No flame intended, but "typical antics" would be a pretty good description of the position that we should accept NO restrictions whatsoever on our use and re-use of copyrighted materials -- because we own the computers, or the paper, on which they reside. I'm not allowed to perform an author's plays without paying a royalty. Nor am I allowed to distribute copies of the script to 15,000 of my friends. Nor can you distribute free copies of Duke Nuke 'Em Forever -- not even if you bought the first copy. The iTunes store has found a nice little common ground that's basically not odious to anyone -- barring you. You see *any* compromise as inherently vitiating and therefore negating your principles. I'm all for free speech, I give to the ACLU for Crissakes, but there are genuine limits to that right. Old, old discussion you might want to have with any law student.
Why is the difference between there being restrictions on what we can do with copyrighted material, and having our own computers enforce those restrictions so difficult to understand?
I have said nothing - not a word - in this discussion regarding copyright law. It is completely beside the point how strict the legal restrictions on what we can do with copyrighted material are or should be: what matters is that our computers should not be the ones enforcing those restrictions.
COMMUNICATION DEVICES SHOULD NOT BE INSTRUMENTS OF CONTROL. This stands on it's own, completely independent of whether there is strong copyright law or not, or whether the control they excert in their current form can be considered fair.
(If you don't mind, could you respond to this and explain to me what it is about what I am saying that makes it so impossible to grasp. Because everybody keeps responding about copyright law, fair use, whether ITMS is nice or not, etc etc, when I have not even mentioned these things. My only - only - argument is that with ITMS you accept that your own computer controls and restricts your access to information, and that that idea, which is the same as the idea behind Palladium, is fundamentally wrong. Why do you feel that discussions on what constitutes fair copyright law enter into this?)
I agree that there are restrictions. Here's another restriction: The Pentium 4 processor doesn't let a program access the processor's microcode directly. And here's a similar example: iTunes prohibits the user from buying music unless the user owns his own computer.
That the Pentium 4's internals are hidden is no different the situation with any closed software. One can argue about whether that is good or not, but it is hardly relevant to this discussion. The point is that nothing in current x386 instruction set to implement control over the user. It would be conceptually possible to have a processor just like the Pentium 4 that was completely open and could be changed by anyone.
When/if Intel implement the Palladium and TCPA in their processors this will change: the remote attestation features of these technologies essentially depend on the chips being closed and tamper-resitant. Remote attestation could never be implemented by an open chip, since the whole point with the technology is that the user and owner cannot control the response. Just like the DRM in iTunes. I have a very hard understanding how you can fail to grasp the conceptual difference here.
I don't understand what you mean by the second part at all.
The owners of the patents on the algorithms I mentioned have maintained emphatically that they are not willing to license the algorithms royalty-free. Royalty-free licensing is one of the requirements for OSI Certified(tm) open source software.
Like I said, I was not talking about licensing or distribution. I was talking about open source, as in the source code is available, so users can create modified versions. The source code for PGP was available from the begining, even though the algorithms it used were patented and could not be used in software with OSI or whatnot licenses.
Since PGP acts only to enable it's user, there is no conceptual problem with the users having access to the source code. Since iTunes acts to restrict it's users, there is.
Most DRM opponents claim that DRM is bad primarily because DRM gets in the way of fair use.
DRM is bad _fundamentally_ because our communication devices should not be instruments of control. All practical concerns are secondary.
You seem to have implied throughout this discussion that choosing to ignore iTMS entirely is not an option.
Not using iTMS is, of course, an option. Saying loud and clear that we reject the concept on which DRM is based is an option. Thinking that the meme of the user hostile computer is going to go away by itself is naive.
The fair use defenses to copying of sound recordings, as defined in 17 USC 107 and 17 USC 1008, does not guarantee a lack of "bother."
If you are going to throw around law codes so as to pretend you understand them, you could at least make an effort. You asked for an example of something legal that iTunes overtly and purposefully restricts you from doing, and I gave it. I never claimed that any law "guaranteed" my right to do anything: if iTunes wanted to never play any music at all, that would be perfectly legal as well, you know.
Why would it have to be manual? Couldn't a Windows program automate making 74-minute playlists of purchased tracks, telling iTunes to burn tracks to CD-RW, and then running CD audio extraction?
Why couldn't a windows program simply crack iTunes and figure out how to remove the encryption from m4p files without changing anything else.
Oh yes. Now I remember: Because the author of the program, and potentially anybody who ran it, would get in legal trouble for the audacity of telling their computers to do what they want them to do rather than what Apple does.
Do you claim that programs that perform one-click ordering, LZW compression in Europe and Canada, MP3 compression, and accurate transformations to output devices' color spaces, and other patented algorithms do not act in the user's interest? Free software implementing those algorithms would violate subsisting patents on those algorithms, making them just as unlawful to distribute as DeCSS or any other DRM-breaking program. Even if there were no DMCA, and even if iTunes used no DRM, it would still be unlawful to write an AAC decoder and publish it as free software because AAC is patented.
Whether an algorithm is patented has absolutely nothing to do with whether a program using it can be implemented as open source. It might affect what license can legally be used to distribute the software, but my point had absolutely nothing to do with licenses.
I agree that iTunes fits the definition of digital restrictions management, but the rules it implements are so thin that they do not get in the way of fair use.
This isn't about fair use: I never even used the word. This about whether we should be subject to the authority of our computers, or they should be subject to our authority. ITMS users have decided on the former, and should at least stop lying to themselves and others about it.
Does the Congress have the right to roadblock free speech in such a way?
(a) Government need not enter the picture. When all Microsoft and Apple operating systems will not talk to computers that serve their users, and most ISPs will not let others connect to the Internet.
In fact, you can already do so with iTunes, if you first convert to AIFF on a CD-R or CD-R image.
You want to make a bet that they would if I made a single click utility to convert m4p into mp4 with no loss in quality? I can do it, but it would take me a while so we need make the bet rather large so as to make it worth my while...
Firstly, I don't think that selling music as plaintext files will actually make "kazaaing" any more prolific then it is today. If there is one thing I can tell you about the file sharing networks, it is that availability of the actual recordings is not a limiting factor (availability of upload bandwidth from sharers is). I think that the record companies realize this very well, and that the DRM has very little to do with kazaa and edonkee, but rather with people downloading one copy and then giving it to their friends. (*)
Secondly, my main point in regards to this is: I don't care. I don't see the possibility of selling music online as a fundamental human right, and is it isn't possible to do in a way that keep people happy - well then boohoo. Publishing information and then claiming that everybody should pay you when the information is copied is like putting on a fireworks display and claiming that everybody should pay you to look up. You can make all sorts of arguments about how you deserve to be paid for your hard work, but it is still stupid.
I am not sure how to set up a system "to encourage the production of creative works" in the information age - but I am sure that my computer should obey me, and me alone.
(*) It should be noted that this is somewhat contradictory to the media industry's claim that it is the difference between analog and digital copying that justifies these new restrictions.
Define "directly". What, specifically, do you want to do with a purchased track that 1. iTunes won't let you do, 2. you can't do by recording the audio to a CD, and 3. you may otherwise do under copyright law notwithstanding 17 USC chapter 12?
There are obviously plenty of examples of such things (play the files on Linux machines without having to go through the bother of burning, reripping, setting all the id3s manually) but that is beside the point. I do not have an entitlement complex: I don't demand that services should offer me exactly what I want all the time.
My point is that one should not run software that does not act in ones own interest. Just like one should not consult a doctor who does not act in ones interest, or hire a lawyer who does not act in ones interest. There is a simple way to see whether software is acting in your interest: _could_ it be implemented as open source on normal hardware.
If software is acting in my interest, then it won't matter to it whether I can change it, so having the source makes no functional difference (it might matter to the company for competitive reason, but that is unrelated). iTunes could not be open source, because then I could simply remove the DRM restrictions (and if that doesn't matter: why did Apple spend time and money developing them?)
If you people argued for user hostile software (like the first responder to my post did) then I could at least feel I was arguing an intellectually honest position. But you people are so busy trying to convince yourself that this DRM somehow isn't DRM because the rules are less bad. Like people arguing that a dictatorship isn't a dictatorship because the dictator is a nice guy.
What "things"? The audio itself is no secret once you've recorded it to a completely DRM-free CD.
The encryption keys and algorithms used on the m4p files.
And my point is that a good number of people will still be willing to publish works that can be viewed with attestation turned off.
My point is that eventually they will not have a choice. For "security reasons." It's going to be all or nothing (or going outlaw and circumventing the restrictions).
Owners of iTunes Music Store purchased tracks can record the tracks to CD-R media free of any digital restrictions management. In what way would Apple's mild restrictions prevent iTMS customers from making non-infringing use of purchased tracks?
If I was to write a program that accessed and converted M4P files directly, I would be sued under the DMCA. You must see how absurd it is to argue that there are no restrictions in light of this.
You are installing a program on your computer that that then conspires against you to keep things secret.
Where do you get this? Microsoft has repeatedly stated that Palladium will be optional, that the owner of the machine can turn it off at will, and that it won't require any changes to the Internet at OSI levels 3 and 4.
There is no need for changes at levels 3 and 4. The point is that the common protocols will be enhanced to add the ability to attest that one is communicating with a trusted client (like good old ITMS).
How do you conceive that Palladium will prevent a GNU/Linux user from communicating with the non-Palladium side of the memory curtain?
Since everybody here seems to have decided that DRM is not only great, but "the way it should be" (as +5 post above said), I'm worried it is going to be very lonely on that side of the curtain.
The only files that are "restricted" in any way are the ones you purchase from the iTMS. Even with those it doesn't "make sure the data is only being used in authorized ways"--you can burn and rerip it and there won't be a single control in place. Nor does it "take control of the computer" to make sure of anything--QuickTime just happens to be the only mechanism (currently, no word on if they are licensing it) that can play m4p files.
The fact that iTunes restricts access to the actual music by making inconvenient rather than impossible to convert the files is beside the point. See my earlier responses.
Here is a good litmus test for whether something is a restriction: would I get sued if I wrote a simple utility to convert the files directly to mp3s or oggs?
When you choose to download a song from the iTMS, you understand what rights you have to it. It is not yours to copy. There is no sense of Apple "taking control" of the files, since you bought it with the knowledge of how you can use it.
Please read the post you are responding to. Quoting myself:
(Of course, one gets told over and over: "If you don't like it, don't use it" etc, and of course, I won't. But DRM is an attempt to "put the Internet back in the bottle" as the originally linked article puts it (the person who linked it apparently didn't read it: John Walker seems to agree with me regarding DRM and ITMS), and iTunes is the shining beacon of evidence that people will accept it. Every post I make is simply the futile hope that I can make somebody understand why we should be in control of our computers, not the other way around, and maybe make it a little less lonely out here.)
But, back to my original point, iTunes != the iTMS, which I think is a BIG distinction you failed to make. iTunes has no control over anything except for content from Apple's store.
I was responding to a comment that said that Microsoft are bad compared to Apple because they embrace DRM. I am saying that so do Apple. It was a two paragraph off-topic post that I thought would go unnoticed, but Apple zealots are so touchy about this it becomes a flamewar every time it comes up.
iTMS uses the FairPlay DRM. I have a lot of songs and I can't think of a single instance when FairPlay got in my way or kept me from doing anything. I can burn the songs to as many CDs as I like, play the music on up to three computers (at a time), and transfer it to as many iPods as I like. How exactly is that restricting me?
This is like saying: "I never wanted to go out at night anyways, so how is this curfew a restriction." I have no desire at all to read comic books - yet if somebody decided that I could never read comic books I would still be angry.
The fact of the matter is that there are restrictions ("up to three computers") and the only way that ITMS can enforce them is by making sure that the software controls how you can access the data on your own computer. What I am saying is that that relationship between ourselves and our computers (the one where they place restrictions on us, however innouxious those restrictions may be) is one that we should never accept in the first place.
Just like I demand freedom of speech as a principle, not as something on which I will accept restrictions as long as I don't notice them, I demand control over my own computer and the data in it as a principle.
The rest of iTunes has no DRM incorporated. What this entire story is about is not any form of DRM, but Apple replacing MusicMatch's functionality with their own.
I wasn't replying to that, I was replying to the person who linked to an article about (among other things DRM) and tried to use that as a reason to make Macs better than PCs. The simple truth is that as of ITMS Macs have embraced the idea that users should be subjects to their computers just as much as Microsoft has with WMP and Palladium.
(Of course, I wasn't moderated down as being offtopic but rather overrated, as any comment critical of Apple invariably is if it reaches a score greater than three. At least this time the similiarly inevitable +5 modded flame quoted my entire post...)
Besides, if you own an iPod and you've download iTunes,/chances are good/ you will want to use iTunes for syncing with your iPod anyways should you continue to use iTunes (not guaranteed, but likely).
This is the argument I am uninterested it. As far as I am concerned, this just sounds like the typical antics of closed software programs, and is one of the reasons I only use free software. But, I want to comment that you are falling for the same fallacy here as you are with DRM.
It is not OK to break into somebody's house and replace a belonging with something else even if everybody you do it will like what you leave better than what you took (I don't want to argue whether this is a case of that, but in the quoted text above you are saying "this would be ok even if it was.") Our freedoms, our integrity, and our self determination are principles of humanity - it is not OK to step on them even when it isn't inconvenient for us.
So would you and whichever moderator modded you up remove your tinfoil hats?
Since I have gone from being scared to deeply depressed about this issue (mostly after seeing the majority of Slashdot suddenly embrace the concept of DRM once they realized they could get something in return for it) I wish it wouldn't worry me, but I see nothing "tinfoil hat" about it.
It is Microsoft and media industry's stated aim to have remote attestation built into the fabric of the web, so that websites will use DRM for their content, so that communication will only be possible between DRM enabled users, etc etc. I thought Slashdotters and maybe even Mac-heads would fight the takeover of our computers by programs hostile toward us, but instead they have become the backers and defenders of the process. It seems little other than inevitable now that we will not in a few years face a closed, proprietary, and restricted Internet.
iTunes does exactly what Palladium is designed to do: it controls the content that users download by encrypting it and keeping the decryption key from the user. When it runs, it takes control of the computer to make sure that the data is used only in authorized ways.
iTunes is less effective than Palladium might be for several reasons, but the philosophy is the same. The software is user hostile: it controls rather than enables you.
(Of course, one gets told over and over: "If you don't like it, don't use it" etc, and of course, I won't. But DRM is an attempt to "put the Internet back in the bottle" as the originally linked article puts it (the person who linked it apparently didn't read it: John Walker seems to agree with me regarding DRM and ITMS), and iTunes is the shining beacon of evidence that people will accept it. Every post I make is simply the futile hope that I can make somebody understand why we should be in control of our computers, not the other way around, and maybe make it a little less lonely out here.)
That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. The copyright holders of the songs decide what you can and can't do, which, honestly is they way it shoudl be.
Beating people up is illegal and considered immoral. If I do it, I can be punished - but that does give people to right to take over my mind and control how I can move my arms.
Driving too fast is illegal and considered immoral. If I do it, I can be punished - but that does not give people to right to remote control my car.
Slandering others is illegal and considered immoral. If I do it, I can be punished - but that does not give people the right to control what I can say.
Copying files with the copyright owner's permission is illegal and considered immoral. If I do it, I can be punished - but that does not give copyright owners the right to take control of my computer and control what I can do with the files.
We do not practice proactive enforcement of laws in free societies. We have laws, we have a social contract, and we have law enforcement. We DO NOT bind peoples hands until they have committed a crime, and we do not lock people into their houses until they can prove they have a legal reason to step out. That I can use my computer to make a copy a music track does NOT mean that giving up control of it to the copyright owner "is they way it shoudl be."
I would attack you as you attack me, but I see no point. Somebody who has so little respect for his own freedom, already has no respect for himself.
And soon you won't even own your own hardware in the Windows world.
Don't you think this is a bit of strange angle to attack Windows from in a story regarding a DRM program from Apple, ported from the Mac?
DRM is DRM is DRM is DRM. Palladium and iTunes are one and the same. When you install iTunes you have already said, "Of course my computer decides what I can and can't do, and I obey." You can't get further from owning your own computer than that.
Your argument would have been more convincing if it had not been in writing...
Re:And who can forget...
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It is the same Benjamin Franklin who said:
"As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously."
It is impossible for any reader of this site not to have read about how great your Segway is, since you have posted it and a link to your cheesy site on every Segway related story since God knows when. It's getting kind of tiring.
(And no, I don't care whether you are astroturfing or just weirdly compelled to incesstantly advertise the Segway on your own.)
Get a clue before you start painting pictures of socialist wonderlands. Sweden is everything but a positive example.
Firstly, the unemployment rate. The Swedish government plays number games, and uses artificial means to suppress the "open" unemployment down to under 5%. In truth, if you start including the people who have been given early retirement because they were deemed unemployable, or those in different government reeducation or temporary placement programs, the unemployment rate is closer to 15%.
Average workers do pay income tax, and a lot of it, they just don't pay the central government tax. The 30-35% of the income paid to on the local level (and it isn't actually local either, because richer counties are taxed for the poorer ones) is paid by all. And that is not everything: there are hidden taxes on labour, in the form of taxes on companies for employing people: the true tax rate, including these, is closer to half for people with low incomes, and to two thirds for people with "high" incomes ("high" starts at around $35k - hardly considered high income in the States).
Sweden has not thrived under it's cleptocratic government. In the last thirty years, it has fallen from being the second or third richest nation in the world, down to being among the poorest of the western countries. In the EU only Portugal and Greece are poorer, and that looks likely to change. If Sweden had enjoyed the same economic growth since 1970 as the US, it's per capita GNP would have been double what it is today.
Sweden lacking in innovation and corporate growth as well. Entrepeneurs, skilled labor, and even large companies are leaving the country at alarming rates mostly driven out by the standard of living. With such high taxation on labor, purchasing services is beyond the reach of the typical family, which leads to stressful do everything yourself lives and a generally unhealthy population. American leftists often laud the less time Europeans spend at work, but in truth people here are more stressed because they spend that time at home doing things which the a middleclass American family can afford to pay for (the result of which is a less efficient society and destruction of potential wealth).
And for the highest taxes in the world, what do we get? Sweden is hardly a great place to live any more. Crime victimization rates are actually higher here then in the US (the US has more murders and gun crime - for obvious reasons) and the justice system has been on the brink of collapse for 15 years. A minority of all crimes even get investigates. There is state health care, but it involves long waiting lines, deteriorating service, and is in a constant state of crisis. The school system is also fairing ill - the education is sub par compared to the rest of the EU.
If you want this so bad, then please take it. Sweden is a country drowning under it's own system, and unable to do anything except continually raise the taxes and devalue it's currency, slowly consuming the countries entire post-war wealth. Only Thatcher and Reagan type reforms could begin to save it.
This is a ridiculous argument. Any worm worth two cents is just going to communicate out using port 80, and if the author is really clever it will do it by opening http pages using Internet Explorer so the traffic doesn't look different, and not even local application level firewalls or authenticated proxies can stop it.
Blocking outgoing traffic does nothing for security, and tons to block legitimate applications and the true power of the Internet (as opposed to the Web).
DRM is not "all about encryption", it uses encryption. Confusing encryption (a good thing) with DRM (a bad thing) is very wrong, and very dangerous.
Encryption is when data is encoded so that only people with access to the a key can decode it. DRM involves encrypting data so that your computer (or DVD player etc) can decrypt it, but only on the condition that your computeris user hostile and controls what you can do with the data.
The crucial element in DRM is not the encryption but the making your computer act against you (which is why software DRM is so easy to crack, and special closed chips like TCPA are needed.) Google first sending the paper, and only later the key to decrypt it does not include that.
Well, she was certainly coerced in the sense that she had no choice for survival other accepting Rumplestiltskin's terms. But he wasn't the one who put her in that situation, he offered her a way out of what otherwise was certain death.
Just like when every employer requires you to sign away all intellectual property. You may sign freely, but in truth you have little choice.
The simple truth is that there are plenty of contracts that are not supported by law. I cannot sign a contract that binds me to slavery, and I cannot sign a contract permitting somebody to kill me. Is it so strange to say that contracts signing away peoples thoughts should not be valid?
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No flame intended, but "typical antics" would be a pretty good description of the position that we should accept NO restrictions whatsoever on our use and re-use of copyrighted materials -- because we own the computers, or the paper, on which they reside. I'm not allowed to perform an author's plays without paying a royalty. Nor am I allowed to distribute copies of the script to 15,000 of my friends. Nor can you distribute free copies of Duke Nuke 'Em Forever -- not even if you bought the first copy. The iTunes store has found a nice little common ground that's basically not odious to anyone -- barring you. You see *any* compromise as inherently vitiating and therefore negating your principles. I'm all for free speech, I give to the ACLU for Crissakes, but there are genuine limits to that right. Old, old discussion you might want to have with any law student.
Why is the difference between there being restrictions on what we can do with copyrighted material, and having our own computers enforce those restrictions so difficult to understand?
I have said nothing - not a word - in this discussion regarding copyright law. It is completely beside the point how strict the legal restrictions on what we can do with copyrighted material are or should be: what matters is that our computers should not be the ones enforcing those restrictions.
COMMUNICATION DEVICES SHOULD NOT BE INSTRUMENTS OF CONTROL. This stands on it's own, completely independent of whether there is strong copyright law or not, or whether the control they excert in their current form can be considered fair.
(If you don't mind, could you respond to this and explain to me what it is about what I am saying that makes it so impossible to grasp. Because everybody keeps responding about copyright law, fair use, whether ITMS is nice or not, etc etc, when I have not even mentioned these things. My only - only - argument is that with ITMS you accept that your own computer controls and restricts your access to information, and that that idea, which is the same as the idea behind Palladium, is fundamentally wrong. Why do you feel that discussions on what constitutes fair copyright law enter into this?)
I agree that there are restrictions. Here's another restriction: The Pentium 4 processor doesn't let a program access the processor's microcode directly. And here's a similar example: iTunes prohibits the user from buying music unless the user owns his own computer.
That the Pentium 4's internals are hidden is no different the situation with any closed software. One can argue about whether that is good or not, but it is hardly relevant to this discussion. The point is that nothing in current x386 instruction set to implement control over the user. It would be conceptually possible to have a processor just like the Pentium 4 that was completely open and could be changed by anyone.
When/if Intel implement the Palladium and TCPA in their processors this will change: the remote attestation features of these technologies essentially depend on the chips being closed and tamper-resitant. Remote attestation could never be implemented by an open chip, since the whole point with the technology is that the user and owner cannot control the response. Just like the DRM in iTunes. I have a very hard understanding how you can fail to grasp the conceptual difference here.
I don't understand what you mean by the second part at all.
The owners of the patents on the algorithms I mentioned have maintained emphatically that they are not willing to license the algorithms royalty-free. Royalty-free licensing is one of the requirements for OSI Certified(tm) open source software.
Like I said, I was not talking about licensing or distribution. I was talking about open source, as in the source code is available, so users can create modified versions. The source code for PGP was available from the begining, even though the algorithms it used were patented and could not be used in software with OSI or whatnot licenses.
Since PGP acts only to enable it's user, there is no conceptual problem with the users having access to the source code. Since iTunes acts to restrict it's users, there is.
Most DRM opponents claim that DRM is bad primarily because DRM gets in the way of fair use.
DRM is bad _fundamentally_ because our communication devices should not be instruments of control. All practical concerns are secondary.
You seem to have implied throughout this discussion that choosing to ignore iTMS entirely is not an option.
Not using iTMS is, of course, an option. Saying loud and clear that we reject the concept on which DRM is based is an option. Thinking that the meme of the user hostile computer is going to go away by itself is naive.
The fair use defenses to copying of sound recordings, as defined in 17 USC 107 and 17 USC 1008, does not guarantee a lack of "bother."
If you are going to throw around law codes so as to pretend you understand them, you could at least make an effort. You asked for an example of something legal that iTunes overtly and purposefully restricts you from doing, and I gave it. I never claimed that any law "guaranteed" my right to do anything: if iTunes wanted to never play any music at all, that would be perfectly legal as well, you know.
Why would it have to be manual? Couldn't a Windows program automate making 74-minute playlists of purchased tracks, telling iTunes to burn tracks to CD-RW, and then running CD audio extraction?
Why couldn't a windows program simply crack iTunes and figure out how to remove the encryption from m4p files without changing anything else.
Oh yes. Now I remember: Because the author of the program, and potentially anybody who ran it, would get in legal trouble for the audacity of telling their computers to do what they want them to do rather than what Apple does.
Do you claim that programs that perform one-click ordering, LZW compression in Europe and Canada, MP3 compression, and accurate transformations to output devices' color spaces, and other patented algorithms do not act in the user's interest? Free software implementing those algorithms would violate subsisting patents on those algorithms, making them just as unlawful to distribute as DeCSS or any other DRM-breaking program. Even if there were no DMCA, and even if iTunes used no DRM, it would still be unlawful to write an AAC decoder and publish it as free software because AAC is patented.
Whether an algorithm is patented has absolutely nothing to do with whether a program using it can be implemented as open source. It might affect what license can legally be used to distribute the software, but my point had absolutely nothing to do with licenses.
I agree that iTunes fits the definition of digital restrictions management, but the rules it implements are so thin that they do not get in the way of fair use.
This isn't about fair use: I never even used the word. This about whether we should be subject to the authority of our computers, or they should be subject to our authority. ITMS users have decided on the former, and should at least stop lying to themselves and others about it.
Does the Congress have the right to roadblock free speech in such a way?
(a) Government need not enter the picture. When all Microsoft and Apple operating systems will not talk to computers that serve their users, and most ISPs will not let others connect to the Internet.
(b) Yes.
No.
In fact, you can already do so with iTunes, if you first convert to AIFF on a CD-R or CD-R image.
You want to make a bet that they would if I made a single click utility to convert m4p into mp4 with no loss in quality? I can do it, but it would take me a while so we need make the bet rather large so as to make it worth my while...
Firstly, I don't think that selling music as plaintext files will actually make "kazaaing" any more prolific then it is today. If there is one thing I can tell you about the file sharing networks, it is that availability of the actual recordings is not a limiting factor (availability of upload bandwidth from sharers is). I think that the record companies realize this very well, and that the DRM has very little to do with kazaa and edonkee, but rather with people downloading one copy and then giving it to their friends. (*)
Secondly, my main point in regards to this is: I don't care. I don't see the possibility of selling music online as a fundamental human right, and is it isn't possible to do in a way that keep people happy - well then boohoo. Publishing information and then claiming that everybody should pay you when the information is copied is like putting on a fireworks display and claiming that everybody should pay you to look up. You can make all sorts of arguments about how you deserve to be paid for your hard work, but it is still stupid.
I am not sure how to set up a system "to encourage the production of creative works" in the information age - but I am sure that my computer should obey me, and me alone.
(*) It should be noted that this is somewhat contradictory to the media industry's claim that it is the difference between analog and digital copying that justifies these new restrictions.
Define "directly". What, specifically, do you want to do with a purchased track that 1. iTunes won't let you do, 2. you can't do by recording the audio to a CD, and 3. you may otherwise do under copyright law notwithstanding 17 USC chapter 12?
There are obviously plenty of examples of such things (play the files on Linux machines without having to go through the bother of burning, reripping, setting all the id3s manually) but that is beside the point. I do not have an entitlement complex: I don't demand that services should offer me exactly what I want all the time.
My point is that one should not run software that does not act in ones own interest. Just like one should not consult a doctor who does not act in ones interest, or hire a lawyer who does not act in ones interest. There is a simple way to see whether software is acting in your interest: _could_ it be implemented as open source on normal hardware.
If software is acting in my interest, then it won't matter to it whether I can change it, so having the source makes no functional difference (it might matter to the company for competitive reason, but that is unrelated). iTunes could not be open source, because then I could simply remove the DRM restrictions (and if that doesn't matter: why did Apple spend time and money developing them?)
If you people argued for user hostile software (like the first responder to my post did) then I could at least feel I was arguing an intellectually honest position. But you people are so busy trying to convince yourself that this DRM somehow isn't DRM because the rules are less bad. Like people arguing that a dictatorship isn't a dictatorship because the dictator is a nice guy.
What "things"? The audio itself is no secret once you've recorded it to a completely DRM-free CD.
The encryption keys and algorithms used on the m4p files.
And my point is that a good number of people will still be willing to publish works that can be viewed with attestation turned off.
My point is that eventually they will not have a choice. For "security reasons." It's going to be all or nothing (or going outlaw and circumventing the restrictions).
Owners of iTunes Music Store purchased tracks can record the tracks to CD-R media free of any digital restrictions management. In what way would Apple's mild restrictions prevent iTMS customers from making non-infringing use of purchased tracks?
If I was to write a program that accessed and converted M4P files directly, I would be sued under the DMCA. You must see how absurd it is to argue that there are no restrictions in light of this.
You are installing a program on your computer that that then conspires against you to keep things secret.
Where do you get this? Microsoft has repeatedly stated that Palladium will be optional, that the owner of the machine can turn it off at will, and that it won't require any changes to the Internet at OSI levels 3 and 4.
There is no need for changes at levels 3 and 4. The point is that the common protocols will be enhanced to add the ability to attest that one is communicating with a trusted client (like good old ITMS).
How do you conceive that Palladium will prevent a GNU/Linux user from communicating with the non-Palladium side of the memory curtain?
Since everybody here seems to have decided that DRM is not only great, but "the way it should be" (as +5 post above said), I'm worried it is going to be very lonely on that side of the curtain.
The only files that are "restricted" in any way are the ones you purchase from the iTMS. Even with those it doesn't "make sure the data is only being used in authorized ways"--you can burn and rerip it and there won't be a single control in place. Nor does it "take control of the computer" to make sure of anything--QuickTime just happens to be the only mechanism (currently, no word on if they are licensing it) that can play m4p files.
The fact that iTunes restricts access to the actual music by making inconvenient rather than impossible to convert the files is beside the point. See my earlier responses.
Here is a good litmus test for whether something is a restriction: would I get sued if I wrote a simple utility to convert the files directly to mp3s or oggs?
When you choose to download a song from the iTMS, you understand what rights you have to it. It is not yours to copy. There is no sense of Apple "taking control" of the files, since you bought it with the knowledge of how you can use it.
Please read the post you are responding to. Quoting myself:
(Of course, one gets told over and over: "If you don't like it, don't use it" etc, and of course, I won't. But DRM is an attempt to "put the Internet back in the bottle" as the originally linked article puts it (the person who linked it apparently didn't read it: John Walker seems to agree with me regarding DRM and ITMS), and iTunes is the shining beacon of evidence that people will accept it. Every post I make is simply the futile hope that I can make somebody understand why we should be in control of our computers, not the other way around, and maybe make it a little less lonely out here.)
But, back to my original point, iTunes != the iTMS, which I think is a BIG distinction you failed to make. iTunes has no control over anything except for content from Apple's store.
I was responding to a comment that said that Microsoft are bad compared to Apple because they embrace DRM. I am saying that so do Apple. It was a two paragraph off-topic post that I thought would go unnoticed, but Apple zealots are so touchy about this it becomes a flamewar every time it comes up.
Well if people never attempt to commit a crime why should they care if there "hands are binded."
I don't know whether to be happy that you are making my argument for me, or scared that there are actually people in world who think like this...
iTMS uses the FairPlay DRM. I have a lot of songs and I can't think of a single instance when FairPlay got in my way or kept me from doing anything. I can burn the songs to as many CDs as I like, play the music on up to three computers (at a time), and transfer it to as many iPods as I like. How exactly is that restricting me?
/chances are good/ you will want to use iTunes for syncing with your iPod anyways should you continue to use iTunes (not guaranteed, but likely).
This is like saying: "I never wanted to go out at night anyways, so how is this curfew a restriction." I have no desire at all to read comic books - yet if somebody decided that I could never read comic books I would still be angry.
The fact of the matter is that there are restrictions ("up to three computers") and the only way that ITMS can enforce them is by making sure that the software controls how you can access the data on your own computer. What I am saying is that that relationship between ourselves and our computers (the one where they place restrictions on us, however innouxious those restrictions may be) is one that we should never accept in the first place.
Just like I demand freedom of speech as a principle, not as something on which I will accept restrictions as long as I don't notice them, I demand control over my own computer and the data in it as a principle.
The rest of iTunes has no DRM incorporated. What this entire story is about is not any form of DRM, but Apple replacing MusicMatch's functionality with their own.
I wasn't replying to that, I was replying to the person who linked to an article about (among other things DRM) and tried to use that as a reason to make Macs better than PCs. The simple truth is that as of ITMS Macs have embraced the idea that users should be subjects to their computers just as much as Microsoft has with WMP and Palladium.
(Of course, I wasn't moderated down as being offtopic but rather overrated, as any comment critical of Apple invariably is if it reaches a score greater than three. At least this time the similiarly inevitable +5 modded flame quoted my entire post...)
Besides, if you own an iPod and you've download iTunes,
This is the argument I am uninterested it. As far as I am concerned, this just sounds like the typical antics of closed software programs, and is one of the reasons I only use free software. But, I want to comment that you are falling for the same fallacy here as you are with DRM.
It is not OK to break into somebody's house and replace a belonging with something else even if everybody you do it will like what you leave better than what you took (I don't want to argue whether this is a case of that, but in the quoted text above you are saying "this would be ok even if it was.") Our freedoms, our integrity, and our self determination are principles of humanity - it is not OK to step on them even when it isn't inconvenient for us.
So would you and whichever moderator modded you up remove your tinfoil hats?
Since I have gone from being scared to deeply depressed about this issue (mostly after seeing the majority of Slashdot suddenly embrace the concept of DRM once they realized they could get something in return for it) I wish it wouldn't worry me, but I see nothing "tinfoil hat" about it.
It is Microsoft and media industry's stated aim to have remote attestation built into the fabric of the web, so that websites will use DRM for their content, so that communication will only be possible between DRM enabled users, etc etc. I thought Slashdotters and maybe even Mac-heads would fight the takeover of our computers by programs hostile toward us, but instead they have become the backers and defenders of the process. It seems little other than inevitable now that we will not in a few years face a closed, proprietary, and restricted Internet.
iTunes does exactly what Palladium is designed to do: it controls the content that users download by encrypting it and keeping the decryption key from the user. When it runs, it takes control of the computer to make sure that the data is used only in authorized ways.
iTunes is less effective than Palladium might be for several reasons, but the philosophy is the same. The software is user hostile: it controls rather than enables you.
(Of course, one gets told over and over: "If you don't like it, don't use it" etc, and of course, I won't. But DRM is an attempt to "put the Internet back in the bottle" as the originally linked article puts it (the person who linked it apparently didn't read it: John Walker seems to agree with me regarding DRM and ITMS), and iTunes is the shining beacon of evidence that people will accept it. Every post I make is simply the futile hope that I can make somebody understand why we should be in control of our computers, not the other way around, and maybe make it a little less lonely out here.)
That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. The copyright holders of the songs decide what you can and can't do, which, honestly is they way it shoudl be.
Beating people up is illegal and considered immoral. If I do it, I can be punished - but that does give people to right to take over my mind and control how I can move my arms.
Driving too fast is illegal and considered immoral. If I do it, I can be punished - but that does not give people to right to remote control my car.
Slandering others is illegal and considered immoral. If I do it, I can be punished - but that does not give people the right to control what I can say.
Copying files with the copyright owner's permission is illegal and considered immoral. If I do it, I can be punished - but that does not give copyright owners the right to take control of my computer and control what I can do with the files.
We do not practice proactive enforcement of laws in free societies. We have laws, we have a social contract, and we have law enforcement. We DO NOT bind peoples hands until they have committed a crime, and we do not lock people into their houses until they can prove they have a legal reason to step out. That I can use my computer to make a copy a music track does NOT mean that giving up control of it to the copyright owner "is they way it shoudl be."
I would attack you as you attack me, but I see no point. Somebody who has so little respect for his own freedom, already has no respect for himself.
And soon you won't even own your own hardware in the Windows world.
Don't you think this is a bit of strange angle to attack Windows from in a story regarding a DRM program from Apple, ported from the Mac?
DRM is DRM is DRM is DRM. Palladium and iTunes are one and the same. When you install iTunes you have already said, "Of course my computer decides what I can and can't do, and I obey." You can't get further from owning your own computer than that.
Your argument would have been more convincing if it had not been in writing...
It is the same Benjamin Franklin who said:
"As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously."
Methanol will just blank out the screen...
It's not impossible, it is trivial. The factorization of a prime number is the number itself.
Ok, we get it. We've heard it.
It is impossible for any reader of this site not to have read about how great your Segway is, since you have posted it and a link to your cheesy site on every Segway related story since God knows when. It's getting kind of tiring.
(And no, I don't care whether you are astroturfing or just weirdly compelled to incesstantly advertise the Segway on your own.)
jkrise wrote: Linux (any flavor) is not for Joe.
TrollBridge wrote: And as long as the Linux community maintains this elitist attitude, it will NEVER replace/defeat Windows.
I have always been wondering who this "Linux community" person was - thanks for finding him for us!
Get a clue before you start painting pictures of socialist wonderlands. Sweden is everything but a positive example.
Firstly, the unemployment rate. The Swedish government plays number games, and uses artificial means to suppress the "open" unemployment down to under 5%. In truth, if you start including the people who have been given early retirement because they were deemed unemployable, or those in different government reeducation or temporary placement programs, the unemployment rate is closer to 15%.
Average workers do pay income tax, and a lot of it, they just don't pay the central government tax. The 30-35% of the income paid to on the local level (and it isn't actually local either, because richer counties are taxed for the poorer ones) is paid by all. And that is not everything: there are hidden taxes on labour, in the form of taxes on companies for employing people: the true tax rate, including these, is closer to half for people with low incomes, and to two thirds for people with "high" incomes ("high" starts at around $35k - hardly considered high income in the States).
Sweden has not thrived under it's cleptocratic government. In the last thirty years, it has fallen from being the second or third richest nation in the world, down to being among the poorest of the western countries. In the EU only Portugal and Greece are poorer, and that looks likely to change. If Sweden had enjoyed the same economic growth since 1970 as the US, it's per capita GNP would have been double what it is today.
Sweden lacking in innovation and corporate growth as well. Entrepeneurs, skilled labor, and even large companies are leaving the country at alarming rates mostly driven out by the standard of living. With such high taxation on labor, purchasing services is beyond the reach of the typical family, which leads to stressful do everything yourself lives and a generally unhealthy population. American leftists often laud the less time Europeans spend at work, but in truth people here are more stressed because they spend that time at home doing things which the a middleclass American family can afford to pay for (the result of which is a less efficient society and destruction of potential wealth).
And for the highest taxes in the world, what do we get? Sweden is hardly a great place to live any more. Crime victimization rates are actually higher here then in the US (the US has more murders and gun crime - for obvious reasons) and the justice system has been on the brink of collapse for 15 years. A minority of all crimes even get investigates. There is state health care, but it involves long waiting lines, deteriorating service, and is in a constant state of crisis. The school system is also fairing ill - the education is sub par compared to the rest of the EU.
If you want this so bad, then please take it. Sweden is a country drowning under it's own system, and unable to do anything except continually raise the taxes and devalue it's currency, slowly consuming the countries entire post-war wealth. Only Thatcher and Reagan type reforms could begin to save it.
This is a ridiculous argument. Any worm worth two cents is just going to communicate out using port 80, and if the author is really clever it will do it by opening http pages using Internet Explorer so the traffic doesn't look different, and not even local application level firewalls or authenticated proxies can stop it.
Blocking outgoing traffic does nothing for security, and tons to block legitimate applications and the true power of the Internet (as opposed to the Web).
DRM is not "all about encryption", it uses encryption. Confusing encryption (a good thing) with DRM (a bad thing) is very wrong, and very dangerous.
Encryption is when data is encoded so that only people with access to the a key can decode it. DRM involves encrypting data so that your computer (or DVD player etc) can decrypt it, but only on the condition that your computeris user hostile and controls what you can do with the data.
The crucial element in DRM is not the encryption but the making your computer act against you (which is why software DRM is so easy to crack, and special closed chips like TCPA are needed.) Google first sending the paper, and only later the key to decrypt it does not include that.
Well, she was certainly coerced in the sense that she had no choice for survival other accepting Rumplestiltskin's terms. But he wasn't the one who put her in that situation, he offered her a way out of what otherwise was certain death.
Just like when every employer requires you to sign away all intellectual property. You may sign freely, but in truth you have little choice.
The simple truth is that there are plenty of contracts that are not supported by law. I cannot sign a contract that binds me to slavery, and I cannot sign a contract permitting somebody to kill me. Is it so strange to say that contracts signing away peoples thoughts should not be valid?