PlayFair - Back Online

i'm downloading this and stashing it for future use.

if only someone did that with the chud tools that let ibooks be overclocked via software sigh

Now that you can no longer use iTMS songs in iPhoto slideshows or iMovies, I actually have an interest in looking into this.

Did anyone really think iTunes 4.5 was going to kill fairplay.

Didn't work for me on my 4.5 files. It says it can't open them. It converts earlier version files and they seem to play but I haven't actually listened to any full song yet. Glad to know that now I can archive these files without DRM and use them without hitting the authorized computer ceiling at some point in the future should something happen to one of my macs such that I can't de-authorize one before it dies. I have no intention of sharing these files. In fact, I will still keep the DRM ones in iTunes and on my iPod.

Good, just like Steve-O said, I pay, I decide

If I decide to use a Roku Soundbridge for music I purchase its no one else's business but mine. Its not Steve's business, its not RIAA's business. They get my money for music, so they should shut up and be happy with it because that is all I am willing to give them. What I do with an item I purchase is my decision alone if RIAA don't like that they can die. They act like they are Rolls Royce who can choose its customers, but guess what RIAA, you are Jugo and if I decide to be nice and give you money for your crap you should thank me, even if I just take the CD and piss on it! Take the money and SHUT UP(TM)!
Cheers,

Ahmed

I had a long, well-thought out reply about this, but after reading Ahmed's post, I don't think that I'll bother. Those of you that are convinced that your rights are somehow being oppressed by Apple's DRM will not be convinced otherwise. I mean, really, 5 computers and 7 burns (more really, if you take the time) and this isn't enough for you? If you need more than that, I'm sorry, but you are probably violating copyright law anyway.

Forget it. I'm not wasting any more time with this.

Regards,
Gus

Gus said:

I had a long, well-thought out reply about this, but after reading Ahmed's post, I don't think that I'll bother. Those of you that are convinced that your rights are somehow being oppressed by Apple's DRM will not be convinced otherwise. I mean, really, 5 computers and 7 burns (more really, if you take the time) and this isn't enough for you? If you need more than that, I'm sorry, but you are probably violating copyright law anyway.

Click to expand...

Good, because you simply don't get it. Lets just say I don't want to use an iPod. Lets say I don't want to hook my Mac to my multimedia system in the livingroom but want to use a streaming player like aforementioned SoundBridge. Say, I want to use a dedicated in-dash car AAC player and not an iPod in my car or boat or wherever. Lets say I want to use music I buy for home movies.
None of that works with Apple's DRM. And that is why I crack it.
Regards,

Ahmed

soosy said:

Now that you can no longer use iTMS songs in iPhoto slideshows or iMovies, I actually have an interest in looking into this.

Click to expand...

Uhm...directly from Apple's website....

"Best of all, you can use any song you purchase to accompany an iPhoto slide show, play behind a motion menu in iDVD or set the proper mood in your newest iMovie project."

I don't understand the value...

If iTunes will burn the mp4 files on to a CD as an .aiff so it can be played in a CD player, don't you have free access to your music?

Or is the loss in quality so great?

If you use an application like FairPlay, doesn't it simply "convert" an .mp4 into an .mp3?

IMHO, Apple has provided the flexibility we need. I don't care for the RIAA tactics anymore than many of the people in this forum, but they do have a right to defend their intellectual property. And if Apple wants to operate iTunes, it's going to have to give greater credence to what the record labels want vs. what we want.

AhmedFaisal said:

Good, because you simply don't get it. Lets just say I don't want to use an iPod. Lets say I don't want to hook my Mac to my multimedia system in the livingroom but want to use a streaming player like aforementioned SoundBridge. Say, I want to use a dedicated in-dash car AAC player and not an iPod in my car or boat or wherever. Lets say I want to use music I buy for home movies.
None of that works with Apple's DRM. And that is why I crack it.
Regards,

Ahmed

Click to expand...

I think it's you who doesn't get it. If you want to use licensed music for a purpose not in the agreement, then you shouldn't have made the agreement. A person is only as good as his or her word.

elo

You CAN still use music in iPhoto etc.

soosy said:

Now that you can no longer use iTMS songs in iPhoto slideshows or iMovies, I actually have an interest in looking into this.

Click to expand...

The new iTunes installer states clearly before you install that if you wish to use your music in other apps, you must ALSO download the new QuickTime. Then you're all set again.

Cool, i'm downloading this as soon as i get home.

iBook said:

If iTunes will burn the mp4 files on to a CD as an .aiff so it can be played in a CD player, don't you have free access to your music?

Or is the loss in quality so great?

If you use an application like FairPlay, doesn't it simply "convert" an .mp4 into an .mp3?

Click to expand...

The loss in quality, not even talking about the amount of time it takes, to burn and rerip is tremendous. The effect was once described in a good analogy. If you take an image of 800x600 pixels and blow it up to 8000x6000 and then convert it back to 800x600 the picture will show a significant loss in quality, just try it out. Same happens when you burn and rerip. What PlayFair/Hymn does is simply remove the DRM wrapper from the AAC, no conversion nothing, just removing the DRM, meaning no loss in quality.
Cheers,

Ahmed

elo said:

I think it's you who doesn't get it. If you want to use licensed music for a purpose not in the agreement, then you shouldn't have made the agreement. A person is only as good as his or her word.

Click to expand...

Amen. It is bizarre to me that people seem to think they have a natural right to music. If you don't like the terms of the contract, don't agree to it -- it's really that simple. Any other argument is simply rationalization for theft.

That said, it looks like the hymn folks may be on a bit firmer legal ground with this version -- it preserves the ID of the original purchaser in the cracked file, which would make sharing a file over a P2P network much less attractive.

AhmedFaisal said:

Good, because you simply don't get it. Lets just say I don't want to use an iPod. Lets say I don't want to hook my Mac to my multimedia system in the livingroom but want to use a streaming player like aforementioned SoundBridge. Say, I want to use a dedicated in-dash car AAC player and not an iPod in my car or boat or wherever. Lets say I want to use music I buy for home movies.
None of that works with Apple's DRM. And that is why I crack it.
Regards,

Ahmed

Click to expand...

If you wanted to do all that, wouldn't it have been easier just to buy the CD then? That way, you could rip it, without DRM, into any format you want.

I think many of us here don't want any additional roadblocks for iTMS, should software from PlayFair and others get the RIAA' s attention.

As for this app... I strongly oppose piracy, and Apple HAS to do the same. (For the sake of iPod sales, for the sake of relationships with labels whose power has not yet vanished, and as a leader in the new legal download marker in general.) I can see why Apple has to fight this kind of thing. I would hope that the uses made of such an app is almost never piracy--but sadly I suspect the reverse.

For the HONEST people using the app, it makes sense to me, and I hope it can be kept legal and not shut down. Sure, you can get the same quality and strip DRM by re-ripping from CD as Apple Lossless (or the more universal WAV). But aside from being a pain, that crams your portable player with much larger files. It sounds like this preserves quality AND filesize--which is otherwise an either-or proposition.

iBook said:

If iTunes will burn the mp4 files on to a CD as an .aiff so it can be played in a CD player, don't you have free access to your music?

Or is the loss in quality so great?

Click to expand...

AFAIK, that should be fine - it's only if you re-encode it it will lose quality.

The problem here is choice - if you buy from another music store, you have a massive range of devices to play it with. The iPod may be the best portable device, but choice is every bit as important too. Devices like the previously mentioned Soundbridge are becoming all the more common, and by not licensing Fairplay, it's excluding iTMS customers from this kind of innovation, and not filling the gap themselves.

Personally, I think Apple will eventually license Fairplay, but not until the market is much larger, and they hold a stronger hand. Until that day, I'm going to make sure I have a copy of Playfair/Hymn on my machine before I buy anything from iTMS (it's not available here yet.)

elo said:

I think it's you who doesn't get it. If you want to use licensed music for a purpose not in the agreement, then you shouldn't have made the agreement. A person is only as good as his or her word.

Click to expand...

Great, and then what is next? The more you give in to their demands the more of your rights they will take. Ever thought about that? These people will not stop with just that. Its time to stand up against that kind of business behavior.
Regards,

Ahmed

The only real reason for using this program is to allow wireless music streaming. If apple opened up Fairplay and allowed other companies to incorporate it into their products, I think that there would be a lot less users of these programs. If you can find a legal way to stream your music through a soundbridge, or other wireless media player, I personally would love to know.

AhmedFaisal said:

If I decide to use a Roku Soundbridge for music I purchase its no one else's ****ing business but mine. Its not Steve's business, its not RIAA's business. They get my money for music, so they should ****ing shut up and be happy with it because that is all I am willing to give them. What I do with an item I purchase is my decision alone if RIAA don't like that they can ****ing die. They act like they are Rolls Royce who can choose its customers, but guess what RIAA, you are ****ing Jugo and if I decide to be nice and give you money for your crap you should thank me, even if I just take the CD and piss on it! Take the money and SHUT THE **** UP(TM)!
Cheers,

Ahmed

Click to expand...

That pretty much sums up how I feel about the issue. This whole DRM thing is starting to get crazy. You've got Microsoft with their protected computing platform (protected for the distributers) and Apple with Fairplay. Soon we won't be able to do anything on our computer. I am completely against anything that restricts our rights to do what we want with the computers we buy. Did they put DRM on VCR's. Did they put DRM on tape recorders. No they didn't. These guys have just become greedy bastards, and I say **** them.

Gus said:

I mean, really, 5 computers and 7 burns (more really, if you take the time) and this isn't enough for you? If you need more than that, I'm sorry, but you are probably violating copyright law anyway.

Click to expand...

CD's scratch and there are some that update their computer every year (but I guess you can deauthorize a computer, can't you?). I have an interest in being able to do what I want with music files: I put together yearly videos of my son and put music as a background. More often than not, there's one song that would fit perfect. As it stands, I cannot use an iTMS purchased music file for my video....I should be able to, it falls within the 'fair use' definition, but FCP doesn't recognize AAC files and I can't convert the purchased song to AIFF....I can accept that, if the RIAA wants to cut me out, fine by me. If the RIAA showed anything that resembled customer service ("Yes, I'd like to return this song because it's crap."), I'd be inclined to defend them somewhat, but they're just out for the interest of the biggest names in music and their own back pockets. I would have to agree more with Ahmed.

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE

According to their website there is an important difference between this version and the old version. This version does not strip the apple meta data from the files. So if users use this tool (unmodified of course) then when they strip the fairplay DRM from their files it still includes the username they purchased/downloaded the files as.

I think this is an important note because if people were to blindly strip the drm from their files and post them on usenet, they would be tracked back to the person who purchased and presumably posted the songs.

AhmedFaisal said:

Great, and then what is next? The more you give in to their demands the more of your rights they will take. Ever thought about that? These people will not stop with just that. Its time to stand up against that kind of business behavior.

Click to expand...

That's what I like to see -- political protest about not being able to copy music. Yep, that's a real pressing issue.

I've got news for you -- rights far more important than being able to copy music are already being taken from you. Yet you want to organize around music copying? With those priorities, I hope you get the government and corporations you deserve...

soosy said:

Now that you can no longer use iTMS songs in iPhoto slideshows or iMovies, I actually have an interest in looking into this.

Click to expand...

Are you serious? They made it so you can't use your purchased files in iPhoto or iMovie? Not even iLife 04 stuff?? Jeash..... this sux.. why not just go back to buying CDs from amazon.com?