PlayFair - Stripping AAC DRM

[Chip NoVaMac]

For all those complaining that iTMS songs are not full quality, one should say that a CD is not full quality either, for once there is frequency limit (everything above ~ 42 000 Hz is lost) and in principal every A/D conversion is lossy, you convert a smooth curve into something made up of steps.

For example, a DAT tape offers a higher frequency limit and therefore a slightly better quality, but you need very expensive equipment to hear the difference.

And a recent post here showed that in most cases AAC is as good as it gets, except in some selected cases.

 

[rdowns]

So if you buy a small car today, you should know that an SUV can cause serious damage or even death with your small car. Then you should be limited in the damages that you receive.

Or that a drug has side effects or may not cure what you have. Or the limitations of medical knowledge might mean that your doctor does not have all the knowledge to make sure you are healthy.

Prosecute the guilty, not the innocent.

Sorry, your analogies are ludicrous.

People chose to buy songs from iTMS under the T&C there. They had the option of not accepting the T&C and not buying. If they bought, they should follow the T&C. What's so hard abou that?

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

I also initially thought that easy removal of DRM would have good benefits for iTMS, but then I looked at the reasoning behind iTMS. Basically by looking at the scenario from Apple's point of view rather than the music buyers point of view, maybe you might change your opinion too.

iTMS is slick and easy to use and heavily invested in, because its sole aim is to convince the public to buy iPods.

It is not in existence to boast that it can channel every single music purchase in the world through its servers at 10 cents profit a pop. There has to be a hardware sale at the end of these music download numbers

Whilst tied into the music industry, iTMS is not in existence to help out the music industry per se, music is a marketing medium to sell iPods

iTMS is not in existence to give consumers a brainless way of downloading music legally just so they can one-click strip its DRM to play iTMS tracks on some competing POS from Dell.

Apple have iTMS as a vehicle to sell hardware, their hardware. If iTMS stops selling Apple hardware, iTMS will disappear in its present form, and the wheels will fall merrily off of this paradigm shift in music distribution until Apple come up with a different way of angling in on audio hardware gadget sales.

I doubt it since iTMS has shown that this is a viable method of music distribution. Record companies may not like since they aren't selling 10 to 20 crap cuts, but singles that we really want. But in the end we are buyting, and they are getting paid.

As long as i don't use this software to pirate the music for others, i should be able to do what I need to to do with music that I bought.

I should add that I bought into iTMS because of the liberal rights provided. I can see as technology changes, and the such that even that is restrictive.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Sorry, your analogies are ludicrous.

People chose to buy songs from iTMS under the T&C there. They had the option of not accepting the T&C and not buying. If they bought, they should follow the T&C. What's so hard abou that?

It is only ludicrous since you and I have our own opinions on this issue.

You may have a point, but if there is software to allow legal users to retain rights beyond the T&C's, then there should be no problem.

Following your thought then since most T&C's for computer software have not spoken about just how long the support the software is for, then I see class actions suits with the changes that Adobe and others are talking about dropping support for older software.

Or maybe the movie industry should only allow for a certain number of viewings of a DVD before the DVD is no longer viewable?

For us legal users, we need direction as to what we are buying, and what technology may provide to users beyond the T&C's. Yes, i bought form iTMS knowing what is what. But secretly I hoped that there would be a program down teh road that would allow me to gain the rights to the music, even if Apple and their publishers don't fully agree. There is something called the fair use doctrine.

 

[coolsoldier]

People chose to buy songs from iTMS under the T&C there. They had the option of not accepting the T&C and not buying. If they bought, they should follow the T&C. What's so hard abou that?

From a practical and/or ethical standpoint, there is no reason to follow the Terms and Conditions. From a legal standpoint, restrictions on what you do to your music privately for your own personal use are not enforceable.

Legal or not, buying music and not following the T&C is an option. In fact, assuming you only use it privately, it's a better option than any of the alternatives, and hurts nobody.

 

[TyWahn]

what key?

What is "the key" that you need? (which some sy can be used in VLC as well)

 

[Stella]

Of course.. you are assuming the country the said person is in has a law similar to DCMA.. otherwise -> f?ck the DCMA, it doesn't apply!

Added:
RE: Region Free DVD players: There are plenty of places I can buy Region Free DVD Players.. I have European DVD, and Region 1 DVDs. Do you really think I'm going to buy the same DVD again for the region I'm in? Of course not - and I shouldn't have to. Its my right to play the DVD whereever in the world I'm in... whatever anyone says

How many of you have flashed your DVD-ROM in order to make it region free?

Doing that violates both traditional copyright law (the firmware you downloaded was a derivative work that was illegally distributed) and the DMCA (circumventing access control).

 

[ryanw]

rename patch

Looks like someone already posted a patch to make it automatically name the files for you. Much needed!

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=105982&atid=642764

 

[iMeowbot]

Of course.. you are assuming the country the said person is in has a law similar to DCMA.. otherwise -> f?ck the DCMA, it doesn't apply!

Yep, and for things like this you're subject to the laws of the country you're in at the moment, not the one you came from.

 

[reorx]

Following your thought then since most T&C's for computer software have not spoken about just how long the support the software is for, then I see class actions suits with the changes that Adobe and others are talking about dropping support for older software.

Unless purchased separately, most software companies do NOT provide long-term support for old software releases. Its moronic to think that they should.

Or maybe the movie industry should only allow for a certain number of viewings of a DVD before the DVD is no longer viewable?

Ever heard of the DIVX fiasco pushed by Circuit City & Co?

 

[appleguru1]

What is "the key" that you need? (which some sy can be used in VLC as well)

Just have your iPod plugged in when you first run the app, and it will get your key for you (and put it in ~/.drms/). Don't have an iPod? If you have a PC or Virtual PC, you can use that to get your key too...

Looks like someone already posted a patch to make it automatically name the files for you. Much needed!

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?gro...982&atid=642764

A friend of mine wrote a perl script that auto-names the files from the originals.. but also batch processes an directory (Recursively no less)... I'll post a link when it's fully done

 

[Swift]

If Music Had Wings

Let's say everybody walks on the ground. At most, some people can hop. Then somebody invents wings. He can actually go sailing through the air for hours, travelling far. No good, they say. He might look down women's blouses. He might be able to give away the positions of armies. And above all, the commercial airlines would be mad at him. Stealing airfares, they'd say.

This is all nonsense. This is no more stealing than it was to tape an album off the radio, or even listen to the radio back when they played a lot of music that was the DJ's choice, not Clear Channel's and the record label's. You've been hypnotized into believing that the enormous extension of copyright in our time is NORMAL, but sharing music is THEFT. Sooner or later, you will wake up.

We should institute mandatory licensing, a tax on blank media, a tax on ISP's, all that. Sharing music over the net is perfectly all right. Look! Somebody has invented wings, and you can fly all the way to India in a few milliseconds. This cannot be wrong. If the law says it is, change the law.

 

[appleguru1]

playfairbatch

Ok.. here's that perl script... First you'll need to have PlayFair installed. Once you do, download and unzip...

http://piewalker.home.comcast.net/playfairbatch.zip

Usage: playfairbatch.pl /input/directory /output/directory

You use this from the terminal.. Just drag the perl script to the terminal, and then drag the folder containing the files you want to process, followed by the folder you want to use as a destination for the .m4a's. The final file name is derived from the source filename.

NOTE: If no input/output directory is specified, it will use your current working directory for both input and output. (So another way to use the app is to cd into the directory where your .m4ps are, and run the script; it will put the output files in that directory as well.) You can also cd /, and run the script. Since it is recursive, it will scan your entire hard drive for .m4ps, and output .m4as for any found on the root of your hard drive.. Just a few ideas

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Unless purchased separately, most software companies do NOT provide long-term support for old software releases. Its moronic to think that they should.



Ever heard of the DIVX fiasco pushed by Circuit City & Co?

One, what i mean by support is being able to run the program, and address issues in running on future OS's (as long as the OS developer offers the capability - like Apple with their "Classic" mode). Not to mention that many T&C's don't truly address this issue at this point.

And with DIVX the consumer voted. Maybe people that feel the way i do about this AAC "rights stripping" software and maybe iTMS could join the likes of consumers that left BetaMax and DIVX behind.

 

[reorx]

Because people will crack Apple's DRM if they don't. It doesn't matter if it's illegal or not or if it's good or bad, it's clear that it happens sooner or later and if they don't want it to happen (for file sharing/RIAA reasons), they have to provide the decoders for all legit applications, thus making the use of their protected songs as painless as possible. Otherwise, it's their own fault if pissed programmers develop DRM stripping solutions that work painlessly even for the general public.

Also, IMO, they would make more profits if they opened the ipod and their music format. If their music store offers such a great shopping experience, they can sell their songs anyway, if the iPod is the best player, they can sell it with or without having a good music store... but only if the formats are open. The way they are going now is dangerous and only hurts their sales. No product will ever please everybody. The iTunes Store-iPod package deal combines the flaws of the individual products which puts off those customers who would buy songs or iPods from Apple if they could combine them with different software/hardware. It might not be that big of a problem as long as the iPod is clearly superior, but things will change and Apple is about to make the same old mistake again because they never learn.

Apple isn't forcing you to use their music store, because its the ONLY distribution mechanism out there. If you want the most unrestricted rights to some form of recorded music, you can go to the music store and buy the CD.

The iPod already supports all the "open" formats available. WMA is not an open format.

I think this has been said before: Apple is hardware company that uses its software prowess to sell its goods. They operate the way they do, because its the only way to remain viable in a Wal-Mart economy. They make good products and sell them for the price the market will bear. They are NOT about to dive into an hardware market without a great, abeit proprietary product, because they are smartly not going to play "loss-leader" game... You the consumer have a choice, which is a damn good thing.

 

[jxyama]

To which jxyama replied:



jxyama, I think you may misunderstand what xhost_plus said. With Toast you can go directly from your (own) protected AAC files to AIFF __WITHOUT__ burning a CD. iTunes requires that you burn an intermediate CD.

gotcha. dang! thanks for the info!

 

[pEZ]

I refuse to argue whether or not stripping the DRM is legal or not, because it's only going to end in either a moral issue or a flame war - I have my own opinion, and for this post I'll keep it to myself.

At any rate, I fail to recognize how anyone could possibly see this as being a good thing for Apple. In every way, this program violates the agreements between the Recording Industry and Apple, and as soon as everyone's lawyers catch wind of this, suddenly we'll be greeted by a friendly, trite message saying "The iTunes Music Store is currently down due to technical difficulties beyond our control."

BAD. REALLY BAD. Sure, I'm overreacting, but I know I'm not alone here. If the iTunes store is down, there are lots of other choices out there for people to download individual songs, regardless of whether they play on their iPods or Dell DJs or whatever-the-gizmo. Not that I'm saying I'll have a choice, I only have a Mac and I only have an iPod and I will only purchase individual songs from the iTunes Music Store.

But thank goodness this happened after the Pepsi Promotion ended. I can only imagine the carnage. I leave you with a quote from Sports Night:

"But tomorrow, the sky's gonna fall down on both of us."

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Apple isn't forcing you to use their music store, because its the ONLY distribution mechanism out there. If you want the most unrestricted rights to some form of recorded music, you can go to the music store and buy the CD.

The iPod already supports all the "open" formats available. WMA is not an open format.

I think this has been said before: Apple is hardware company that uses its software prowess to sell its goods. They operate the way they do, because its the only way to remain viable in a Wal-Mart economy. They make good products and sell them for the price the market will bear. They are NOT about to dive into an hardware market without a great, abeit proprietary product, because they are smartly not going to play "loss-leader" game... You the consumer have a choice, which is a damn good thing.

\

To a degree I agree with the previous poster to yours comments.

As much as I dislike "Big Brother" I should be able to go to Apple and request further rights based on my own situation without additional cost.

Current situations have shown that there "protection" methods that do work quite well. Why treat us all as criminals, as opposed to looking at us as individuals that are not out to rip`off the system.

 

[reorx]

One, what i mean by support is being able to run the program, and address issues in running on future OS's.

And with DIVX the consumer voted. Maybe people that feel the way i do about this software and maybe iTMS could join the likes of BetaMax and DIVX,

As a person who writes software for a living, I have to disagree about supporting "future" OS's. If I write a piece of software for a particular platform, specifiying which operating systems I support, I in no way imply that the software will run on any operating system than the ones it was written for. If a new version of whatever OS there is comes out, and said it was 100% compatible, it still does not mean I will support that OS. End of story.

I still hear people whine and complain that PC software they purchased for "Win95" won't work on XP, even with the compatibility flags correctly set... Sorry, consumer beware...

Yes, Apple will eventually lose this market to the clones, just like they lost the desktop market to Windows "clones" of the Mac UI back in the early days of the personal computer. As an innovative company, that is the price of doing business in this free market. Sometimes they are so ahead of their time time that its silly: NeXT and Newton being two shining examples of future successful ideas. At least Apple was smart enough to re-introduce one of them...

 

[reorx]

\

To a degree I agree with the previous poster to yours comments.

As much as I dislike "Big Brother" I should be able to go to Apple and request further rights based on my own situation without additional cost.

Current situations have shown that there "protection" methods that do work quite well. Why treat us all as criminals, as opposed to looking at us as individuals that are not out to rip`off the system.

No, you don't have a right to additional "rights" at no additional cost. Music, like Movies, Books, Software and Art is intellectual property. The rights that are established for the given medium are exactly stated. Per medium. You can't go to a book publisher and request additional copies of a book or magazine because you want an extra copy in your car, or get an extra copy of Photoshop for your Windows box, or an extra Renoir for the study. Fortunately for some of these artists/developers, its difficult to copy their end-product. Books, art and sofware (thanks to copy-protection schemes), are difficult to duplicate. For music and movies, the situation is not as good. Anyone and their aunt and uncle with a PC can perfectly copy the entire contents of your work without any loss in quality, thus making pirating way too convenient and casual. If there had been some kind of protection scheme in place, ANY kind, it would have deterred the casual theft of these works. As it were, most people had NO idea it was actually harmful or illegal to digitally copy music and give it away because it was so easy...

Ask yourself this: Why do you have a lock on your house and car? Do these prevent people from breaking in if they REALLY want to? There has to be SOME limit, and SOME reminder that you have limits.

 

[xparrot]

Okay, I need to be spoon-fed

As I wrote early on on this forum. The terminal scares the heck out of me. I would very much like to use this program to open my library up to my Tivo.

I followed the instructions below and got a "Permission denied." response.

I need some serious hand holding through this. What am I doing wrong?

_kirk

In any case.. to compile this application, download it and untar/gz it (Stuffit works fine for this..). Then open up the terminal and type (Without quotes):

"cd " (Note the trailing space)

and drag the decompressed directory to the terminal window (the playfair-0.2 folder)

Press return.

Type "./configure"

Press return.

When its done, type "make", and hit return...

When that's done.. type "sudo make install", return... and then enter your admin password at the prompt; return...

After that completes, you have successfully compiled the app.. as for using it, I'll give a report in a few to see if/how well it works...

 

[ryanw]

FYI, This app breaks all your songs.

This should calm everyone down. If you try the tool on protected purchased files, the resulting file crashes quicktime and iTunes. Of course it doesn't screwup any files you just imported from CD's... it'll read them and output files, but using this to create DRM'less purchased files just results in crashing apps.

It might be fixable in the future, but I wouldn't go and converting all your files using the batch scripts to convert all your files using this tool.

 

[nagromme]

Re-ripping does NOT mean quality loss

I'd just like to clear up a little misunderstanding I see a lot.

Burning songs to CD and then re-ripping them can be done with ZERO quality loss.

No quality was lost when the compressed song went to uncompressed CD. And no quality is lost ripping BACK to computer either, as long as you choose a LOSSLESS format like uncompressed AIFF or WAV. Which WILL work in portable players.

So the real issue with re-ripping is that it makes you CHOOSE between quality and file size.

If you're one of the ones who can truly tell, blind, that a track has been re-ripped, then you may wish to re-rip to WAV and dodge the issue. Don't forget that option

 

[bangy]

As I wrote early on on this forum. The terminal scares the heck out of me. I would very much like to use this program to open my library up to my Tivo.

I followed the instructions below and got a "Permission denied." response.

I need some serious hand holding through this. What am I doing wrong?

_kirk

your password doesn't work because it is asking for your root password which is disabled by default in osx (you can screw your computer up pretty bad logged in as root if you're not careful). here's a good site that'll help you set up your root password.

http://www.tenon.com/support/itools6/osx/root_user/

once you have your root password do the "sudo make install" command again and use that password when prompted. type "exit" to logout of your root account.

 

[ZildjianKX]

This should calm everyone down. If you try the tool on protected purchased files, the resulting file crashes quicktime and iTunes. Of course it doesn't screwup any files you just imported from CD's... it'll read them and output files, but using this to create DRM'less purchased files just results in crashing apps.

It might be fixable in the future, but I wouldn't go and converting all your files using the batch scripts to convert all your files using this tool.

I got the same result, the files I converted crashed iTunes and quicktime... anyone else get similar results?