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Apple vs. Anti-DRM

My complaints about Apple's DRM has drastically decreased now that they have increased the number of computers you can associated with an account to 5. I think 5 is a pretty robust number. Maybe a good half dozen would be better but right now most people's complaints should be quelled with this increase.

My biggest remaining grips about iTMS is twofold:

-The biggest is that Apple has left Linux out of the picture in terms of iTunes. Apple owe what OS X is today to the *nix open source community. How much of their tech that is in OS X is based on open source? IMHO by ignoring Linux and only supporting MS it's a slap in the face of everyone who has contributed to the open source movement. I think part of this has resulted in a backlash by the *nix community to see who can come up with the slickest way to allow

-Secondly, and not a technically a DRM prob, it still is a issue that is going to become a thorn in the side of Apple if it comes to pass. That issue is the likelihood of the RIAA jacking up the price of music. DRM, quality, and convenience be danged. I'm NOT paying more then 99 cents per song! Go ahead and try it. I will SO jump back on P2P. As it stands I'm NOT impressed with albums being jacked up to their hardcopy counterparts. Can you say load o' high yield crap?!
 
SiliconAddict said:
My complaints about Apple's DRM has drastically decreased now that they have increased the number of computers you can associated with an account to 5. I think 5 is a pretty robust number. Maybe a good half dozen would be better but right now most people's complaints should be quelled with this increase.

My biggest remaining grips about iTMS is twofold:

-The biggest is that Apple has left Linux out of the picture in terms of iTunes. Apple owe what OS X is today to the *nix open source community. How much of their tech that is in OS X is based on open source? IMHO by ignoring Linux and only supporting MS it's a slap in the face of everyone who has contributed to the open source movement. I think part of this has resulted in a backlash by the *nix community to see who can come up with the slickest way to allow

-Secondly, and not a technically a DRM prob, it still is a issue that is going to become a thorn in the side of Apple if it comes to pass. That issue is the likelihood of the RIAA jacking up the price of music. DRM, quality, and convenience be danged. I'm NOT paying more then 99 cents per song! Go ahead and try it. I will SO jump back on P2P. As it stands I'm NOT impressed with albums being jacked up to their hardcopy counterparts. Can you say load o' high yield crap?!
Click to expand...

Very well said. I'm glad there are people on the forum who don't think everything Apple does is perfect or without flaws.
 
pEZ said:
I think is fantastic that Apple is going after these programs. They do need to go away. Especially because of the fact that there is a built-in DRM-stripping tool right inside iTunes...just burn an audio cd...
Click to expand...
I think what Apple is doing is putting forth the appearance of going after these programs, to make it inconvenient for people to disable the DRM.

As Jobs indicated when iTMS was first starting, they know that it's impossible to create a perfect DRM system--and they have informed the record labels of this fact. If you can listen to the music, by definition it's possible to crack the DRM. All Apple is doing is making it a little more difficult to crack. The record labels know this, Apple knows this. Depending on my mood, it seems like a decent compromise to me.
 
It will be broken soon.

The Steve is under no misapprehension that DRM is a lost cause, he knows that it will be broken. The countermeasures that they took for the sharing protocol were trivial, they are just trying to save face with the idiots in the music industry that believe in DRM.

There are more effective ways to pirate music than downloading iTunes songs, decrypting them and then distributing them. None of the decryption technologies allow you to break someone else's songs, so the piracy would have to be intentional. CD's are still the largest vector of unencrypted high quality source material. I'm dying to hear people screaming about how making AAC files from CD's are somehow going to cause iTunes to be shut down.

I love Apple and the iPod, but frankly I don't like the thought that my songs are locked in to only being played back on Apple authorized platforms (no Linux, Palm, Symbian or other portable unit support.) Yes, I know the iTunes store is subsidized by iPod sales. But would you be happy if Apple said you could only play back iTunes songs if you owned an iPod? The ability for me to decrypt my files losslessly and use them on another device falls within fair use, although I grant that it is in conflict with Apples terms of agreement.

Piracy will always happen. Stripping DRM from AAC files for personal use is the same thing as making your own AAC's from a CD. The difference in cost is justified in that you don't get to re-rip them in a superior format/higher bit-rate in the future. Just don't put them online for others to steal, it's as simple as that.
 
SiliconAddict said:
My complaints about Apple's DRM has drastically decreased now that they have increased the number of computers you can associated with an account to 5. I think 5 is a pretty robust number. Maybe a good half dozen would be better but right now most people's complaints should be quelled with this increase.

My biggest remaining grips about iTMS is twofold:

-The biggest is that Apple has left Linux out of the picture in terms of iTunes. Apple owe what OS X is today to the *nix open source community. How much of their tech that is in OS X is based on open source? IMHO by ignoring Linux and only supporting MS it's a slap in the face of everyone who has contributed to the open source movement. I think part of this has resulted in a backlash by the *nix community to see who can come up with the slickest way to allow

-Secondly, and not a technically a DRM prob, it still is a issue that is going to become a thorn in the side of Apple if it comes to pass. That issue is the likelihood of the RIAA jacking up the price of music. DRM, quality, and convenience be danged. I'm NOT paying more then 99 cents per song! Go ahead and try it. I will SO jump back on P2P. As it stands I'm NOT impressed with albums being jacked up to their hardcopy counterparts. Can you say load o' high yield crap?!
Click to expand...

Eventually someone will make a app. you can use on Linux. I know they have with iSight.
 
DRM is bad for the consumer

3-22 said:
It's their product and when you sign up you're agreeing to their terms.
Click to expand...

No, you're agreeing to any future terms they might wish to levy upon you - that's no agreement at all. For instance, 10 playlist burns to 7. No longer works with Toast (like they never tried that knowing that's the only way some people can burn to CD, but hey if Toast can get raw data so can something else).

And sticking with the current version just isn't realistic. Why? The iTunes 4.2 won't work with some future version of OSX, guaranteed. Apple will stop providing security updates for current versions of OSX at some point, guaranteed. So, at some point the choice will be sticking with the DRM terms you agreed to, or getting hacked. It's not really a choice, and therein lies the problem.

3-22 said:
If you don't like it keep buying CDs, use another service, or do illegal downloads.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, many people will opt for the latter.

3-22 said:
Apple's DRM is the best as far as I'm concerned. Sure unlimited use would be great but not gonna happen, anytime soon anyway.
Click to expand...

Yeah, none of this is Apple's fault. They're at the mercy of the RIAA monopoly. Apple couldn't care less, they offer the least restrictive DRM out there, but that doesn't change the fact that DRM is bad for the consumer.
 
It makes no sense, if people are so concerned with hacking the DRM, which is illegal, why do they even download from iTunes in the firstplace, why not just use Limewire of Kazaa.

Illegal is Illegal no matter how you look at it, it is not anymore legal if you buy it then strip the DRM.
 
Spades said:
There's a third area. Use in any app outside of iTunes where conversion is required. This used to work by using quicktime to do the conversion, but now quicktime just exports silence when you try to convert a protected file. No iMovie. No Roxio. Probably no GarageBand. It worked before, so why did they suddenly remove it? As far as the DRM goes, stripping with quicktime was no better than the CD Burn/Rip method, which still works.
Click to expand...

So wait....i can't even export it to an .aiff or mp3 file to use in FCP??

I think "Fair use" should include using it in your own home movies....
 
QuickTime update

To those of you that are having trouble using the songs in iTunes did you update your QuickTime software yesterday also? It says when you install the new iTunes that it won't work outside of iTunes until you also update QuickTime.
 
denm316 said:
It makes no sense, if people are so concerned with hacking the DRM, which is illegal, why do they even download from iTunes in the firstplace, why not just use Limewire of Kazaa.

Illegal is Illegal no matter how you look at it, it is not anymore legal if you buy it then strip the DRM.
Click to expand...

A very good point. I think they must be doing it merely because they can—computer geeks taking it as a personal challenge. Or to stick it to Apple.
 
Awimoway said:
A very good point. I think they must be doing it merely because they can—computer geeks taking it as a personal challenge. Or to stick it to Apple.
Click to expand...

No more likely its this thing called morality that some people have. Sure, both may be illegal, but I know a lot of Linux folks who might want to dl music who would feel a lot better about buying a song properly then stripping DRM for personal use than stealing outright off of Limewire.
 
3-22 said:
I was figuring 4.5 would include some anti-drm stuff. I see that as probably the trend for all future versions constant updates to thwart the latest anti-drm utilities.
Click to expand...

Technically wouldn't Apple's response be anti-anti-DRM stuff. Now we have to wait for the anti-anti-anti-DRM software to flood the market. :eek:

Honestly, I think Apple's and Palm's DRMS's are easily the best on the market. I've tried Microsoft method with their e-books. OMG. I picked up one e-book on the system and never returned. *hugs his Pocket PC with Palm E-book reader* :)

People need to come to the realization that DRM is the future of all digital media at least in some form or another. I hate it as much as the next person but it's going to be a fact of life in the long run. At this point I'm not so much concerned any more with DRM then with the transparency of the process and the rights we are given to our media. IMHO, Palm's is down right balmy with no limit to the number of devices you can place a book on and no control by Palm. (e.g. The activation scheme is your credit card number, you used to buy the book, which is hashed into an encrypted code on the e-book. It sounds complex it really isn't.) Apple's seems to be on the very fringe of acceptable usage. Microsoft's method sucks rocks. And then some implementations by the various labels are down right hostile to the user.
As far as I'm concerned no one was gotten it 100% right. The big picture concern though is long term viability of a rights standard. What happens if X company decides to stop providing Y service and shuts down there servers. Users who have invested a crap load are SOL when they can no longer activate their computer. I go to a store right now and pick up a CD there is almost no chance in 5 years that that CD is not going to play in a CD player. I purchase a track on iTMS, MusicMatch, Napster, etc there is no guarantee that that music will be accessible in 10 years. Imp not overly concerted about Apple screwing everyone over due to the likelihood (You don't sell 70 million tracks without some future support.) of them having some form of conversion process (e.g. Convert from AAC1/FP2 to AAC4/FP5) but it still is a concern nonetheless. Mores with Microsoft who has a reputation of scrapping any pseudo standards they create and going back to the drawing board.
 
Great! and about time too.

It is great that Apple has finally taken a firm stance towards those DRM-cracking applications. After all, Apples DRM scheme is so much more friendly than anything else on the market, we as consumers should be glad we get it.

And because Apples iCollar, iLeash, and iMuzzle give us so much more leeway than MS' evil ActiveCollar, WindowsMediaLeash and MSMuzzle, we all should bleat happily like the baaa-lambs we are. Turn your backs to those who tell you you could live without iLeash, it is just not true in the long run, because then the evil shepherds associates will crack down on you and take away the iGrass you are munching...

In short: no iTunes update for me until PlayFair got an update. I am dumb, but not that dumb.
 
And exactly WHY do the songs need to be protection-free?

I don't see the big deal about getting rid of the encoding security on the songs. Why? If you bought the music why do you care if other people have a hard time listening to it?

If you REALLY want them to listen to it why don't you give them your USER NAME and PASSWORD so they can authenticate their computer to play YOUR music. What? You won't do that? What? You don't TRUST them with your personal information??? Yeah... I don't think I would trust a thief either. You'll go out of your way to pirate/steal music but become all clutched-up when it comes to your own "security". What a pile of crap. You know who you are... and you honestely can't see that your personal "security" and the "security" behind copyrighted songs are no different, right? If you can steal someone else's material and have no problems with that, then why don't you go ahead and post your iTunes Music Store ID and Password on this site... or is that somehow different??? Maybe I should just hack your system... after all information is supposed to be 'free', right???

Boneheads....

I know these two guys... they have a screaming 2MB internet pipe and they spend ALL THEIR TIME downloading these DVD image files off the internet, re-ripping the image files into these DiVX encoded pieces of crap and burning discs. They have THOUSANDS of these things. They spend hours, and hours, and hours, every single night doing this illegal stuff... all for movies that were videotaped in a theater that look like crap.

Me? I prefer to go to Target and drop $15 on the real DVD. It saves me about eight hours and my copy is perfect. Plus, I'm not a thief.

But they really do belive that they're "getting one over" on the movie industry. If they were to rack up the time they spend on blank media (not to mention the media you toss out because of a bad burn) the cost of their $150 per month internet connection, the TIME they spend tracking all these downloads... the time they spend on encoding, trimming, and editing these clips, etc., etc., etc.... all for a single movie. Divide all that time up into the $15 the disc would cost you at the store and you can easily see that they are actually PAYING money out of their own pockets in order to get these low-quality rips for "free".

And the fact that iTunes music is only $1 per song is even more pathetic for thieves. Even flipping burgers at McDonald's your time is worth more than that, right?

Besides, everyone knows that if you HAVE to have the music in a non-protected format you simply have to burn the playlist to a disc, then just re-rip the music from that disc as MP3 files. duh

Of course, these thieves are just too lazy for that, I forgot.

sibelius
 
ITR 81 said:
Eventually someone will make a app. you can use on Linux. I know they have with iSight.
Click to expand...

The difference being is if it doesn't come from Apple and can read FP wrapped AAC files whoever makes that app is breaking the......**Head spins around as he pukes the word** DMCA

iSight is an open piece of hardware. If someone hacks together a piece of software from another platform Apple won't give a rip. If they are breaking their DRM scheme that is another matter altogether.
 
Well, try it first. Don't just take my word for it. I only said "probably" GarageBand. iMovie and Roxio are the only apps I've personally seen or have heard good reports of not working. I haven't heard of any apps that require conversion that do still work, so I'm making a pretty big guess based on my understanding of how iMovie makes use of quicktime. Just because I'm 90% sure doesn't mean I'm right. ;)

And yes, fair use does include using it in your own home movies. You just can't exhibit your home movie publicly then.

NP3 said:
So wait....i can't even export it to an .aiff or mp3 file to use in FCP??

I think "Fair use" should include using it in your own home movies....
Click to expand...
 
sibelius said:
And the fact that iTunes music is only $1 per song is even more pathetic for thieves. Even flipping burgers at McDonald's your time is worth more than that, right?

sibelius
Click to expand...


Depends. I have a few friends that have over 18,000 songs, one with 28,000 I asked him to play something from Turkey 2 weeks ago. Don't aks. :eek: ) on their system that they have downloaded, swapped with friends, ripped from friends CD's, etc, etc. Hmmm let me think about that a second. New car.....lots of music....new car....lots of music. hard decision. :p ;) Is it right? I'm not making that call. But is it worth their time. I'd say yes.
 
I don't have to worry about this or care about the iTMS because...

drum roll please...

...i buy music discounted at the stores or from independants dirt cheap with no DRM.

I wonder what Bruce Lee would of said in my sig?
iTunes Music Store isn't useful.
 
Vonnie said:
Personally, I hope either playfair cracks the new drm soon, or Apple releases their DRM system to third-party developers. What Apple is doing, is basically locking in their customers to itunes and ipod. This is exactly the same thing that Microsoft did with Word. We don't need yet another monopoly-abusing company.
Click to expand...

Of course they are locking you into the iPod, the music store itself generates little to no profits right now. Take away the iPod = iTunes/Music Store RIP...
 
SiliconAddict said:
My complaints about Apple's DRM has drastically decreased now that they have increased the number of computers you can associated with an account to 5. I think 5 is a pretty robust number. Maybe a good half dozen would be better but right now most people's complaints should be quelled with this increase.

My biggest remaining grips about iTMS is twofold:

-The biggest is that Apple has left Linux out of the picture in terms of iTunes. Apple owe what OS X is today to the *nix open source community. How much of their tech that is in OS X is based on open source? IMHO by ignoring Linux and only supporting MS it's a slap in the face of everyone who has contributed to the open source movement. I think part of this has resulted in a backlash by the *nix community to see who can come up with the slickest way to allow
Click to expand...

Linux? Hahahah. Ok im done laughing. Seriously. What are you on that you think Apple owes the "Linux community" anything? Is there even a single line of Linux code in Darwin sans GCC? Which is the FSF anyway. This is the problem I have with the whole Linux/GPL/FSF crowd. They think because you write something free and release it and the source somehow that equates to someone owing you for it. You don't see the BSD people whining and moaning iTunes doesn't work on BSD do you? Or why there is no Quicktime technology required to use iTunes ported to BSD? No. Of course not.
You also do not see them whining that Apple used BSD code and that they owe us something. Apple has contributed many things back to the various BSD Unix projects they have used code from. If Linux people are so enraged that people use the supposedly "free" Linux code available without giving anything back maybe they should stop calling it free. Anyway the whole notion that Apple *owes* Linux or anyone else anything is absurd to the utmost.

But I agree music over 99/cents is not going to fly well. Most of the music today is garbage and most people probably only get 99cents out of a song.
Who sits and listens to a song over and over and over. Most people hear it a few times and buy something new.
 
I, too, am glad Apple is actively clamping down on the theft of intellectual property.

For those of you who dislike iTune's DRM restrictions, the choice is simple:

DON'T USE ITUNES!

Nobody is forcing you to use Apple's program or services. If you find the restrictions too harsh, then you can always go to a discount CD store and buy your own CD copies of the music you choose, encode them to whatever format you prefer, to run on whichever player you own. Apple does not force anyone to use iTunes. Delete the damn thing from your system if it bugs you so much.

Or, you can subscribe to some of the other online music stores and deal with THEIR DRM/ownership schemes.

Or, you can just steal music from artists by pirating it and swapping it around with your other thieving friends. And I hope every one of you gets busted for it.

The resentment toward Apple for its self-contained system (iTunes + iPod) is infantile. No one forced you to buy a Mac, and iPod, or use iTunes. The conditions were clearly laid out for you and you agreed to them before you began enjoing their usage. If you don't like them, you have only yourself to blame. When you bought your Linux system, were you aware that it was not a Mac? When you picked up that cheap piece-o-crappola mp3 player, were you not aware that it was not, in fact, an iPod?

As far as restrictions go, this latest version, by upping the registered CPUs from 3 to 5 is far LESS restrictive than ever for a consumer and legal owner of music. And if going from 10 to 7 burns with indentical track listings is a problem, you are using the music illegally. How many exact replica back-ups do you need? Giving them away as Christmas presents? Well, praise the Lord, you pirating criminal.

This is all a continuation of the immature, adolescent-minded idea that somehow the average Joe on the street is entitled to listen to every piece of recorded music ever written. Sorry. If you don't want to pay the artist who wrote and recorded the music (either directly or via his agents, i.e., the "evil" record labels), then fine: write your own songs.
 
iLife apps broken

Well, A project with some previous AAC protected soungs are now broken. No warnings or anything. But when I go to preview my iMovie project in iDVD the 10 seconds of sound clip I had are silent now. Go figure.
That is something that needs to be addressed soon by Apple.
That and the fact my G4 tower has a BTC 52X CD R inside of it and iTubes does not like it, and Toast does.
Without any warning, i lost the ability ta take my purchased musci and make a CD for my car.
 
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