iTunes Music Store DRM sucks after all... QtFairUse for OSX please

[AhmedFaisal]

While at first I was very critical of the QtFairUse hack under WinBlows I am starting to see the point of it. Owning a growing collection of iTunes Music Store files I recently decided to buy this nifty little streaming tool for my stereo system since hooking up a Mac too it directly was not what I wanted to do:

http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/index.php

Problem is, it can't play iTunes Music Store files because of the DRM....ARRGHHHH!! While I have not problem with the DRM otherwise its limitations on streaming are friggin annoying. The Roku Player is a streaming device so I doesn't store the files locally, this IMHO should be allowed on a local network, even with another Mac, someone should be able to simply listen to my Music Store music, but not be able to copy it to his comp. Unless Apple fixes that I will have to use QtFairUse to remove the DRM.... much to my displeasure and even more to my displeasure I have to use a PC for that...... Its time someone ported it to OSX!
Cheers,

Ahmed

 

[ftaok]

Why don't you send e-mails to this company and lobby for them to license the FairPlay DRM from Apple? It seems that this device is already capable of playing AAC's. It just needs to accomodate the DRM.

 

[jxyama]

burn audio cd then re-rip for now...

yeah, too bad, but apple had to give a little to the record companies and with the convenience of downloading comes some restrictions - unfortunately for you, restrictions that's giving you some major headaches.

 

[AhmedFaisal]

burn audio cd then re-rip for now...

yeah, too bad, but apple had to give a little to the record companies and with the convenience of downloading comes some restrictions - unfortunately for you, restrictions that's giving you some major headaches.

That would mean a loss in quality. The advantage of QtFairUse is that it doesn't require reencoding. All it does is remove the DRM wrapper from the raw AAC stream, then you use a prog like MP4GUI to add a new wrapper that doesn't have DRM, no reencode, no loss in quality.
Cheers,

Ahmed

 

[jxyama]

That would mean a loss in quality. The advantage of QtFairUse is that it doesn't require reencoding. All it does is remove the DRM wrapper from the raw AAC stream, then you use a prog like MP4GUI to add a new wrapper that doesn't have DRM, no reencode, no loss in quality.
Cheers,

Ahmed

i know you lose quality. i was just suggesting a (hopefully) temporary work around that will not involve explicitly circumventing the DRM.

 

[frank5050]

<snip> I recently decided to buy this nifty little streaming tool for my stereo system since hooking up a Mac too it directly was not what I wanted to do:

http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/index.php

Problem is, it can't play iTunes Music Store files because of the DRM....ARRGHHHH!! <snip>

This problem is irritating to me too, for now I simply re-encode iTMS files with Lame encoder (no need to burn a CD and re-rip). I then label these files with an additional character on the album tag so I can tell which version is 2nd generation. I play the original iTMS file when at computer and the 2nd gen file through streaming devices.

I know, I know, there's a loss of quality with re-encoding, this is simply what I do to solve the problem for now without going to the trouble of using QTfairuse or other methods. Using the Lame -alt-extreme settings makes a 2nd gen file that is acceptable for my uses though.

Which leads me to a question for you: have you actually received the Rokulabs player yet? I see they're still listed as pre-order and haven't heard of anyone who actually has one yet.

The developers of the open-source server software that powers the Rokulabs devices (as well as others) are well aware of this DRM issue. Perhaps the open source nature of the server software is the main factor why protected AAC file smay never be streamed through these type devices?

Frank

 

[RokuPatrick]

We have inquired about playing iTMS-purchased songs. As far as I know, no third-party is yet playing these files legitimately. As soon as Apple will allow it, we plan to do it.

Patrick
Senior Software Engineer, Roku

 

[7on]

If you're buying off of iTMS, it's not superb quality anyways, and you wouldn't notice anything that's not there. iMovie, Toast, and QTConvert (Versiontracker) will all remove DRM from iTMS tracks. iMovie and Toast will convert to AIFF (toast batch converts) and QTConvert converts .m4p - .mov (re-namable to .m4a)

 

[peterj1967]

Rumor Spreading..

Well, if you believe the rumor mill, I would say that Apple is not letting third party developers stream FairPlay protected files because Apple intends to create its own "Home Appliance" hardware and it will be the only one that can play iTunes Music store files.

Time will tell.....

We have inquired about playing iTMS-purchased songs. As far as I know, no third-party is yet playing these files legitimately. As soon as Apple will allow it, we plan to do it.

Patrick
Senior Software Engineer, Roku

 

[ftaok]

Well, if you believe the rumor mill, I would say that Apple is not letting third party developers stream FairPlay protected files because Apple intends to create its own "Home Appliance" hardware and it will be the only one that can play iTunes Music store files.

Time will tell.....

I thought that as well, but I've never heard of any company trying to obtain a license. This Roku guy was the first I had heard.

If Apple does intend to shut other companies out of Fairplay, they better be careful. They might be accused of abusing their monopoly. Wouldn't that be ironic.