5.1 Sound Card Delivers 3 Streams of iTunes

An anonymous reader writes "How do you distribute simultaneous streams of DRM-protected iTunes from a single computer to multiple rooms of the house? Autonomic Controls demonstrated a unique solution at the recent Electronic House Expo (EHX). The company's Media Control Server EX software turns a PC with a 5.1 sound card into a three-zone music distribution server. (Add a second card for six outputs). At EHX, the solution was demonstrated with a multiroom audio system from NuVo, whose keypads could be used to browse and select songs, playlists, genres, artists, etc. The Autonomic software merges WMA and iTunes files into a single library for easy access." I have mixed feelings about this: on one hand, this is a really clever idea and a cool hack. On the other hand, the fact that DRM makes something like this necessary is truly infuriating.

Comments

Re:Boo fucking Hoo

[pohl]

I don't think anyone questions the assertion that it's written into law. I think the common argument is that violating that particular law is a victimless crime -- and that is what distinguishes it from voting rights and equal access for the disabled. If I have a machine that duplicates things at no cost, and pointing it at a sandwich that you own does no harm to your sandwich, then I deprive you of nothing. The counter-counter argument that you're likely to make is that I would be depriving you of your right to suckle at the teat of the government-supported monopoly, that copyright law gives you, over selling copies of that sandwich. I think the counter-counter-counter argument is then "well, fuck you and your copyright-welfare check." Or another one that I like better is "I create things every day in [insert creative industry] and nobody in my industry gets the luxury of creating something once and getting paid a million times for it, so fuck you." Personally, I pay for my content. But at least I pay attention to the debate about the subject. If you were genuinely tired of it, one would think that you'd have it down by now, too.