"All kidding aside is there anything keeping the RIAA from telling Apple to do something like this?"
Yes, the US Constitution. Changing the terms of an agreement retroactively (as in affecting items of business dealt with before the change), is illegal and would never hold up in court even if if written into the EULA. In addition, iTunes doesn't phone home each play, only for the first authorization so they can't really lock you out of your collection of songs you've bought. The iTunes Music Store is a STORE, not a subscription service.
News.com.com reports that you are wrong. To quote:
In an unusual provision for a technology company, Google will create two classes of shares with different voting rights, a move that aims to guarantee founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will maintain decision-making authority...
"In our opinion, outside pressures too often tempt companies to sacrifice long-term opportunities to meet quarterly market expectations. Sometimes this pressure has caused companies to manipulate financial results in order to 'make their quarter.' In Warren Buffett's words, 'We won't smooth quarterly or annual results: If earnings figures are lumpy when they reach headquarters, they will be lumpy when they reach you."
The founders have also fought to maintain their control over the company even as it hired Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt in 2000. According to the document, Page and Brin said that they will run the company as a "triumvirate."
This is essentially what you do to get Linux on the iPod, only this guy isn't extracting the firmware and merging it with a Linux image, he's just extracting the Apple image from the firmware updater and using that. I wonder why he chose the Windows updater, the Mac updater contains a file called "Firmware" right in the application package's Resources folder, no hex editing involved.
Does it bother anyone else the way that Intel is acting like they spearheaded the wireless internet phenomenon? I mean, it's not like they INVENTED anything! 802.11 b (ratified 1999) and g (July 2003) are standards and have been around longer than the Centrino branding (late 2003). If anyone beat Intel to the party, it was Apple with its Airport (released June 1999) which followed the 802.11b standard AND offered internal wireless connectivity in portables. Yes, over 4 years before Intel started this crapfest of misleading marketing and branding! I've actually been told that Intel invented wireless networking and Apple has to pay a fee to use it. And have you seen the ads? They act like basetations and ranges don't exist and it pulls the internet out of nowhere.
Actually, it looks like Apple of Germany was the only company placing the ads (or having the ads placed on their behalf by an ad agency). All Apple's branches are in charge of advertising within their own countries. I guess Apple of Germany thought it was a nice way to get switchers... annoy the hell out of them for using a PC with Gator:)
Just delete the folder ~/.drms between each decryption. I wrote a GUI for Mac OS X that integrates with iTunes and I just had to make it delete the.drms folder between encodes to make it work properly.
Oh, and sorry for replying 2 times to my own post:)
Upon further inspection, I've come across a few strange things. Only my more recent iTunes Music Store purchases decrypt correctly. The older ones make garbled files that iTunes tries to play for a minute, then crashes.
The way PlayFair snags a decryption key doesn't always work, but it tries to decrypt the song anyway. If it finds a bad key and uses it, of course the files are going to come out as garbage! If you swap headers of an m4a file and an m4p file, QuickTime, iTunes and the iPod all crash while reading it also. It does not, as the post suggests, even touch your purchased songs. All decryption is made on a copy. Just more fear mongering.
I have, however, had no trouble decrypting my songs under Mac OS X. They work perfectly.
Using a program called Rendezvous Beacon, you can trick iTunes into thinking your iTunes share at home is on the same subnet. It's really not that hard to get around Apple's restriction.
Because it updates the private system instant messaging framework. It's good practice to restart after updating a service that possibly more than one app relies on. I just force quit software update when it was done and everything was fine but it could have caused a crash in Mail.app, Address Book or some other app that accesses the framework.
- 3DOSX organizes windows into discs, representing files and folders as icons standing upright. Opening folders creates branches of varying altitudes based on depth of directories. Supports 3D glasses for that classy 1950 feel.
[Screenshot] | [Download] (Mac OS X)
You'd think that blind people would rather not use an MP3 player with headphones.. well... because that would be like blindfolding a deaf person. When someone lacks one of the two essential senses, the other becomes absolutely crucial for living a normal life. A blind person with an MP3 player seems a bit dangerous to me. On the other hand, I'm sure blind people still have a great appreciation for music and enjoy listening to it over speakers, in which case portability isn't much of an issue and something like a braile laptop might be better suited to their MP3 playback needs.
That said, handicap accesable products are a good thing, but from a practicallity standpoint, let's think before we create something dangerous or impractical, like a braile spedometer in a car.
Who the hell becomes a registerd Slashdot user to post GNAA trolls as an Anonymous Coward?
Anyway, to get back on topic, I bet the decision to buy Linux licences came from a higher up in Computer Associates who didn't understand the implications. It's kind of like when I was about 14 trying to download Mac OS system updates overnight on my dialup connection. If somehow the connection was maintained, it was almost a certainty that my mother would walk in to the computer room and pull the plug out of the wall at 3am because she was afraid the box'o'computing might set the house on fire if unattended.
Manager: Well these SCO fellers sounded so reassuring that if we bought their licences, nothing bad would happen, so I did. Employees: What? WHY?! This is PR suicide for a company that is supposed to understand the world of technology!
Oh COME ON! If you even read the article you are claiming to comment on, you'd know that Carbon and Cocoa are complementary APIs, created as peers around the same time. There are still some very basic features in carbon that cocoa does not have, and there are still a vast numbers of cocoa calls that are just wrappers for carbon calls. They are two different and perfectly valid APIs. People are just jaded about carbon because it's responsible fro the "bad carbon port." Essentially a Mac OS 9 application with all of the Macintosh Toolkit (the Classic API) bits worked out and holes barely filled with Carbon calls. It's unfair to denounce an API because a lot of developers were lazy. Look how good Carbon apps can be. iTunes anyone?
And before you complain about the Finder's being Carbon, remember that a lot of its troubles are due to the fact that it was a 1.0 release in 2000. While far from perfect, Panther's Finder is a perfect example of how good threading can pay off (except for Networking, my God, what were they thinking!).
Psh... Linux, Unix, whatever. They should just be sued on the grounds that they encourage "ricing out" cars and have that terrible CG tire and jingle in their cable commercials.
Get in the zone... Aww - tow - zone! (We have lightbars for your shitty Honda Civic!)
17 USC 107, Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
Fair use is law. My burning a CD of an AAC file I bought in no way de-values the product. In fact, the ability to burn a CD of it increased its value to me. Therefore it falls under legal use of a copyrighted product according to Title 17 of US Code.
As for the "doctrine of first sale," I'm as interested as you are but that's not the topic of this discussion. In response to your other comment to me: Apple would find them in quite a tricky place if they tried to retroactively change the license on music people bought under another license. In addition, it may be foolish of me to do so, but I have some faith that Apple wouldn't do such a thing as charge for high-fi backups of songs you already own.
I don't like DRM, but it's a necessary evil. And Apple's DRM Fairplay has the best balance of consumer rights so far.
Exactly: refunds or a way to still play the discs. In addition, under the DCMA it's technically legal to break the encryptions on those discs because no legal alternative exists.
Slashdot Mirror
"All kidding aside is there anything keeping the RIAA from telling Apple to do something like this?"
Yes, the US Constitution. Changing the terms of an agreement retroactively (as in affecting items of business dealt with before the change), is illegal and would never hold up in court even if if written into the EULA. In addition, iTunes doesn't phone home each play, only for the first authorization so they can't really lock you out of your collection of songs you've bought. The iTunes Music Store is a STORE, not a subscription service.
News.com.com reports that you are wrong. To quote:
In an unusual provision for a technology company, Google will create two classes of shares with different voting rights, a move that aims to guarantee founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will maintain decision-making authority...
"In our opinion, outside pressures too often tempt companies to sacrifice long-term opportunities to meet quarterly market expectations. Sometimes this pressure has caused companies to manipulate financial results in order to 'make their quarter.' In Warren Buffett's words, 'We won't smooth quarterly or annual results: If earnings figures are lumpy when they reach headquarters, they will be lumpy when they reach you."
The founders have also fought to maintain their control over the company even as it hired Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt in 2000. According to the document, Page and Brin said that they will run the company as a "triumvirate."
This is essentially what you do to get Linux on the iPod, only this guy isn't extracting the firmware and merging it with a Linux image, he's just extracting the Apple image from the firmware updater and using that. I wonder why he chose the Windows updater, the Mac updater contains a file called "Firmware" right in the application package's Resources folder, no hex editing involved.
Positively tasteless. I'm glad I have no mod points because I wouldn't know how to use them. I smiled but then again, I still want to slap you.
Does it bother anyone else the way that Intel is acting like they spearheaded the wireless internet phenomenon? I mean, it's not like they INVENTED anything! 802.11 b (ratified 1999) and g (July 2003) are standards and have been around longer than the Centrino branding (late 2003). If anyone beat Intel to the party, it was Apple with its Airport (released June 1999) which followed the 802.11b standard AND offered internal wireless connectivity in portables. Yes, over 4 years before Intel started this crapfest of misleading marketing and branding! I've actually been told that Intel invented wireless networking and Apple has to pay a fee to use it. And have you seen the ads? They act like basetations and ranges don't exist and it pulls the internet out of nowhere.
Actually, it looks like Apple of Germany was the only company placing the ads (or having the ads placed on their behalf by an ad agency). All Apple's branches are in charge of advertising within their own countries. I guess Apple of Germany thought it was a nice way to get switchers... annoy the hell out of them for using a PC with Gator :)
WARNING: This Topic Has Exceeded Maximum Number of Tasteless Posts Allowed
I don't think I've seen so many "Funny Score: 0" comments in my life. Slashdotters, please grow souls. Hell probably isn't a fun place.
I got to the bottom of the freezing issue!!
.drms folder between encodes to make it work properly.
:)
Just delete the folder ~/.drms between each decryption. I wrote a GUI for Mac OS X that integrates with iTunes and I just had to make it delete the
Oh, and sorry for replying 2 times to my own post
Upon further inspection, I've come across a few strange things. Only my more recent iTunes Music Store purchases decrypt correctly. The older ones make garbled files that iTunes tries to play for a minute, then crashes.
The way PlayFair snags a decryption key doesn't always work, but it tries to decrypt the song anyway. If it finds a bad key and uses it, of course the files are going to come out as garbage! If you swap headers of an m4a file and an m4p file, QuickTime, iTunes and the iPod all crash while reading it also. It does not, as the post suggests, even touch your purchased songs. All decryption is made on a copy. Just more fear mongering.
I have, however, had no trouble decrypting my songs under Mac OS X. They work perfectly.
Using a program called Rendezvous Beacon, you can trick iTunes into thinking your iTunes share at home is on the same subnet. It's really not that hard to get around Apple's restriction.
Because it updates the private system instant messaging framework. It's good practice to restart after updating a service that possibly more than one app relies on. I just force quit software update when it was done and everything was fine but it could have caused a crash in Mail.app, Address Book or some other app that accesses the framework.
- 3DOSX organizes windows into discs, representing files and folders as icons standing upright. Opening folders creates branches of varying altitudes based on depth of directories. Supports 3D glasses for that classy 1950 feel.
[Screenshot] | [Download] (Mac OS X)
As others have noted, this strategy is great until you get slammed by a 0 day exploit. Then you're screwed.
You'd think that blind people would rather not use an MP3 player with headphones.. well... because that would be like blindfolding a deaf person. When someone lacks one of the two essential senses, the other becomes absolutely crucial for living a normal life. A blind person with an MP3 player seems a bit dangerous to me. On the other hand, I'm sure blind people still have a great appreciation for music and enjoy listening to it over speakers, in which case portability isn't much of an issue and something like a braile laptop might be better suited to their MP3 playback needs.
That said, handicap accesable products are a good thing, but from a practicallity standpoint, let's think before we create something dangerous or impractical, like a braile spedometer in a car.
+5 Eloquent and True
Who the hell becomes a registerd Slashdot user to post GNAA trolls as an Anonymous Coward?
Anyway, to get back on topic, I bet the decision to buy Linux licences came from a higher up in Computer Associates who didn't understand the implications. It's kind of like when I was about 14 trying to download Mac OS system updates overnight on my dialup connection. If somehow the connection was maintained, it was almost a certainty that my mother would walk in to the computer room and pull the plug out of the wall at 3am because she was afraid the box'o'computing might set the house on fire if unattended.
Manager: Well these SCO fellers sounded so reassuring that if we bought their licences, nothing bad would happen, so I did.
Employees: What? WHY?! This is PR suicide for a company that is supposed to understand the world of technology!
Even after your mod points run out, you cannot participate in the discussion. Come on, it even told you this when you posted.
Oh COME ON! If you even read the article you are claiming to comment on, you'd know that Carbon and Cocoa are complementary APIs, created as peers around the same time. There are still some very basic features in carbon that cocoa does not have, and there are still a vast numbers of cocoa calls that are just wrappers for carbon calls. They are two different and perfectly valid APIs. People are just jaded about carbon because it's responsible fro the "bad carbon port." Essentially a Mac OS 9 application with all of the Macintosh Toolkit (the Classic API) bits worked out and holes barely filled with Carbon calls. It's unfair to denounce an API because a lot of developers were lazy. Look how good Carbon apps can be. iTunes anyone?
And before you complain about the Finder's being Carbon, remember that a lot of its troubles are due to the fact that it was a 1.0 release in 2000. While far from perfect, Panther's Finder is a perfect example of how good threading can pay off (except for Networking, my God, what were they thinking!).
Are you a flatlander like in that crazy video about the shape of space? If so, flatlanders rule!
I guess the mods think I'm an insensitive clod too. The comment used to be +5 Funny
Moderation
+1
60% Funny
40% Overrated
Psh... Linux, Unix, whatever. They should just be sued on the grounds that they encourage "ricing out" cars and have that terrible CG tire and jingle in their cable commercials.
Get in the zone... Aww - tow - zone! (We have lightbars for your shitty Honda Civic!)
I'd say it's more like giving up a few rights (if any) for sheer convenience. But different strokes for different folks....
17 USC 107, Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
Fair use is law. My burning a CD of an AAC file I bought in no way de-values the product. In fact, the ability to burn a CD of it increased its value to me. Therefore it falls under legal use of a copyrighted product according to Title 17 of US Code.
As for the "doctrine of first sale," I'm as interested as you are but that's not the topic of this discussion. In response to your other comment to me: Apple would find them in quite a tricky place if they tried to retroactively change the license on music people bought under another license. In addition, it may be foolish of me to do so, but I have some faith that Apple wouldn't do such a thing as charge for high-fi backups of songs you already own.
I don't like DRM, but it's a necessary evil. And Apple's DRM Fairplay has the best balance of consumer rights so far.
Exactly: refunds or a way to still play the discs. In addition, under the DCMA it's technically legal to break the encryptions on those discs because no legal alternative exists.