be that this goes beyond analogy. I could think if 10 analogies that could describe the arguments for, and 10 equal analogies to support the argument against.
I see this issue as new territory, relatively speaking, in certain ways. In the face of changing methods for product deliver, there rises a need for *new* rules. It's happened over and over again for years and years. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I think the fact that the record companies are guilty of hanging on desperately to their old mode of operation is just as pointless as those who oppose that old mode trying to compare what their doing to other old ways they think this should work.
Aside from all that, Apple offers music on iTunes, and to use their service, you agree to abide by the rules they set forth. If you don't like those rules, then you need to find another vendor of the product you seek. If you can't find that product elsewhere, well, then, you have to abide by the rules or do without, right? That's nothing new, it's the basis of exclusivity agreements between companies and has been going on for years and years, and assures one a competitive advantage, and there is *absolutely nothing* wrong with that, and no, it is not anti-competitive, it's *competitive*. Anti-competitive practices are a different matter altogether. (think about it this way: if Apple had the only device that played digitally downloaded music, and did not allow other devices to be made and disallowed the use of their device with any other music, by force or by coercion, that's anti-competitive)
So Apple has songs or performances not available anywhere else? Oh well. Better get used to their rules. But I suspect that there are other places you can get equally good, albeit different, music.
Their site, their rules, their files, their devices. Don't buy their songs and crack them. Find other copies or versions that don't need cracking from the multitude of legal, DRM-free sites. You don't *need* iTunes.
"...it would be like buying a Coke tagged with RFID and the cashier never disabling the RFID tag after the sale or telling the customers about it..."
That analogy sounds more applicable to Apple's M4P's than to MP3's
I think MP3s are more like the Coke bottle: Buy the product, use the product, hell even make the product yourself as long as you don't commercially pass it off as "the real thing", or distribute it in Coke's bottles, or distribute the recipe on-line using Lime wire otherwise the "Drink Interest Consortium Klan" (aka DICK) will sick their lawyers on you, taking away your "Coke and a Smile".
Only fools actually buy music from iTunes, anyway.
I keep asking people--what did you get for your money? They always answer, "I own the song". Really? Do you? You can do whatever you want with it? And they say, "Oh, well, no, of course not. I guess I have a license for the song, to play it whenever I want." To which I respond, "so you bought a license."
And they all frown and shuffle their feet and say they guess so.
You haven't bought a fucking thing.
expandfairuse.org
Perhaps I'm atypical, but at least in my case they were far better off for allowing the piracy than they are now. Perhaps we should let them decide that for themselves, rather than deciding what is convenient for us. I recognize that it's unpopular to say so in some circles, but the reality is that if the founding fathers had meant for the situation that we are presently in with perpetual post mortem copyright and tightly controled access to art, they wouldn't have limited the term for a copyright to require the creator renew the copyright periodically.
The media corps., would be just fine if they were to adapt their business plan to invest fewer dollars pushing music and investing those dollars providing innovative ways for fans to find the music that speaks best to them. Rather than having to make a platinum album to turn a profit, the labels would only have to sell a a few thousand to turn a profit.
If they had kept their promise to cut the prices on CDs, noticed that the internet was changing the model or started to pay more attention to the needs of their customers they wouldn't be in the sort of mess they are now.
Piracy will always exist, but piracy in the levels that it has been is really just a sign of extreme sloppiness on the part of the labels to provide a product people want at a price people are willing to pay. Perhaps sometimes that would be $0, and others $20 for a disc, but if it weren't for the club that is the DMCA there'd be a chance that market forces would answert that question without all the piracy.
I have a DVD burner and use DVDFab HD Decrypter and DVD Shrink. I rent, rip, and return. I have burned off well over 400 rental discs in violation of the DMCA and copyright laws. This coming Tuesday I will rent and burn off "Beowulf" and "30 Days Of Night".
In the words of Steve Taylor, "Try and catch me, coppers. You stinkin' badges better think again before you mess this boy around".
I'm no Apple fanboy at all, but if Steve Jobs was sincere in his open letter, then this certainly wasn't Apple at all. It was the record companies holding a knife to Jobs's throat and commanding him to make the project shut down or watch his contracts with the entire music industry shrivel up and die. The record companies just don't want to get their hands bloody.
"you should *never* open a pop/soda, particularly a huge 2l bottle, unless you have chilled it."
Many moons ago I put a large unopened bottle of warm soda in the freezer before starting a BBQ. When I later opened it at the table we watched the cold liquid completely freeze in a surprisingly rapid and regular manner. At first the slush formed a distinct 'freeze line' at the top of the bottle which then quickly worked it's way down to the bottom. The entire contents were frozen in a mtter of seconds.
My soda-less ex-wife was singularly unimpressed by the accidental party trick and sent one of the kids down the street to get another bottle.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You get bit for bit perfect music from iTunes by using the formula from Apple's ad campaign. Just change the order a bit. Mix, burn, rip.
...rip, MIX, BURN, RIP, mix, burn...
You can't re-encode it in a lossy format without some loss. That's true. So? You lose information (and quality) when you rip your original CDs to a lossy format too, but you still do it.
You don't need Hymn, you don't need Doubletwist, just hum along to the Apple tune, and
They always answer, "I own the song". Really? Do you? You can do whatever you want with it?
I can do the same things with music from iTunes as from anywhere else. Once they're burned to a CD they're no different from music I've bought on CD, vinyl, tape, or anything else.
Where do YOU buy music from that you get full rights for a buck a track?
Or are you just saying only fools buy music?
1) start up your favorite audio recording software (Audacity, say).
2) Select "Wave Out Mix" as the recording input device.
3) Start recording.
4) Play your DRMd music like normal.
5) When the music is done, stop recording.
6) Save the recorded data in whichever format cranks your shaft.
Easy, eh?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
... for anything other then Itunes exclusives. There really is no good reason to use Itunes exclusively. Amazon frequently has albums for $1-$2 cheaper, and the music is ALL DRM free. Itunes has the occasional itunes plus album, but not often enough to rely on it. If the music has DRM, then it's coded at a lower bitrate than Amazon's mp3s as well.
BTW, you don't need to be a genius to understand that DRM isn't there because of file sharers. It's to keep people using Itunes and apple products. If you can't play itunes music on anything other than apple mp3 players, then you're going to buy apple mp3 players. If the DRM wasn't there, you would have the option to use other mp3 players. You're also required to use itunes to play itunes music on your computer. Meaning if you want to download a new album, welp.. you might as well just get it thru itunes since you're already logged in anyways.
Or tubes!
>Do you ever get up to use the bathroom during TV commercials? THIEF! I've patented going to the bathroom, so you're a double thief! Now, where are my royalty payments?
Whether you personally think that's an important factor or not is irrelevant, whether you think it's immoral to have others pay for the R&D while pirates take a free ride is irrelevant; the fact remains that there is a clear difference.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
you do know you can just burn a cd of your itunes songs and re import the cd as MP3 right? sure it wastes a cd, but in the scheme of things it's not that much money.
We should reward people who do choose to allow copying, and those who recognize it's a net gain in the long run. But to force people to do so for no viable public policy reason should be deeply offensive to anyone valuing autonomy and freedom. In the first case, if you hadn't existed, the company wouldn't be any better\worse off, But we don't care. The background rationale is the same: we don't want people to lose things they're entitled to because of the selfish acts of third parties. Whether that loss is monetary, physical, or liberty-based is situational. Of course stealing an apple isn't like not paying your accountant. But the basic reason we don't allow either is the same.
The world doesn't get to have something I made just because they want it and can get it without any actual economic cost to me. If I don't want to give it away, I shouldn't be forced to. If I want to sell it, it should be on my terms. The world doesn't need my short fiction. It won't save any lives or invent any new technology; it won't feed the hungry and its restricted sale doesn't take rights away from anyone--it's my story. If someone else wants to write for the world and release it with no strings attached, I'm happy to support that, too.
Anytime you end up with something you didn't pay for, it's theft.
That is such a sad, negative viewpoint. How much do you pay for air to breathe? Monthly bill for rain and sunshine? When wildflowers bloom spontaneously on your yard, or the birds sing a song, who do you send a check to? Free prize? Quantity discount? Traffic ticket? Christmas, birthday, wedding, going away, welcome back, happy anniversary or graduation gifts must all be out of the question, too.
Most musicians actually want people to hear their music because that tends to make it easier to get an audience at live performances, which is the only place we've ever made any money and probably always will be.
Most of us were also taught to share. Mysteriously, everyone only wants to listen to the three percent that didn't learn this lesson.
Academic plagiarism is not stealing any more than me saying the sky is red is stealing. There is a difference between lying and stealing. Plagiarism (passing off someone else's ideas as your own) is dishonest, but it sure as hell is not stealing.
I think western society is just so focussed on property as the prime right that most wrongs are in some way tied up to theft, so people think of rape as 'stolen innocence', murder as 'stolen life'. Unfortunately not every misdeed is a property infringement, that's why we have different words for them.
Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
Most musicians actually want people to hear their music because that tends to make it easier to get an audience at live performances, which is the only place we've ever made any money and probably always will be.
There are musicians who never play live. It happens on all levels. Many, many techno, trance, house artists never perform their art live. Led Zeppelin just performed live for the first time in many, many years, believe me, I've been waiting for it. Pink Floyd only play a few shows every time they tour. And yet, many of these artists (hopefully Zep, someday) still write and record and sell new and old releases.
You may well be in the minority these days. I know musicians want more people at their shows. But I also know that any musician would love to make a living playing music. And let's face it, there are many cities in this country without adequate places to play live for those musicians who can't leave their day jobs for a tour. Most medium sized cities have maybe one or two venues for any particular type of music.
Most musicians actually want people to hear their music because that tends to make it easier to get an audience at live performances, which is the only place we've ever made any money and probably always will be.
It's a fact that just a decade or two ago, playing live was a marketing mechanism geared towards selling albums. Most tours actually *lost* money, and the few tours that made money were the over-the-top tours, like the Stones or Pink Floyd. The vast majority of tours were losing money. And it wasn't limited to bar bands, these were arena and stadium shows losing money. There were many bands who signed a record deal, the record company fronted the money for them to go on tour, the tour lost money and wound up in the hole. In fact, many of the bands I listened to back in the 80s are now broke for precisely that reason. Tours were money-losers. Go back and check the numbers, it's a fact.
Nowadays, ticket prices are through the roof. There are many arguments as to why. It could be that tours cost more, gas costs more, labor costs more, venues charge more, taxes are greater, ticketmaster costs more, etc. It could be because artists are feeling the bite of music sales being compromised by free downloads. I don't think anyone has any solid numbers on that. I suspect it's a combination of all of the above. But it is true that the industry has flipped from being an album-based or single-based system to an event-based system.
Think about it this way. In the 80s, I could buy an album for about 10 or 12 bucks, on the high side. How much to see that same band live? 10 or 12 bucks. I have the ticket stubs to prove it.
Look where we are now. I recently paid $68 a ticket for the cheap seats. And that's very reasonable. I've seen shows advertised for $120 for the cheap seats.
And how much to buy a new release? That price has actually gone down. At its peak, CDs were being sold for about $18 on average. You can now download some full releases for 10-14 bucks. Just like one song by the band? It's not released as a single? Not a problem, just download that one song for $.99. That's something we always wanted in the 80s and 90s. Don't like CDs? Not a problem. Record old style to tapes from what you downloaded (but why?). Or put it on your mp3 player. The fact is, the fan has more options these days than ever before, and the quality is fantastic (no scratches, skips, warps, dust problems). And yet with all those options, many fans are complaining, more loudly than ever before. The fact is, although they were late to the party, the recording industry has done a great deal to at least try to accommodate listeners by providing more formats and options. It's in their best interest to do so. But read the comments for this article. Have listeners actually even considered the recording industry's side? Have they tried to meet them halfway? No, they want free downloads, period, r
So, it would OK to walk out without paying if there were nobody else waiting for a haircut then?
Since the barber wouldn't be cutting somebody else's hair if he didn't cut your's. The barber wasn't better or worse off for cutting your hair. In fact, isn't he better off? Instead of being idle, he used his skill and you're a walking advertisement for his skills.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Fixed that for you.
GPL code is free to hand out and share.
So we don't mind if people hand it out and share.
When people make money off counterfeit music we call that piracy (still not theft) and we don't like it.
When people make money off counterfeit GPL code (not sharing the code) we call that piracy and we don't like it.
Now, can you see there is no double standard?
Sharing music for money without having paid for the right (in money): Bad
Sharing GPL code for money without having paid for the right (in sharing the code): Bad
Both the same.
And we call NEITHER theft.
B) Feel free to copy my car and drive off in the copy.
"Would you mind if I borrowed your ferrari" is more like in music "would you mind if I borrowed your revenue stream from selling music for a while" or "Would you mind if I had the copyrights to your work for a while"?
You see, it would be
copyright car
which is the thing that you have (you don't have license to a car, but you DO own it, just like you can own copyright).
If we want
music car
then you don't borrow the car, you make a copy all by yourself in the same way as you'd make a copy of the music all by yourself.
Alternatively, you could mean borrow the CD is equal to borrow the car. But then there's no law against borrowing or lending a CD of music. So the LAW and the labels agree that you CAN loan or borrow a CD, so asking to borrow a car isn't finding out anything other than the particular person's trust of you to look after his goods.
>Apple may be on dangerous ground here,
>since those users might now start checking out competing services
What, some other service that offers DRM'd music that they *encourage* you to crack? When you buy a DRM'd itunes song, you know that apple is going to stop try to stop you from copying decrypting it. That's the point of DRM.
It should be noted that apple also offers music *without* DRM. You should not buy DRM music if you don't like DRM being enforced.
So they want people to share freely instead of first buying the right to copy their files?
Good! I've had it with this generally stupid idea to sell something that costs nothing to copy, and record companies and iTunes do way more harm than they are doing good, so we're better off without them.
Arrr!
*Boards a Spanish gold-ship, notes how much gold there is and draw a copy off the ship, says good-bye and goes home and makes my own replica of it*
Maybe Apple just got tired of the cat and mouse game.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
>> Earlier, you said, "Anytime you end up with something you didn't pay for, it's theft."
> I said no such thing.
Pardon me. I thought you were the person to which I originally responded. The above assertion is the context of my earlier post.
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Wow...these have to be some of the most idiotic examples...
>>Do you ever borrow a book, CD, or movie from a friend or the library? THIEF!
Don't know what the concept of a library is, do you? Take that book to the copy machine and start making copies...then you ARE a thief.
>>Do you ever skip the previews (aka commercials) on a DVD? THIEF!
Since when do you pay for commercials in the first place?
>>Do you ever get up to use the bathroom during TV commercials? THIEF!
Again...since when do you pay for commercials?
>>Do you ever pay your credit card bill in full, thereby depriving the CC company of any interest for their loan? THIEF!
Um...maybe you should read your credit card agreement.
>>Have you ever walked by a street musician without dropping money in the case? THIEF!
Do you know what incidental music is?
>>Have you ever written a research paper in which you cited material you did not personally own? THIEF!
Nope...you obviously don't have a clue. If anything, you might be guilty of plagiarism.
>>Have you ever sung "Happy Birthday" and forgotten to pay the royalties? THIEF!
Technically, if you do it for a group of people, you ARE a thief. The song is copyrighted, and every time you hear it on TV, the copyright holder is PAID.
I don't see a problem with this. Apple protects their rights (at least, as they interpret them), and as the writeup says, this might make more consumers leave the teat of iTunes and try competing sites like Amazon MP3, which are 100% DRM-free. This, in turn, will show record companies that you can still make money selling unprotected tracks, so they'll make more content available in unprotected format, which will in turn boost the iTunes library of non-DRM material.
This won't put iTunes out of business, but it will give them some stronger competition. And even the most strident fanboys will acknowledge that competition is good... even for Apple.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Now, is the cheap neighbor doing anything wrong by continuing to drive on that road once it's paved? I say no. The people who paid chose to pay, and the pavers chose to do the work, knowing full well that it's impractical to prevent other people from driving on the road once the work is done. (Preventing copyrighted work from being shared is even less practical.)
So, your argument is then that pirates are not immoral, but instead are like SUV drivers, selfish and sort of a dick? Not a great defense there, fyi.
I wouldn't. He's trespassing against the theater owner, because the space inside the theater is a limited resource. But he isn't committing any harm against the actors themselves; they're working exactly as hard no matter how many people are watching them. You're right that the legal term in that scenario isn't "theft of service" - because the service (the actors' labor) isn't what's taken.
If nobody was watching the movies (and paying for them), those actors would be out of business pretty fast, so it does matter a lot to the actors whether people actually pay for seeing the movie.
Let's make this exercise with piracy. Suppose piracy was legalized, and nobody had to pay to watch any movie. How many people would choose not to pay? Half, more than half? How many movies would that mean couldn't make it into the black and therefore weren't produced? Put a spin on it however you want, the fact remains that if piracy happens at scale, it damages the breadth and quality of produced movies.
You may have to play with the volumes on the source (itunes) and the mixer to get it to sound just right. But it works. This is also good for saving songs off myspace and other streaming sources.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Artists should be able to leverage their talents for money, if they're good enough.
That approach worked in the 70s, but musical ability is no longer required for success in the music business. Breasts and dancers seem to be in higher demand.
You missed my entire point about the 3 percent, so let me explain it more thoroughly.
You will never hear of more than 90 percent of the artists because they don't have a record deal. Of the ones that do get signed, according to the RIAA, 9 out of 10 will get dumped after they don't generate enough sales. So that three percent of the acts (which now seems rather generous, maybe it's closer to one percent) are the only ones you will hear of.
You were waiting for Zep and Floyd to do something because you know who they are. You hear their songs on the radio.
The other 97 percent of us are not on the radio. Oh, it used to be possible, back in the days when Loretta Lynn got started. As late as the erly 80s, you could still get some air time, but that was usually a one-shot deal; they weren't going to play your songs again. With Clear Channel and the other corporate monoliths, they're not going to play a single one of your songs even once.
So whether you're just starting out, or have been dragging gear back and forth across the country for a while, if you're part of that 97 percent, chances are that no one is looking for your music on LimeWire because they never heard of you. The possibility that they'll just type your name in at random seems a little remote.
Even if you want a record contract, they've never heard of you, either. It doesn't matter if you're the next William Hung or the next Beatles.
Did you buy your first Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd album before or after you heard the music on it?
The Internet has given the 97-percenters new ways to attract an audience. First, we need to get some tunes on your iPod playlist somehow, get you to listen to it a few times. Then we'll worry about getting the audience to fork over a few bucks each.
People are not expected to use their talents, whether that talent is carpentry, music, programming, or medicine, for free.
And yet, there are hundreds of thousands of us doing exactly that from the minute we figured out how to do it, while the industry has made every effort to give the impression that downloading music is somehow illegal.
Is it realistic to expect you to pay the same price for one of our tunes as you'd pay for a brand-new Zeppelin track? Not to me. If you're not in the 3 percent, you currently don't get paid anyway, so it's not like we're giving up anything.
The industry keeps saying that they can't compete with free, which is our on-ramp to your iPod and your ears, which are the only thing that may or may not convince you to part with a few dollars for a higher-quality version. Unless we get into your ears, the question of talent is irrelevant.
As a result, every effort by the industry to "protect" their content also serves the purpose of casting aspersions over our promotional vehicle. Their way is the highway but it is not the only way from point A to point B. We are the scenic route, now deemed quaint, unsafe, fraught with danger and kind of creepy because we let you listen for free. You can still get from A to B, but it's takes a lot longer.
We just want you to listen. That's why we play music. It is fun and allows self-expression. We aren't going to stop because no one pays us. In fact, we're going to keep playing, writing and distributing free tunes in spite the fact that no one will pay us.
If you think we're doing it wrong, well, you hear that a lot in rock and roll but you never take it to heart.
Are Apple's actions because they want to do this or because they are obliged to under their contracts with the record labels?
Certainly EMI couldn't care less about this since they're providing their content DRM-free to iTunes. If the other labels would simply get on board and allow Apple to offer DRM-free files then all this would be a moot point.
Apple has stated, and followed through, on their desire to provide DRM-free musical content where they have been allowed to do so.
To answer the question, yes it is a bit evil. Whether it's like Microsoft can be determined by asking this: does Microsoft have a public position stating that they want to provide DRM-free content? If MS also has that position, then the two companies are equivalent (and are only limited by contracts).
What I fail to understand is, if this is an issue for Apple, why do they allow you to burn 5 CDs of iTunes downloads? Afterall, burning iTunes AACs to CD removes the DRM, then the CD can be cloned over and over.
By burning to CD and importing back off the CD at 256kbs, there is no audible quality loss over the original 128kb AAC file. Therefore Hymn was a redundant project, anyway.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
As I write this, the parent post is modded as -1. This is absurd, as the post is spot-on. It's also well written, contains no personal attacks, foul language, or anything "bad" that would warrant a -1 moderation. There is absolutely Zero justification to mod down this post. But since it goes against slashdot doctrine, it gets modded down into oblivion. Pathetic.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Intellectual dishonesty at slashdot knows no bounds.
Here, let's make it easier for you to understand by removing the red herring regarding the possibility of hearing a concert while outside of the venue. Let's take the example of sneaking into a movie theater and enjoying a movie for free. Do you consider that merely "trespassing" or something more? Is it not making use of a product/service without payment? And if so, is that not a form of "stealing"?
Now, I know that people around here are very pedantic regarding the definition of "stealing", so if that term bothers you, then how about "cheating"? Is sneaking into a movie theater not "cheating" the theater? And is not pirating music "cheating" the creator? Slashdotters don't want to call such activity "theft" or "stealing" because that makes them sleep better at night ("Well, at least I'm not a thief!"), but even they would have to admit that the term "cheating" is applicable (they can't honestly say, "Well, at least I'm not a cheater!"). And make no mistake, cheating is immoral.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
The products you mentioned (Firefox, linux, etc) are provided for free, so of course obtaining them for free wouldn't be stealing, and you know that (nobody could really be as stupid as you're pretending to be).
But if you obtain goods/services outside the terms under which the provider provided those goods/services, then you have obtained the goods/services in an unauthorized manner. The colloquial term for such action is "stealing" (e.g. "Stealing a kiss" is a colloquial phrase that refers to obtaining a kiss without prior authorization). And downloading music offered for payment without making such payment is obtaining the music without authorization, which would therefore fall under "stealing", colloquially speaking.
I realize that actions that may be *colloquially* referred to as "stealing" might be *legally* called something else, but the underlying sin is the same - obtaining goods/services without authorization (for example, payment).
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I, too, am a musician, for over 25 years. And I also own a small independent record label. So I understand full well about promotion, giving some away for free, etc. My point was, more or less, that one is not obligated to share their music for free. If you want to, great, go for it. But the fact that you share your music for free has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that others don't, and that just because you, in the 97%, have chosen to. I have uploaded some of the music from my label to the torrent sites for free. 2 people downloaded. Conversely, our music appears on iTunes and a wide array of other services, resulting in hundreds of (paid) downloads. Go figure.
It has a lot to do with your expectations. When we release a new album or take on a new artist, our primary goal is to cover our costs, which we usually do. We're not trying to make anyone rich, although it would be great. But covering costs is the primary goal. It's the same way with the upper 3%. Or with any business, for that matter. You look to cover your costs, then anything above and beyond that is wonderful. But you can't reach even the most modest of goals by giving everything away for free. The model simply doesn't exist to support that. Sure, you can go play live, and you can get a lot of people to come see you play live, but your live show has its own expenses, as you well know. So let the money you get playing live cover your live expenses, sell your other products to cover those expenses.
That's not to say that it always has to be equal like that. I strongly believe in the concept of "loss-leader". It's just that at some point, you have to look at it in terms of reality and determine whether or not you are satisfied doing this as a hobby, or if you want to make a living at it.
But I'm concerned that you misinterpreted my statements about talent as being some sort of statement of quality. I was referring to talent as your commodity. It's what you have to trade upon in your musical pursuits. If you choose to give away that commodity for free, that's your choice. But if you don't choose to do so, it's not for any free downloader, pirate, college kid, or whomever to make the determination that you are going to do so. It's your commodity, you worked very hard for it, and you should be able to use that commodity in the way you see fit. If nobody buys your product or services, well, that's capitalism for you. But you should always have the choice to use your commodity how you want to use it.
I think my other concern is that you and a few others have seen fit to speak for the entire 97%, and I assure you, after reading your statements you don't speak for me. And I know many, many, many, many musicians, and among those musicians, your views are definitely out of line with that sampling. Granted, I don't know *all*, or *most*, or even *a decent cross-section* of the musical community, but neither do you. You know the artists who are in your circle, as do I. I would never try to represent the entire 97%, as you call it, and it's fallacious to think that you have a finger on the pulse of that group as well.
For the record, yes, I've purchased many an album without hearing a single song. Back in the day, that was part of the fun.
I'd be interested in hearing your music. All the mechanisms for generating commerce aside, and this debate aside, I still like hearing new stuff.
In any case, people are free to be dicks as long as they're not trampling on anyone else's rights. If nobody was watching the movies (and paying for them), those actors would be out of business pretty fast, so it does matter a lot to the actors whether people actually pay for seeing the movie. But that wasn't the scenario, remember? The scenario was that you already have a theater full of paying customers, and some more people sneak in for free.
As I said, that's an immoral trespass against the theater owner. But to the actors, as long as there are enough paying customers to compensate them for their work, it doesn't matter how many other people see the show for free. Suppose piracy was legalized, and nobody had to pay to watch any movie. How many people would choose not to pay? Half, more than half? How many movies would that mean couldn't make it into the black and therefore weren't produced? The only reason they wouldn't be produced is if no one cared enough about them to pay for their production. Are you suggesting that if copyright were abolished, no one would want movies to be made anymore? Because as long as there's demand for new movies, there'll be money for making them - people will just be paying for the production directly instead of buying tickets.
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Profit?
Just quantization noise.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
But judging from the other comments here, while they're self-righteous enough to bitch about DRM, they don't have the fucking backbone to just not buy DRM'ed music.
Sometimes you're self-righteous enough to not ride the bus - sometimes you accomplish more by sitting up front.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
http://www.azoz.com/music
There's a reason for the pedantry about the definition of stealing. The rhetoric used is extremely important, and the term 'stealing' is both pejorative and inaccurate. Stealing has a clearly defined legal meaning, and file sharing doesn't fit it.
In the case you described, it'd be theft of service of the movie theater -- there's a limited number of seats in a given venue, and you're using their screen and stereo. Yes, it's likely that the theater wouldn't be full, just like the barber in the above example wouldn't necessarily have other clients waiting. So sneaking in is essentially 'stealing service' from the theater. However, I have a hard time seeing it as cheating the movie's creator, which is what it sounds like you're trying to argue here.
On Wired's site today is an article by Craig Anderson, titled "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business". http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free
So I'm certainly not the only one following this line of thought.
Am I missing something here?
its business as usual. its interesting that everyone here is even SURPRISED that something like this happened. if you wanna listen to your iTunes purchased DRM music on your phone, buy an iPhone. If you want to remove DRM from songs you knowingly purchased that have it, buy the cd. oh and doesn't iTunes offer DRM free music? if you can't find the artist you want there, go buy it somewhere else. I'm tired of everyone blowing their whistles over DRM. Seriously people, can't we grow up a little and learn to avoid the things we dislike?
It's not like you did not know that you were buying songs with DRM. Stop complaining. If you don't like it - don't buy it.
"However, I have a hard time seeing it as cheating the movie's creator, which is what it sounds like you're trying to argue here."
Hello? I clearly said that it's "cheating the theater".
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I've been away from Slashdot for several months now, and I have to admit that I'm horrified at how I'm seeing the exact same flame wars today as I did so long ago. The talk never changes, only the UIDs, growing ever larger.
Who can say what evil is?
I will say the network they decided to go with, on the surface, would seem contrary to the best $$ collection. For that, I might be willing to consider their movements to combat piracy less selfish then, ya know, whoever comes to mind.
I've already answered your question, but if you like, I'll do it again: The person sneaking into a theater is "merely" tresspassing and not stealing anything. Is that really so difficult to grasp?
I would consider it "cheating", but fortunately cheating is not yet illegal. (Otherwise every student would be a criminal.) And cheating is not necessarily objectionable or immoral, it depends on the circumstances. Cheating in school certainly is not immoral.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
See here.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
N/T
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.