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U2 and Apple Collaborate On 'Non-Piratable, Interactive Format For Music'
Squiff writes U2 and Apple are apparently collaborating on a new, "interactive format for music," due to launch in "about 18 months." (A direct interview is available at Time, but paywalled.) Bono said the new tech "can't be pirated" and will re-imagine the role of album artwork. Marco Arment has some suitably skeptical commentary: "Full albums are as interesting to most people today as magazines. Single songs and single articles killed their respective larger containers. ... This alleged new format will cost a fortune to produce: people have to take the photos, design the interactions, build the animations, and make the deals with Apple. Bono’s talking point about helping smaller bands is ridiculous ... There's nothing Apple or Bono can do to make people care enough about glorified liner notes. People care about music and convenience, period. As for “music that can’t be pirated”, I ask again, what decade is this? That ship has not only sailed long ago, but has circled the world hundreds of times, sunk, been dragged up, turned into a tourist attraction, went out of business, and been gutted and retrofitted as a more profitable oil tanker."
" Bono said the new tech "can't be pirated" "
Since when is Bono qualified to have an opinion on this subject?
He should make songs and not talk about things he hasn't got a clue about.
How exactly is this supposed to make the end user feel good about either U2 or Apple?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
In football, that's called giving the upcoming opponent material they can post on a bulletin board outside the locker room.
For me DRM = Damn! Remove Music!
don't they realize when they make statements like "can't be pirated", a whole bunch of people reply with "challenge accepted!" and will go to great lengths to do so?
/me presses the "Record" button on his memocorder; "So tell me, Bono, how exactly does this non-piratable media format work?".
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
O rly!?
The only way that is possible is if it can't be listened to.
As long as the computer is somehow able to play it, there's nothing to stop me from intercepting the audio stream at the very end.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
The only way to make something unpiratable is to have it be a continuous interaction between a client and a server where you control the server.
I guess this music "format" is essentially going to be Apple's answer to Pandora, Spotify, et al.
If it plays sounds through my speakers, it can be pirated.
When U2 and Apple get together, all they need is a third thing, and it's a perfect storm of douchebaggery. All other douchebags will be dwarfed by the sheer mass of the douchiness they radiate.
Oh boy, here we go again.
... but i suppose they've got enough.
It's a new form of distribution, everyone gets a copy which is undeletable. They make money by charging for a removal tool.
I wonder if this was inspired by Biophilia. That really blurred the lines between interactive art and music. But it was far, far, from a new medium that other individual artists could get into; it took a team of programmers and artists to pull off.
Piracy is a game of tech ping pong. You secure it. We break it. Back and forth. From cassettes to computers.
There was a gnarly idea back in the Napster days - charge a monthly fee for unlimited music downloads. Say, $10/month factored into your Internet bill.
If you only had 1 million subscribers that would still be $10 million a month in revenue, and it would require little more than a server farm to operate.
Being able to download anything anytime for cheap would certainly put a big dent in piracy - there would be little to no incentive, and the music industry would still make millions.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
If piracy is the focus, then they're looking in the wrong place. Piracy is not a problem, it's a symptom. It'd be like if someone was slurring their speech because they were having a stroke, and you decided to solve the problem by sending them to a speech therapist.
Now, I don't think that you can't have rich, interactive experiences with music that are worthwhile. They may be 'glorified liner notes', but some of us have fond memories of liner notes. I thought the Bob Dylan app from a while back was actually really cool.
Like a lot of people, I listen to my music on the go on my phone. I don't have the ability to appreciate all this fancy new stuff.
The #1 thing Apple can do to improve my buying experience is to put lyrics in the USLT tags, so I don't have to hunt around the Internet or use some other tagging software.
The #2 thing Apple can do is offer songs in Apple Lossless. AAC was a good choice back when 128K was the bitrate of the day. But, in a world where everyone is selling 256K and 320K tracks, I'd rather get my music in a lossless format and convert down to VBR MP3.
I thought iTunesLP was a cool format. But, for the life of me I could never figure out why you couldn't get the full iTunesLP experience in on your iPad or even iPhone.
I'm no hardware expert so the following question isn't rhetorical. How hard is it really to capture the audio output going to your speakers? Unless they put some kind of encryption into them like with HDMI, it seems to me that they are a little short sighted to say the least saying this is non-piratable.
Bono said the new tech "won't be pirated"
FTFY!
Unfortunately their new tech only works on unwanted U2 albums.
BTW: Am I the only one who finds it funny, that this story is posted on Talk-Like-A-Pirate day?
Well, forcing it onto everyone's device is one way to avoid piracy.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Hahahahaha! This U2 thing is going a bit too far. You can just tell they don't know what to do to get back into the game. Non-piratable? Um, how about just recording the audio and exporting it to a conventional format. Who knows, they might make something worthy of attention, but if they're thinking about revolutionizing the industry, they better try again. And again. And again.
Remember, the world, err sorry the iWorld was pissed when he gave his music away for Free!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Anything anyone says in this thread will just rehash what Marco Arment said in the summary. Nothing more needs to be said. It's a stupid idea that no one is going to buy. Apple tried this interactive stuff with ebooks for education and it flopped. I don't see why Apple is wasting money on DRM. DRM is dead to the public. Just stop.
Or at a minimum he should have a day job.
I'm a U2 fan, I like their music, I saw their last show in Dublin and I was happy to pay handsomely for the pleasure.
But increasingly musicians are looking to become rent seekers. The ought to earn a living like everyone else. Get on the road, Play gigs.
The expectation of a royalties for longer than a lifetime is a symptom entitlement, based solely on 'because we can'. I'm going to rip their music for as long as I can. When I can't, I'll stop going to their shows.
And where does Bono's sense of entitlement come from, he's a fucking northsider.
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Northsider%20(dublin)
Can't be pirated? I think they meant music that can't be deleted!
People can't downgrade to ios8 because of U2's crap taking up precious space.
Challenge accepted.
It has been tried for several decades, despite the stupidity even believing it is possible. Fist, there is this thing that eventually, any music has to be made analog before it can be listened to. Analog can always be recorded again and with minimal effort and loss of quality these days by anybody that has a soundcard and some basic understanding of electronics. Second, even digital format cannot be secure against copying, unless you augment them with some death-corps that kills everybody that bought it immediately after they did.
This is on the same level of small children that think just wanting something enough will make it true. The children have the excuse of immaturity. These people have not.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
because even though they gave away their latest album nobody wanted it
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If any device you use has an analogue output, say a headphone socket, line-out etc, then yes there is nothing that you can't pirate :)
http://chimpbox.us
These guys have their head so deep up their asses they don't even understand the problem. The problem is that an album shouldn't cost $15 (or a $20 CD) with only a small amount (say, $1) actually going to the band while the rest is pocketed by the label. I realize labels need to market and produce albums, and that's how they justify their huge share of a sell. But when you look at their annual profits, clearly most of the money isn't spent.
The small bands are doing just fine self-producing albums in a home studio and sell them online DRM-free for $5 (while pocketing most of that amount). Sure, the big bands will want an overpriced producer, record in an overpriced studio, and market their albums on huge billboards. But small bands don't need that. I LOVE spending $5 on a small band's album, as an incentive to them. I rarely buy big band albums, except when there are on sale or that there's a huge production and added value (like a making-of or some sort of documentary for instance).
The problem is not pirating. The problem is that music is overpriced, so people pirate it. Or, like me, people don't like, as a principle, spending money when I know that most of it will NOT go to the band. And they also need to remember that every single DRM to date has been defeated. Stop pissing against the wind.
Don't they realize that by definition, "non-piratable" means less useful? How does Apple and Bono's new magical DRM know the difference between me putting the song I bought on my Nexus and copying it for a friend?
And you know what? Bono is becoming a little embarrassing. For that matter, Apple has become a lot embarrassing. You would think that after their recent, "You will take this album whether you want it or not" routine that they'd maybe take a deep breath before coming up with another brainstorm together.
Wake me up when Apple partners with some interesting artists, like Deerhunter or Demdike Stare or Charlie Boyer And The Voyeurs. Fuck Bono and fuck Tim Cook and fuck Apple and their jewelry.
I'm glad I got that out of my system. So, how about them Bears?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Copy protection, copy protection, copy protection. That's what Sony killed DAT recorders with, that's what Sony killed Minidisc with.
Nobody wants media that are useless for actually managing your music collection.
Bono's singing sounds exactly like Ned Beatty's squealing in Deliverance.
If only someone could invent a device that could take sound waves out of the air and encode it in a more open format that could be played on a different device.
So, Bono and Apple want to try resurrecting the iTunes LP? Not bloody likely.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Apple needs to work on putting copy protection onto floppy disks. That worked out quite well before.
Can't Be Pirated is the holy grail of the copyright idiots. It's more important than profit, fame or success. It won't let common sense stand in its way.
The only format that can't be pirated is a format that you cannot listen to. Hey I'm going to encrypt this music and then hand your player the decryption keys! We can try moving the decryption closer and closer to your ears, or to your eyes (as in HDMI), but ultimately it has to interact with your senses and can be picked up using sensors (mics, cameras).
Please tell me again, how many anti piracy measures have actually been effective?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
How fittin' it is that this tail comes on talk like a pirate day. The lubber has no idea what the crew has ready, once we host the jolly roger.
.
Or to phrase it differently, it appears that U2 and Apple are proposing to make music more prominent in video games.
"That ship has not only sailed long ago, but has circled the world hundreds of times, sunk, been dragged up, turned into a tourist attraction, went out of business, and been gutted and retrofitted as a more profitable oil tanker."
...and then hijacked by pirates.
Since audio can always be picked up, and so pirated, this must not involve audio. It must be a new Apple technology where the music is "beamed" into your body. This will be a whole new experience and we will need to upgrade all our music and Apple devices to experience it. Get in line now. Here is all my money, how many can I buy....
Didn't this same idea already fail in the 90s? I recall Aerosmith's 9 Lives came with some goofy "interactive" exhibit in the remaining space on the disc. This just sounds like a downloadable version of the same thing.
If the format is drm locked, in the end, there is always a headphone jack or line out. Sure not a lossless conversion but most people won't notice or care. The older age of U2 fans won't want to be forced to play some dumb game to unlock a new song. They want to plug their phone into their car, press play.
That's how I'd rate the difficulty level of breaking any DRM or 'copy protection' (if there can be such a thing anymore) on something as simple as an audio file. Is Bono thinking of running for public office? Based on his apparent complete lack of understanding of technology I'd say he sounds just like your average politician. Any 'copy protection' scheme or DRM that a company spends millions developing will be broken by some anonymous bored teenage kid in Asia somewhere in a week or less, no problem, and in general distribution around the world a day after that. Even closing the 'analog hole' isn't going to help: It takes a minimal amount of electronics knowledge and skill to work around that as well, even if it were necessary. People like Bono and companies like Apple and Sony and the record labels need to just accept that they're wasting their time and money on things like this (which consequently ends up with higher prices for their 'products', in my opinion just encourages more piracy anyway) and accept that there is going to be a certain amount of digital piracy, just like there used to be people sharing 'mix tapes' and later 'mix CDs'.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Non-piratable == Non-copyable == Not working. Forget about it! Unless you want your music playing only within closed architectures (like the iPhone prior to jail breaking)!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Why does Apple keep investing themselves in post-peak celebrities?
Dre, Iovine and U2 may be influential but how much currency do they have among future music fans? Is it because the decision makers at Apple are all in their late 40s-to-50s and are merely caught up in the fandom of their youth?
Shouldn't they be forming partnerships with artists with a ton of pull with 20-somethings? Do kids in their 20s even listen to U2, or is it something that 40-something moms crank up in their minivans along with an illicit Marlboro Light on their way to pick up the kids at soccer practice?
If U2 had any hip credibility, it was 30 years ago. Can you imagine Apple rolling out the Macintosh in 1984 with a celebrity lineup of the Everly Brothers and Bill Haley & the Comets?
The "non-piratable" bit has been beaten to death by the other commenters already, so I won't bother with it. Instead, let's look at the other part: "interactive". No, I don't want to interact with the fucking music, Bono. I want to put on the music and have an epic soundtrack to my life. The only reason you think full albums are boring is that your music is boring.
Unless the format involves directly beaming the experience of hearing the music into human brains, without actually producing any audible sound whatsoever, I'm pretty sure it can be pirated using long existing methods.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
about everything apple says, perhaps being attached to Bono people will finally stop caring about apple as they did Bono 20 years ago
No, I thinks this would be more like those ancient multimedia encyclopedias that came out on CDROM. Or maybe like those kiddie edutainment titles where you click on characters/object to make them dance, jump etc.
I won't be using it.
I created 20-30 albums, but only in my mind, never recorded them or played even a single note. Not piratable at all ;)
I don't want to interact with music. I want it playing in the background, and about half of the time I want to shut my eyes.
I have nothing personal against Apple or U2, but if Cook thinks he can keep Apple's overall positive image as a "cool company" (not to speak of rejuvenating it) by collaborating with a pop band whose peak of success was in the late 80s/early 90s, then I can only conclude that Apple has a rough future ahead.
Perhaps I am missing the grand picture here but it's hard for me to imagine anything less innovative and more boring than this U2 bullshit in combination with a wrist watch that looses power after one day.
Ah, hubris! One of my favorite old-timey sins.
You are of course correct. The signal must become analog at some point to make it into your head, and we have had the capability to capture analog signals since the dawn of the television age. You can crack open LCD panels and intercept signals for a more modern high tech version of this concept, of course.
But you are forgetting the other side of the equation. When when someone makes that statement - "THIS CANNOT EVER BE PIRATED" - you are throwing down the gauntlet. And invariably some bored teenager will say "oh really is that so?" and make them eat their words. Usually by the following Saturday. Yes you can do an analog capture but by the time you warm up your soldering gun some kid in the Netherlands will have already got the torrent up.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch a Blu-Ray movie on my Linux box.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The article makes no mention about quality of the songs. It also says it's not a new format, just a new way to package songs. Sounds like the same old crap quality we've been getting all along. I'd rather buy a vinyl, then feel entitled to pirate the digital version.
Vogons - They are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy - not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without an order, signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. If you want to get a lift from a Vogon, forget it. They are vile and ill tempered. If you want to get a drink from a Vogon, stick your finger down his throat. If you want to annoy a vogon, feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
I created 20-30 albums, but only in my mind, never recorded them or played even a single note. Not piratable at all ;)
Congratulations! I bet you've made a windfall both on patenting the tech^H^H^H^H procedure and selling those albums... ;)
Interactive? Music? Apple? That's easy. They're going to make "Music apps" for iPhones and iPads.
But those won't work on the iPod shuffle, the iPod nano and I'm guessing it won't work directly with the future Apple Watch either.
If it's music, I don't want to "interact" with it, I just want to listen to it.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Simply put, you don't pirate music that's already been spammed to you. That would be like pirating "wares" copies of the AOL disk. Or even like downloading a "wares" copy of MacAfee Trial Edition. I didn't see any good seeds of that on Pirate Bay.
This is just Bono/U2 desperately trying to be relevant and in the news in a currently hugely diffracted information era. There is nothing like Live Aid where pretty much the whole world was watching and the douchebag got to pontificate to a huge audience and have his ego pumped up. This is 80s 90s posturing and attention seeking and really we should ignore him and hope he goes away. I have been hoping for that for a good 30 years. Really, isn't it time they retired?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
It's music, as long as microphones exist, your music can be pirated. Without microphones you wouldn't be able to record said music to begin with. So yeah, screw Bono.
DRM = Challenge in the world of hacking and saying that it's impossible to bypass will gain the attention of high profile hackers from day one. Translation it will be annihilated the first day and file sharing will go on as usual, but they could do a lot of cut it down. They could try connecting with fans instead of suing them or stop putting so much DRM on products that the DRM stripped version is better than the original.
It seems to me that U2 and Apple are conspiring to piss us off.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
No, no Bono. You're confused.
"Music that cannot be pirated" != "Music that won't be pirated"*
*because it sucks donkey balls
-Styopa
I really do want digital albums, complete with very high resolution art, full lyrics, liner notes, and extras.
I'd actually like to have the ability to buy the "full album" that would include video files of each music video from the album, "B" sides from old 45 releases of songs from the album, backstage videos, interviews with the artist, whatever.
The old album covers from the 70's, the ones that were supposed to be on large vinyl record jackets... I want to be able to put those up on a large flatscreen TV while the album is playing. Preferably not just a scan from a CD printing, but the original image scanned in high resolution. I'd like to be able to see all the details in Hipgnosis images like the jacket art to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or Wish You Were Here. (Hmm, someone made an animated GIF for that last one... heck, I'd like it both ways in the digital album, original and new animated version.)
Of course, I want this all using open file formats (FLAC, JPEG, HTML). But since nobody else got around to doing this, Apple is doing it first, and of course with Apple it will be proprietary, opaque, and likely patented somehow for maximum lockin.
I don't think this will revolutionize music, but it really is something I want.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Until It's illegal to manufacture a speaker that doesn't have a TPM chip in it. And selling modified speakers or plans to modify them is a federal PMITA offense.
Given pirating audio will always be possible (just use a microphone), is it possible that their new audio format will simply involve steganography to add purcharser identification to tracks. This would allow them to better identify, and perhaps prosecute all pirates (until they find a way of stripping the audio fingerprint). It seems alot more plausible than them actually trying a funky new drm (after Apple were compelled to remove drm from itunes music).
More shite from Apple.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Respected by who? His homies? The last time I heard, you can get shot for not showin' 'spect.
evaluate the results of different parametric curves on tone signature
Don't try to paint it up as more than it is.
Let's see what they can come up with. This is about music but so is going to a live concert. You can't pirate a live concert in the sense of completely recreating the live concert experience. Of course you can record the audio tracks, or video record it, but obvious you can't "go to the concert." What I am trying to say is sure, create something new, some cool multimedia thing or whatever. If people want to buy it they will, if not, so what.
I could see them being tying the purchaser of a song to their biometric profile on their iDevice. Want to play the song? Prove you are the one who purchased it via the fingerprint scanner. That still doesn't get around other methods such as routing the line out of the device to a line in on a computer or other recording device or directly recording from speaker output, but I wouldn't be surprised if Apple hasn't considered this angle.
Just like Neil Young introducing "Pono", another really crappy idea, Bono should look Neil up and they should sit around and come up with other lame ideas.
Locking music is not what people want - its what corporations want. When I buy a song, I want to be able to play it on ANY device I own. I could care less at looking at album art work or reading liner notes. Music is meant to be heard.
U2 is nothing but a corporate sell out.
> Bono said the new tech "wont be pirated due to serious lack of interest." and will re-imagine the role of album artwork that nobody will give a shit about.
Fixed it for you Bono!
To me, album artwork was always the box art. ... " is silly since it means they've been killing the albums since at least the 60s, definitely before I was born. Albums always were, just an economy sized packaging, without an economy discount.
And, "Single songs and single articles killed their respective larger containers.
I suppose if the new tech amounts to "live interactive chat session with a webcam musician", that might provide an experience that some people are willing to pay for that's difficult to pirate.
It's hard to imagine much else that would actually work.
Until you can have an encrypted connection to someone's brain, it can be pirated.
Will we remember this interview in 18 months, which would be mid-2016? I always ask myself, when I see a time far into the future, what was going on in the past that long ago and how much things have changed. What was the big to-do a year and a half ago? I don't even remember.
Seems to work for a variety of small time programming jobs.
Music has existed as a business since before history. It only became a huge industry when recording and cheap players became available to a mass market. We are now past this point. Previously recording music required huge amounts of capital in equipment and copying and distribution. But now copying and transmitting are essentially without cost and recording and editing equipment is on the same scale as the instruments. The huge music industry is dead. What will replace it is a return to the past. Paying for the experience of a live show.
Recordings will serve mearly as advertising.
It's nice when you have a natural monopoly buy enjoy it while it lasts.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
release an album no one wants for free and it won't be pirated.
lose != loose
There is a new codec Opus which outperforms Apple AAC http://listening-test.coresv.n... http://listening-test.coresv.n... http://www.opus-codec.org/
Thsi point is the ignored deal breaker that has killed all other formats that attempted this. If it won't play on any of the following, it's sales are already in decline.
Common MP3 Players
DVD players that play MP3 CD's
Computers Windows, Linux, Apple
Cell phones Android as well as Apple.
Only formats with compatability at a reasonable price will sell in volume.
Unique formats that require a specialised player will have very limited market penetration.
Do I need to list failed formats?
Sony Minidisc with serial copy protection
Microsoft Zune and protected WMA formats
Apple Itunes copy protected format
The Apple format had a reasonable market penetration because they were the first to market with a legal format, but had to drop the protection when other players entered the market at lower prices in more universally playable formats. Apple tried to market the unprotected verson at a higher price, but that was short lived too.
My questions are who is going to produce the compatible players that people will actually buy? Will the player play legacy formats that are not protected? This is important as a new player that won't play existing libraries won't sell much. Will the player import the legacy formats into a protected format? If so, this will cause a backup and archival issue. Will it be compatible with MOST in car infotainment systems?
Many cars have the ability to "Play" MP3's on a USB Thumb drive. How are you going to sell into this market?
Another incompatable format has a high barrier to market entry. Good luck.
The truth shall set you free!
I keep hearing that word since my VIC-20 days.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Apple and/or U2 and/or Bono should collobrate with my foot, on GTFOing from this mortal coil. You pricks have already ruined music enough, combined. Not to mention they're disgustingly rich.
Apple engineers unable to plug Bono's analog hole.
Want to re-kindle interest in albums? Bring back the progressive concept album. Album-side or whole-album epics may seem old fashioned but there are many fans out there who would buy an album of good deep progressive rock. When you have a bunch of songs with no conceptual relation to one another, you get the standard pop album where there is a good song or two, a few are mediocre and the rest are crap. When there is a theme linking them, you tend to listen to the whole thing even if some songs are weak, because they work as a whole.
A new way to fully ass rape bands out of all of their hard work - awesome move from U2 and Apple
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
And in MacOSX 11 and iOS 9 Apple will officially abandon all previous file formats so you have to rebuy all your music in their new wonderful format.
8Track Tape... ...and all those other formats that never really made it but they suckered people into buying. The industry likes you to rebuy your entire data collection every few years. It's a cheaper way for them to make profits than actually producing great new products.
Cassette Tapes...
CDs...
DVDs...
BlueRay...
Et U2?
The best live recording I've ever heard was a bootleg of one ot the first 2013 Roger Waters The Wall concerts. It was like having the best seat in the concert.
Todays recording technology and a decent sound engineer (like the Doctor on floydpodcast.com) makes for impressive results.
my phone won't play DRM'd mp3.
If it doesn't play on my phone, it gets deleted. End of.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
If the CD isn't Redbook, and the MP3 doesn't play on my V3, then I don't want them. ...and if it's anything after Zooropa, you can keep it anyway.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
MP3 doesn't support DRM.
Link http://netforbeginners.about.c...
Quote
*As of this writing, MP3 files themselves do not have DRM padlocks on them, but getting access to MP3 files is getting more difficult every day as the MPAA and RIAA crack down on MP3 file sharing.
What is this MP3 DRM you speak of?
The truth shall set you free!
Yes, DRM has been cracked in the past, but it gets harder and harder each cycle. Even Blu-Ray hasn't been fully cracked yet (it is still a race with each individual movie.)
That "race" is as effective as having a full crack already. Why work harder? I'm not sure anyone is really working on an effort to fully crack bluray anymore. Cinavia on the other hand people are actively working on and there are a few workaround already, but this is an end device problem.
The biggest problem that separates bluray from any kind of audio is the fidelity problem. The analogue hole was closed by switching to all digital links, and we all know the expected quality of pointing a video camera at the TV screen. On the other hand producing sound is an inherently analogue process, and high quality recorders are actually cheap. You can't close the analogue hole without removing speakers from the equation, and any signal that is sent to speakers or headphones can be recorded with very low distortion on relatively cheap gear.
So while typical cinema camera jobs make people's eyes bleed, I don't think 99.9% of people would notice if you re-recorded a signal, resaved it and served it up on the internet. Well some people notice, like those people who ripped the Metalica playlist from Guitar Hero and served it up on the internet. People noticed because it actually sounded a shitload BETTER than the album ever did.
better tell Amazon about that, then - their 256kbit VBR MP3 catalogue was DRM'd to the gills up to around 2008, and as recently as 2012 DRM was being discovered on their new releases as well (source: Amazon forums). Google Play's MP3 container is also DRM-laden (source: Google Forums). Overdrive MP3 audiobooks are not only DRM laden, that DRM is also a timebomb (source: own experience with MP3 files not playing because lending licenses have expired).
But you're totally right, there is no DRM on MP3, I and many, many others must be talking out of our arses.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Is simply shipping it on physical container that has so 1) high production values and 2) limited run that it will be a) desirable b) likely to atleast hold value due to 1&a c) have trackable ownership identifier or other system so that a buyer who cares about authenticity can verify they are buying from a legit owner after the limited run production is over and only second hand products are available.
For interactive media, if it made sense (for static music it doesn't), a possible route would be to market the music as interactive and then have the interactivity be on a server and complex enough that it'll be hard to reproduce. This pretty much boils to some sort of interactive music video at basic level or an online fake-jam where the listener could vary the mix and mood of the song or whatever based on pre-recorded clips being sent. I don't think this is as compelling route as physical items that could hold value or have their value go up in future. I'm thinking this like those tradable Magic The Gathering cards - sure you can print them and play the game for free etc but the prices of the physical stuff is going up while the digital stuff at MTGO less so.
Pay your fucking taxes like other honest citizens, Mr Bono, and then we can sit down and talk about the moralities of illegal copying.
Let's see you pirate THAT.
I buy albums and I buy magazines. Sgt. Pepper v. the latest Kanye single?? Seriously? Fuck em all.
always we will be able to copy whatever we want. we can e .g. record the analogic data at the very speaker or the data stream if hear using bluetooth . simply idiotic
When Bono and Apple said that it can't be pirated, they were not referring to the music. They were just making clear, that the whole interactive music experience cannot be pirated.
Technically that still might not hold true, but if you are thinking about a closed source DRM-ed player, that collects encrypted data from the web to provide you with an interactive experience, it might just not be worth the effort.
To me it sounds like they are going to build the new MTV (remember the old MTV that actually played music?), with a new form of video clips, that will make it completely impossible for small bands to produce a video. DOA.
It's like saying a LP record does not have copy protection, but the safe it is locked inside is the same as a copy protected LP. The container, not the MP3 has copy protection. Tihe file is NOT an MP3, but a container containing an MP3.
The truth shall set you free!
I.e. if it works on Linux... I can pirate it.
The secret to music that can't be pirated; make shitty music nobody wants.