PlayFair Pulled Due to DMCA Request

doubleacr writes "MacSlash is reporting that PlayFair has been removed from SourceForge.net. Didn't see that one coming." We posted about PlayFair on Monday. SourceForge.net received a DMCA complaint from Apple on Thursday, claiming PlayFair is in violation of the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA, section 1201(a)(2). As per SourceForge.net policy, the project has been disabled. Should the project managers file a counterclaim, the project could be restored. SourceForge.net is owned by OSDN, the parent company of Slashdot.

Project still available elsewhere.....

The project has been moved here:

http://sarovar.org/projects/playfair/ [sarovar.org]

Though nothing has yet been posted to it, the author posted on MacSlash that the C&D order from Apple will be posted - and will be continued as long as there is no violation of Indian law.

Re:Project still available elsewhere.....

Thought this might happen, so I checked out a copy from CVS when the original story was posted. The tarball can be found at:

http://saintaardvarktehcarpeted.com/mirror/playfai r.tgz [saintaardv...rpeted.com]

Keep in mind that all you have is my word that nothing's been changed (nothing has, but that doesn't mean you should trust me). I'm open to suggestions about verification (md5s of original files, maybe?).

Re:Project still available elsewhere.....

They are not illegal if you live outside the US.

Re:Project still available elsewhere.....

Or how about you just learn to tolerate an alternative fucking viewpoint, huh, chuckles?

Not everybody wants to bask in your Open Source Society. Some of us are here for the money.

Re:Project still available elsewhere.....

From a macslash post:

I am the playfair author. Yes, it was a C&D from Apple. The kind folks at sarovar.org have agreed to host the project, as it does not violate any Indian laws. The C&D from Apple will be posted to the website when it's back up at

sarovar.org [sarovar.org].

To clarify:

1. The DRMS code was written by VLC folks. I just used their code and two libaries (mp4ff and mp4v2) to create a nice, easy-to-use program. I did NOT reverse-engineer FairPlay.
2. I think $0.99 is a fair price, too. I just (a) philosophically disagree with DRM and (b) want to be able to play the songs that I have legally purchased outside of iTunes / Quicktime. For the record, I do not use P2P networks to share files illegally.
3. The DMCA is an abomination. Please write your congresspeople and ask them to repeal it.

Re:Project still available elsewhere.....

Such as where? If there was alternate service, you may have a point. Is there?

Um... a CD, perhaps? We're talking about obtaining music to listen to and use as he sees fit. All iTunes offers are DRM-tied AAC files, which obviously isn't what he wanted. He wanted the price, but not the terms, which is a breach of contract* by any definition.

* Yes, I'm still making the leap that authorizing payment implies agreement with the Terms of Service and therefore a contractual agreement. It's the same legally as when you buy something off the 'Final Sale - no return' rack. Or buying anything at Best Buy agrees to their Return restrictions that are printed on the wall. Maybe even more so, since you could reasonably claim you didn't see them if you have bad vision and the sales person mentioned them.

Re:Project still available elsewhere.....

The project has been off-shored.

Apple making the same dumb mistakes.

By trying to sue something off the Internet, you only ensure its wider propagation and interest among people who otherwise wouldn't have cared. I'll be sharing a tarball on eMule immediately. Come and sue everybody, Apple.

Oh come on.

Give me a break, you speak as if they have a reasonable alternative. If Apple doesn't go after these people, you know that the recording industry is going to throw a conniption fit.

Re:Oh come on.

Is a lawsuit a "conniption fit?"

Because a nice, juicy negligent breach of contract is surely brewing if Apple doesn't put it's foot squarely in the ass of PlayFair. It's be the same even without the DMCA -- if I sell you a security system, and somebody posts the backdoor password, I'd be in a world of shit if I didn't try my hardest to make it better.

Remember deCSS?

The parent has a good point. Apple should have looked at the example set by deCSS.

Before the MPAA started harassing "DVD-Jon" and DMCA-ing everyone who so much as mentioned the name deCSS in public; only a small handful of linux nerds had even heard of the thing, much less built and compiled it into media players for their own machines. No big deal. It was just a toy for extreme hobbyists.

After the MPAA tried to take deCSS out, every self-righteous geek on the 'net made sure to get a copy. And many of them made it their mission to spread it further, and more mirrors than I could guess popped up. Somewhere *I* still have a copy of deCSS embedded into a webpage banner in some way that I don't even remember how to extract it.

So what was PlayFair before Apple DMCA'd sourceforge? Another cute toy that was only of any use to someone who had already BOUGHT the song from ITMS in the first place. It's not like anybody hacked a backdoor into ITMS itself and made the entire library free to the 'net. Now, there are half a dozen mirrors in this /. article alone. And more are coming. And no doubt that work on PlayFair will continue, with much-increased enthusiasm once it is hosted somewhere outside US borders.

It reminds me of a Douglas Adams quote.... about how while humans are unique in being the only species capable of learning from the mistakes of others, we are remarkably disinclined to actually do so.

cya,
john

Re:Remember deCSS?

only a small handful of linux nerds had even heard of the thing,

False. DVD-Jon's warez palz had built a Windows-based GUI ripper program long before the Linux community was aware of the software.

The Windows Rip & Pirate community was up and running and distributing thousands of movies over P2P before Linux even got DVD filesystem support, much less a working player.

Where do you think the pressure is coming from...

I honestly don't know, but I would imagine that Apple is concerned about this not because they want to make sure everything stays locked up for the sake of being locked up, but probably because they don't want the RIAA to yank their licenses and cause all of the iTMS to come crashing down.

Sure, you can make all the standard black helicopter and tinfoil hat jokes, but I really don't see how Apple would care about this, save the ramifications for keeping an amicable relationship with the RIAA pigopolists.

While the DMCA is a horrible piece of legislation, a business would not be doing their shareholders a favor if they didn't use it to protect their business. This is a standard move, everyone saw it coming; and to say that it is a dumb mistake is a bit myopic.

To do nothing would be a bigger mistake for Apple, for entirely different reasons.

Re:Where do you think the pressure is coming from.

I'd like to think that Apple is doing this reluctantly, but they've used the threat of litigation against individuals and small organizations too many times in the past to give them the benefit of the doubt. They're like a smaller version of Microsoft--just as evil, but with style and with better PR.

Re:Apple making the same dumb mistakes.

Hardware based solutions will:

• not be accepted in the marketplace--information moves too fast for even today's sheep-like consumers to be fooled that easily
• be cracked anyway

The industry is still making billions of dollars a year selling Red Book CDs with no DRM. But they want to move towards a pay per play model with DRM. And I'm the prick?

Re:You're the prick

I've written my Congressman on the appealation of the DMCA, I've gone to open forum talks and brought the subject up, so don't talk to me about bellyaching.

I've done my part in promoting fair use in as much as I can. I'm anti DMCA, just as a good SlashThinker should be.

Using the software that Apple provides means you agree to the terms that usage provides. Don't like it, don't use it, but SURE AS HELL don't ruin it for people who agree with it and accept it in it's current form because you can't play it on every device you own.

Find an alternative, but don't ruin what I find is the fairest, most reasonable DRM to exist on the market.

There is a GPL comparison found later in this discussion which I love completely, and will reiterate here.

What would be said by the OSS community if someone decided they were going to use GPL'd software outside of it's license "because they didn't agree with it," but still wanted the benefit of using it. You'd all be up in arms. I'd be up in arms.

I think I've made my point.

Re:They're not playing fair...

Just to play devils advocate, it's not as if people who bought their music from Apple weren't aware of the "limitations" of it's use. If they were, then it's no one's fault but their own.

Re:They're not playing fair...

We are allowing for bad precedents to be set. The more we allow to slip out the more we will lose. Are we going to allow shrink-wrap EULAs on CDs when we open them now? "This CD is the only medium you can listen to this music on. You may not encode, rip, record via analog, etc"?

Re:They're not playing fair...

And FairPlay is the main reason I never signed up for the iTunes store. I have 4 PC's at home alone, and one PC at work - what, I can only play the songs I purchase on 3 of them? Sorry, but that's BS.

And the counterargument that gets made to comments like yours is that you can burn the tracks to a CD and play it anywhere. You can even re-rip it and listen to the tracks DRM free on 1,000 PCs if you have them.

The counterargument to my counterargument is that by burning & re-ripping you are losing quality, but the counterargument to this counterargument of my counterargument is that if you were enough of an audiophile to care about this, you wouldn't be buying 128K mp4s from iTMS anyway.

Re:They're not playing fair...

"play their music"

No, it's not "your music." You have certain limitations on what you can do with it, like it or not, because you bought it from Apple with those limitations. Don't like it? Don't buy it from them.

I don't like what Apple did (with this lawsuit), but changing the facts to suit your argument doesn't do you any good.

Re:They're not playing fair...

"play their music"

No, it's not "your music."

It's our music. All of us. The record companies just have it on loan for the duration of their copyright, which, unfortunately for us, keeps getting extended.

Re:They're not playing fair...

How do you figure? The music really belongs to the person who created it, regardless of copyrights or anything else.

Does Jules Verne own "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"? Do we have to negotiate payments with Mark Twain's estate to get a copy of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"? Who do we bestow ownership of Beowulf to?

The fact is, these works are in the Public Domain. Nobody owns them. Although, where possible, they are attributed to their authors.

You discard copyright rather quickly. However, the concept of owning a creative work (rather than the physical representation of that work, such as an actual book) come entirely from copyright. Copyright is a grant by government to a work's creater. It gives them a (in theory) limited time to capitalize on their work though exclusive control over that work. Eventually, this grant runs its course and the work enters the public domain.

There is no ownership of ideas.

Compare this to physical property. The origional manuscript for "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" could still be owned by Mark Twain past the length of his copyright on the work represented by that physical manuscript. Furthermore, that property could have been passed on to his estate or sold. The actual manuscript never becomes public property unless it is specificly sold or donated to a public library (government seizure aside).

Re:They're not playing fair...

After the copyrights lapse on all the music that Apple offers, then you can break the encryption and fuck with the songs all you want.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't one of the principal reasons against the DMCA that this is not correct? You are not allowed to circumvent copy-protection schemes, period. Whether the protected work is copyrighted or part of the public domain is irrelevant. E.g., if someone were to sell a CD of PD works, say, from Project Gutenberg and used some trivial copy protection on it, you wouldn't be allowed to copy the CD.

Re:They're not playing fair...

It's not so black and white. On the one hand, you are licensed the music under an agreement, so they are free to use technological measures to effect that agreement. However, legally they can only do that to the extent allowed by copyright law: copyright law allows fair use, so you are allowed to make fair use. Such a program enables you to make fair use (as much as looping an analog cable from your speaker back into the mic does as well), but of course it also enables you to do other things that violate the license agreement -- and this fine line is the important one.

The same goes for dual VCR's which were opposed when initially marketed, but couldn't be suppressed because although they could be used to do wrong, they can also be used to do right: and the courts can't allow the device to be suppressed just for this reason, otherwise they'd be able to suppress knives and all sorts of things that have dangerous uses.

Something like PlayFair would make a fantastic test case to see how the courts draw the line between the users right to effect some means for fair use, because it's a large debate at the moment about how technological measures suppress legitimate fair use, and there's surely a fine line between the DMCA rights management provisions and the allowance for fair use that we need some enlightened opinion on - until we get that opinion we have so much FUD.

Re:They're not playing fair...

You've got two forces operating here, and they're not necessarily the same shit.

Copyright law gives you fair use of the audio. Which you have. Burn it on a CD, use it to your heart's content. It's yours. There's not even any copy prot on the disc.

However, the AAC file itself it not audio. It's an encrypted data representation of audio -- but it doesn't become audio until you decrypt it. And the encryption is protected under the DMCA. Say what you will about the DMCA, it's the law, and breaking it is not guaranteed by copyright law any more than owning a copy of the White Album gives you the right to the original magnetic tapes it was recorded on.

After all, the artist didn't make the AAC file. They made audio. Apple made the AAC file, and sold you the rights to make CDs with it.

Re:They're not playing fair...

Apple created a piece of software that doesn't allow people to play the music their paid for on the devices of their choice.

It's also clearly stated what these limitations are ahead of time. Last I knew, you could burn any song you bought from Apple onto a music CD, and play that. Or rerip that back to an MP3 to put on device X.

Oh, wait, the quality goes down, right? Well, explain what device it is that has AAC audio playback capabilities? There are very few beyond the iPod, so having the raw AAC does most people very little good, since it would still have to be transcoded into another format.

I don't like the idea of DRM and the DMCA much, but the print on the front door was pretty clear. Don't like it? Don't shop there and instead go buy a CD.

Re:They're not playing fair...

Here's a list [audiocoding.com] of hardware AAC players. There's a lot more of them that you think.

Re:They're not playing fair...

No, it's not fair use. When you buy music from Apple you are buying it under a specific contract and by buying it you are accepting the terms of that contract which limits the use of the music. Don't like the terms, don't get it from Apple.

Flip this around and imagine that I decide to circumvent the GPL by taking a piece of GPL software and using its source in piece of closed source commercial software. Wouldn't like that now, would you?

Now imagine that the I cry "fair use" (i.e. I didn't like this nasty GPL license so I decide to circumvent it). Doesn't sound so good, huh?

John.

Re:They're not playing fair...

If I don't distribute the results, I can do whatever the hell I want with the code, and be completely within my GPL license. How is this difference from me breaking my Apple files free so I can listen to them on an MP3 player when I jog? My wife buys plenty of music from the iTunes website and we have no iPod for portability, and no desire to spend $200+ to get one. As long as she's not distributing the music once ripped, it IS fair use.

GPL/fair use comparison

Flip this around and imagine that I decide to circumvent the GPL by taking a piece of GPL software and using its source in piece of closed source commercial software. Wouldn't like that now, would you?

This is a really interesting comment. You're drawing a comparison between the people who wrote the GPL and the people who wrote the iTMS contract, which is not something I've seen before.

But it makes sense. Whether you're drawing a contract to protect intellectual property or protect *distribution* of intellectual property, in either case you are deliberately writing a contract that protects some actions and prohibits other actions.

The GPL was developed based on the notion that software is essentially a form of speech, and so should be free. In order to protect this freedom, the GPL dictates that modifications to GPLed software must also be made under the GPL.

The iTMS contract was developed based on the notion that in order for digital music to prosper, there must be limits on how widely a given purchased download can be distributed, so that the music's copyright holders can make a return on their investment. Without the profit motive for the copyright holders, the music won't be put on the iTMS, and Apple won't be making money.

In both cases, restrictions are placed in the license to further the end goal. Attempts to circumvent the license by definition negate the end goal. If the GPL were repeatedly circumvented, the *implementation* of Free Software would be crippled as well. The same is true of the iTMS.

You can't expect that if you change the rules of the game so you can enjoy benefits beyond those you agreed to at the time of purchase, Apple is somehow going to continue to provide the very tools that you hacked. This is quite similar to what would happen if Microsoft took all of the GNU tools, changed them slightly, and released their own Free Windows OS. Everyone on Slashdot would be crying bloody murder, because the value of GPLed software would be denigrated by Microsoft's circumventing of the GPL contract.

Re:GPL/fair use comparison

But it makes sense. Whether you're drawing a contract to protect intellectual property or protect *distribution* of intellectual property, in either case you are deliberately writing a contract that protects some actions and prohibits other actions.

No, it doesn't make sense. Is it really so hard to see that the two are not comparable at all?

Here is why these are completely different: the iTMS agrement is a contract, the GPL is a license. Contracts are based on contract law, and the GPL is based on Copyright law. You can check Groklaw for a decent explanation of the GPL: see the "Copyright and the GPL" section" [groklaw.net].

Further more, the GPL is a license which grants you rights above and beyond what the law grants you (fair use rights are part of copyright law). The iTMS agreement (and DRM in general) restricts your rights to fewer than granted by fair use. This is why EULAs and such are controversial, and may not really be enforcable.

Re:They're not playing fair...

But therein lies the problem of the DMCA... True "Fair Use" becomes criminal.

Strange thing is, this program just quickens what one could already do. I could very easily burn my MP4's to CD, then rip back to MP4 and (if done right) there will be little or no loss. But the bottom line is that PlayFair reaches an ends equal to what one could do with iTunes.

Are CDs and digital downloads the same?

Buy a CD. Rip the songs. Do with them as you please. But is it reasonable to expect that you can have full fair use while simultaneously reaping the major benefits of digital distribution?

A large part of what you're paying for when you buy songs from the iTMS is the payoff Apple has to give to the music industry just so they'll allow Apple to use such lax DRM.

I think that with any music I purchase online, I should be able to make multiple copies on multiple computers, my iPod, and so on. In a perfect world I'd be able to do that right now.

But realistically, what I'm paying for when I buy songs from the iTMS is convenience. I can find songs I want, listen to clips of songs I haven't heard, and satisfy my craving for some long-forgotten song in a matter of moments. I don't have to get in my car, drive to the store, and buy a full album just to hear the one song I actually want.

So the iTMS is giving me a totally new option. I'm paying for the convenience of a new shopping experience. Because I'm able to buy music in a fashion that suits my individual preferences (I've probably purchased more music from the iTMS in the last six months than I did at music stores in the last six years), I'm willing to make a compromise with Apple: You make it ludicrously easy for me to obtain, organize and manage my music, and I'll forgo full fair use in favor of limited DRM.

People who say that digital music shouldn't have DRM are right. But I'd argue that in this case, the medium truly is the message. Apple has come up with the first truly viable means of legally purchasing music online. When I started using the iTMS it radically changed my music purchasing and listening habits. So I ask myself, how is Apple screwing me?

In particular, how is Apple screwing me when I agreed to the terms of the contract, which are based on the fact that online distribution is quite different than physical distribution of music?

People talk about the music industry being unwilling to change, but at the same time they want more benefits from digital music without being willing to compromise in the slightest.

It sounds like a triumph of ideology over practicality to me.

T-Shirts coming soon

> PlayFair has been removed from SourceForge.net.

Oh good, should I order my T-shirts now?

Lest we forget...

Once a file's made it to the internet, it's always going to be available. Undergroud websites, file sharing, Usenet groups...it's still available. It's just become a bit harder to find.

In this case, though, that's a moot point, seeing as it's been rehosted. Oh well.

Bring on the poems and prime numbers!

It's that time again... Seems like people would eventually get the point that programs are free speech. I can't wait to see the poems and prime numbers that get produced for this (remniscent of DeCSS).

Bad weekend to be a Mac user

*runs and hides*

Apple has no right

Unless you mean the music publishing company. Which of Apple Computer's copyrighted works, does PlayFair remove the protection from?

Re:Foot - Aim - Shoot!

I'm very pleased with it. I get ALL my purchased music from it.

Maybe you should take a look at

this [arstechnica.com]. Everyone knew it wasn't going to last, but I'm shocked at how quickly the music industry has changed their minds on on-line pricing.

Here's a clue for you...

It's not about piracy.

All one has to do to "unprotect" the files is have a player that unlocks them and a high-fidelity digitizer (you know, something like an Audigy card or pod...) to record it with. The loss is not going to be noticeable (i.e. even AAC inserts worse loss than this process does in the first place...) and as long as you use AAC or something that doesn't distort the results appreciably worse, you win.

All this program does is make it easy for a legitimate user to shift it into other formats for their own use. They don't want you to do that. They want you to pay for the CD, the AAC/MP3, and any other format you want to use. In all honesty, they want you to pay for each time you listen to it, but they've not figured out how to do that without drawing too much attention to their damn greed.

If anyone needs a break, it's me- I'm tired of hearing about piracy when it's not about friggin' piracy. Get it in your head about that. They lose FAR more to real IP pirates in Asia where they crank it out by the tons in spite of the protections these jokers keep adding. Why in the hell don't they go shut those SOB's down first? It's because the "public" is an easier target and provides for nice, nifty laws bought with their money that give them all the advantages and the consumers nothing in return.

Re:Foot - Aim - Shoot!

I agree 100%, and would like to add - it's not like you can't burn those AAC's to CD. Hell, with all the iTunes songs I keep winning from Pepsi ... for some reason ... I just go to my neighbor and have him burn the songs I want to CD-RW. He gets to keep the songs, I can make mp3s, and I don't even have to waste a CD.

If you're running a public [something]Forge...

...you need to have a Terms of Service to deal with junx like this. We've got one on RubyForge [rubyforge.org] just in case...

What/who is sarovar.org

Sarovar.org is India's first portal to host projects under Free/Open source licenses. It is located in Trivandrum, India and hosted at Asianet data center [asianet.co.in]. Sarovar.org is customised, installed and maintained by Linuxense [linuxense.com] as part of their community services and sponsored by River Valley Technologies [river-valley.com]

Sarovar is hosted on a Compaq box running Debian woody and GForge.

(34,266) PSTricks Tutorial
(5,855) PDFscreen
(5,693) LaTeX Primer
(3,965) PDFslide
(3,675) PDFtricks
(2,087) Draft Copy for PDFTeX
(1,504) JavaDBF
(1,256) TeXLive
(966) Swathantra Malayalam Computing
(802) CVSPermissions - An ACL tool for CVS

Hosted Projects: 126
Registered Users: 659

Re:What/who is sarovar.org

Thus begins the stampede of technological innovation to environments where freedom is celebrated, rather than crushed.

Re:What/who is sarovar.org

Holy crap. They really did it. They managed to outsource open source.

Re:WHY WHY WHY

When apple releases software for me to play my purchased iTunes songs on my linux box at work, then I will stop using Playfair. Until then, I will have to continue using it if I want to play the stuff on my linux box.

Think about it, almost all of the DMCA violations that have happened recently are the result of companies not making a DRM solution for the particular platform that people want to use their media on, so someone cracks it.

As others have stated, playfair probably won't contribute much, if any to piracy at all. You have to have the key for the music you are de-drm'ing, which means you've purchased it. If someone releases it on the net, big deal, it's already out there in higher quality mp3 and vorbis formats. If I wanted to spend the time searching for the music to get it for free, I would. But it's more worth my time to pay 99 cents for each track I'm looking for. I avoid getting tracked down by RIAA and sued, and I know that I'm getting a reasonable copy of it.

Re:WHY WHY WHY

99 cents? Cheap?

So let's download something like, oh, Manson's _Golden Age of Grotesque_. It costs us $14.95 and downloads in a few minutes (since we're already paying $50 for broadband).

What do we get? 15 non-cohesive, DRM-encrypted, lossy-encoded AAC files that are illegal to play outside of iTunes or an iPod. But, of course, we can burn it.

So let's do just that. It's been awhile since I've bought CD-Rs with jewel cases, but last time I did, they were about 60 cents each. Our total is now $15.55.

We want liner notes, of course, since we want to know who's playing which songs, and so we can read any difficult-to-understand lyrics. And the pictures are pretty cool, too. I figure it'd cost another $3 in raw materials for me to print this stuff out on my inkjet, and an additional $2 to have it laminated so that it's at least waterproof like a real CD. And since Apple doesn't have anything like a PDF file for me to work from, it also costs me a few hours of my time to research, assemble, set, and print this stuff. Being conservative, let's say 5 hours at a modest $12 per hour.

We're now up to $80.55 in just time and materials, and we don't even have a label for the fucking CD yet.

Amazon sells this CD [amazon.com] for $14.99, with free shipping. It's even cheaper than that at the large, local music store downtown, and I can walk there from here. Comes with jewel case, glossy liner notes, a screen-printed universally-playable CD with unencrypted, unprotected, uncompressed 16/44.1 stereo audio just like the mastering engineer heard. Takes a but a few minutes to rip to MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, OGG, MPG, or whatever your particular fancy is. And the folks at Gracenote, freedb, or MusicBrainz will gladly fill in the id3 tags for you, negating any severe production time from the format conversion.

Are you sure iTMS is cheaper?

Mantra when writing this sort of software

Mirror early, mirror often!

Test Case?

Unfortunately, I am not a lawyer, nor do I have the disposable income to pay for one.

However, this looks to me like a(nother) possible test case of the DMCA.

What makes this case attractive is that, to my understanding, PlayFair works WITHIN the accepted norms of society for copyright law (if you don't have a key from iTunes showing you bought the song, it won't convert the audio).

It is a law that is OUTSIDE the accepted norms of society that is causing the problem here.

I googled EFF.org for "playfair" and didn't have any returns of relevance.

Is the EFF involved in this case, or are they even aware of it?

- Neil Wehneman

P.S. I've mentioned this in previous [slashdot.org] posts [slashdot.org], but I'll mention it again here because it's relevant.

Dr. Larry Lessig, who argued "our side" in Eldred v. Ashcroft, has put up his new book Free Culture under a Creative Commons license. Noncommercial redistribution with attribution is freely allowed.

Download [free-culture.org] the PDF or buy it [free-culture.org] and support Creative Commons in the process.

Playfair torrent

I haven't gotten a DMCA takedown notice in the last week or so, so here is a torrent for everyone to enjoy:

http://www.isthatdamngood.com/playfair-0.2.torrent [isthatdamngood.com]

Enjoy!

A Business decision - Apple is a music reseller.

This is purely a business move by apple. They're DRM is pretty light. Everyone has known that you can burn a cd then rip it back. Even easier you can record anything going to the speaker as an mp3 using some freely available software.

Jobs is quoted as saying the his PHds said you can't make a DRM that stops piracy completely.

However apple needs music to resell. To allow software the strips the DRM would likely irk those big music companies that sell apple the songs it needs to sell. And with other DRMed formats apple probably needed DRM to open the store in the first place.

Depressingly Predictable

As soon as I read the earlier /. story about PlayFair, I went straight to SourceForge and downloaded a copy. It now sits at home in a (sadly) ever expanding directory named "samizdat [ualberta.ca]", along with things like deCSS stuff [cmu.edu], the Grey Album [illegal-art.org], and various other bits from Illegal Art [illegal-art.org]. Some of those things are still available, but I have such little faith in the DCMA that I think private copies are warranted.

Essentially DMCA says...

That no matter how good/bad the encryption mechanism is, people can't break it.

If I published software that "encrypted" an audio stream by reversing the bits, and someone figured it out or wrote software to get rid of my "encryption" scheme, then I could just start a legal battle against all those who try to publish against me?

This is a wild, unpredictable, capitalistic world, not a pre-school.

Freedom, AAC, and fair use.

Consider this.

Apple's 128kbps AAC's quality is very good, about the same as a 192kbps mp3. You can burn AAC to CD - that's allowed by the iTunes DRM scheme with no problems.

The AAC -> CD data conversion has no quality loss associated with it. The data, on the CD, is sonically identical to how you bought it from Apple.

If people rip commercial CDs to OGG (or any other format) without complaining about quality loss, I don't see how it's anything but hypocrisy to say that converting from AAC -> CD -> OGG/whatever is some kind of huge hindrance to their fair use. There's only one loss of quality, which is tiny, in that chain of events, and it happens EVERYWHERE else you convert CD data to a compressed music format.

Where is this mysterious and show-stopping quality loss happening?

Re:Freedom, AAC, and fair use.

Yes, but converting from one lossy soundfile to an other lossy soundfile does produce a result that is worse then what you would get if you made a original to lossy. Just try to make this test

Take a mp3 file, convert to ogg. Convert back to mp3. Repeat 10 times. Then do a binary diff on all the 10 mp3 files, and you will se that they are ALL different, and that the quality of the last mp3 you made will be far worse then the first mp3 you started with.

Now if only Apple would begin to sell music here en EU, but thats the debate for an other day :}

Re:Freedom, AAC, and fair use.

Lossy encoding by definition removes bits from some bitstream.

AAC removes some bits from the master copy of the audio. When you burn it to disc, you don't get those bits back; they're still gone.

When you read it back from disc, and encode with $LOSSY_ENCODER, it removes some different bits from your copy of the audio. The final copy on your hard drive has fewer bits than the AAC copy or the master copy.

The more levels of lossy transcoding you do, the more the result is going to diverge from the original. Your example would be true only if all music CDs were actually run through lossy compression.

Just a tad hypocritical...

As per SourceForge.net policy, the project has been disabled.

Huh? The policy linked to speaks of copyright violation. Was the code stolen? If not, I fail to see the reasoning.

It simply allowed fair use- it couldn't be used to unlock songs you didn't already own, right?

What about programs which are almost exclusively used for illegal activity, ie, copyright infringement? Like, say, emule? Or BitTorrent? Or any of dozens of gnutella clones? None of which require you to own a copy of anything?

One can argue that all these p2p clients CAN be used for perfectly legal purposes. The same argument applies to PlayFair, if not more so because it required ownership in the first place.

My 2 cents

Apple is mearly defending there copy protection mechinism(sp), most likly a requirment in the sea of contracts that Apple has with the RIAA and its affiliats, though I do not agree with using the C&D with the DMCA instead of a normal C&D. You must remember that Apples DRM is is the most liberal out there, allowing you to burn multiple CD's (which can still be ripped into MP3's) and transfer AAC Files to a back up and restore.

I don't see this as any type of strong arm tactic by Apple to "put the little guy down" just protecting an updated bussiness model. Without ITMS no more iPod sales, which means no more street muggings (maybe this is a good dthing after all)

Full of sound and fury...

I fully expect this to be struck down in the same way action against DeCSS was struck down. PlayFair only allows those who have already legally purchased the music to remove the DRM protections - something that was already possible with burning and re-ripping.

Apple is no friend of DRM, but you can bet they are going to do what is necessary to maintain their relationship with the music labels, particularly in light of the labels trying to raise prices and increase restrictions.

The end result of this is moot. Some will say the cat's out of the bag, the genie's out of the bottle, etc, but that's not the case. The cat was never in the bag - this could always be accomplished by a simple burn/rip cycle.

(And before people point out that this doesn't require lossy recompression, seriously consider how many people will leave the file in AAC format, rather than transcode it to the ever-popular MP3.)

Re:Live by the crack pipe, die by the crack pipe

They basically broke the law

No, they didn't.

PlayFair actually checks that you have a valid key to use the downloaded music. It won't work on music that you haven't paid for. Thus, it doesn't "circumvent" the DRM, it fully enforces it. It does, however, change what happens to the music for those with legal access to it. Rather than play it, it writes the perfectly-legitimately-accessed music stream to a non-DRM'd AAC file.

Call such a distinction nit-picking, but that very fact means the difference between a DMCA violation and a legal use of one's purchased music.

Now, an end-user actually doing this process may violate their contract with Apple, but that differs drastically from the authors of PlayFair violating the DMCA.


you just gotta get your DMCA violating source code from an off-shore ISP or get sourceforge to relocate.

Exactly what happened - The project relocated to Sarovar, an Indian equivalent to SourceForge. Since India lacks an equivalent to the DMCA, the project should count as legal now.


Interestingly, I'd like any readers of this to really stop and think about what that means - A project designed to protect our fair use (a concept itself (theoretically) recognized in the US but not in all countries) may have broken US law (unless this goes to trial, we can't say they did break the law), simply by moving to another country, magically becomes legal.

So, the DMCA has so much validity that one can circumvent it (how apropos <G>) merely by changing where the "illegal" codebase resides? Definite problem there... Which of course, rather than address in any meaningful way, US lawmakers will try to "fix" by imposing the DMCA on the entire world via treaties (such as those currently under debate in the UN).

Dike, meet fingers. Fingers, meet Dike.

I can see why they demand it be pulled, but....

This "crack" would not have cost Apple one cent (okay 99) in lost downloads.

So someone could distribute high quality AAC files stripped of DRM. So what? There are already plenty of high-quality mp3, ogg and various other audio format rips of cds on p2p. There are also tons of fakes, radio rips, decoys, trojans, and just plain crappy rips floating on these networks as well. There is nothing stopping anyone from taking a fake or crappy mp3 rip and re-encoding it as aac and distributing it via p2p.

The people that shop at itunes are not going to stop because there are now some additional aac files available on p2p. People that shop iTunes do so because of the user experience. You know you will get a fast, high quality download from iTunes. You can't be sure with P2P until you've downed the file and listened to the whole thing.

On the other hand, increasing [slashdot.org] the price of downloads and/or forced bundling will cause iTunes sales to drop.

Challenging this

Should the project managers file a counterclaim, the project could be restored.

Uhh, I doubt it. This is about the most clear-cut case of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions applying you could get. The only way this could be declared unworkable is if the DMCA was struck down. Given, striking down the DMCA is only a matter of time, and it needs to happen. But if you're trying to find an optimal case on which to challenge the DMCA, this certainly isn't it.

The EFF failed to challenge their lower-court losses over DeCSS because they believed they would not have a higher court's sympathy when defending a group named "2600.com", and they needed to wait for a more opportune small case that could be used to set precedent. I'm not so sure this was a good idea. But in any case, this would be even worse.

With DeCSS, there was at least overwhelming public sympathy, and the intent of the opposition was clear; you were fighting the DVD consortium and MPAA directly, and they were clearly moneygrubbing oligopolists trying to price-fix between countries and take rights consumers had had for years (like copying vhs tapes) and remove them through a law they personally bought. Whereas Apple has created something new, and is giving their users at least a modicum of ability to exercise fair use. The application of the DMCA is still unjust, and DRM is still an idiotic concept, but framing Apple as a villan in this would be really difficult, especially when far more clear abuses of the DMCA are still going on.

I do wonder, though, why the EFF seems totally disinterested in challenging the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. It seemed like DVDxCopy made a great test case, and the bullshit with the lexmark print drivers made an even better one. Have they just given up?

(P.S.: If I am not mistaken, isn't this the first time Apple has ever invoked the DMCA? There was that one time that someone was doing something wierd involving allowing iDVD to work on a different OS version, and Apple asked them to stop, and they did and went and complained to the press and made some cryptic comments about the DMCA, yet from what was seen of apple legal's correspondence with them there didn't actually appear to be any DMCA invocation. Hm.. oh well.)

Am I the only one laughing?

The MPAA tries to use the DMCA to suppress source code as free speech, spawns a million Slashdot stories and a T-shirt, and the concept of the "digital crowbar" is born. They're suppressing fair use! We can't excerpt or time-shift!

Apple tries to use the DMCA to suppress source code as free speech, a million Slashdot users get in line to support their right to do it because hey, "They're Apple!!".

Maybe Jack Valenti was right after all - it's all about who you know.

Now get in line and drink the cool-aid.

Re:Am I the only one laughing?

Indeed. To illustrate the power of the kool aid, here are a couple posts I saw one day on Slashdot:

Person 1: Why is vendor lock in for Apple ok when it's considered bad for anyone else?

Person 2: It's like being taken hostage initially against your will, then realizing your captors are the Swedish Bikini Team.

What I can recall about copyright law...

Having read "This Business of Music" Revised and expanded 8th edition By Krasilovski and Shemel, I feel I am qualified to set the record straight on copyright law. As the Law stands, (or stood at the time of the book's publising) all people involved in the creation of a work, be it a book, speech, Musical score, or recording, or Video content such as TV and Film, have equal rights as anyone else invloved in the production. In the case of the band I am with, I have equal rights to the copyright and any royalties, even though I am not a "Musician" (I am the Recording engineer, and I insure that levels are good, and without my contribution the recordings would sound lousy.) If, on the other hand, I was working at a professional studio, all clients (Bands and individual artists) would sign a contrack that establishes the studio as a contractor on a "Work for Hire" basis, and therefore, by default hold no power over the copyright, except anything explicitly spelled out in the contract. A common clause of this nature gives all employees of the studio who work directly for the band, (All the people in the control room) the right to use excerpts of the band's songs as a Demo Reel, or in promoting the studio as a whole. the point of the above was that "Record Labels" make musicians who are "Signed" give up full copyright control over their existing body of work, to the "Label" Lastly, Failure to take action against a known infringer is tantamount, according to the letter of the law, to willfully allowing the work to fall into the public domain. The ultimate point is this: The Judicial system needs to work out who holds the trump card. The Users: In other words "Fair Use is the trump that overrides all else" The DMCA: DMCA makes it illegal to break the DRM, and that is the end of it. Apple: The iTMS EULA is the trump and everything, even fair use must be carried out in accordance with the EULA and its DRM protections

If the Apple DRM applied to cars....

You could buy your car only from an authorized dealer, and only online... but it would be delivered to you in 23 seconds and placed in your garage.

You could drive your car anywhere you wanted, so long as you only park it in authorized spaces. Those who do not park in an authorized space will be immediately crushed and sold for scrap during your incarceration.

You may drive your car anytime you want, so long as you gain permission from an authorized Apple Car Dealer first. Once permission has been granted, your car will be unlocked and started for you. Any attempt to unlock or start your car without prior authorization will result in your car exploding.

You are the only authorized driver of the car. Any attempt to "share" the car with another passenger or driver will result in your immediate incarceration.

All cars would only have 3 seats.

Burn + Rip, Mix, Burn = No more 'FairPlay'

Burn a bunch of iTunes with copywrite protection. The format on the disc will now be AIFF. Put the new disc back in. Re-rip (Using iTunes, if you like). No more 'FairPlay'. Not that I'd do it, I'm just saying... I have bought songs from iTunes. I was fine with only burning them twice. But because I can't burn with iTunes (No idea why), I was forced to use the Toast Lite that came with the burner. It wasn't until I had put an iTune on about five different mixes that I realized I was (Gasp!) 'circumventing the DMCA'! Of course I quickly microwaved the discs and scattered them at sea. Then I realized I had just dumped toxic waste in the ocean. I quickly wrote a letter to the EPA telling them I was going to have to move my business to another country if they decided to pursue any legal action. Then I sent the Republican Party a check for $2,000. Then I threw a big party at a hotel, got the Bush twins drunk, and took pictures of them taking lines. The moral of the story? Don't cheat, unless you're a good cheater with lots o' dough.

Access Control vs Copy Control?

IANAL, but was intrigued by this MacSlash post [macslash.org] the other day. Can anyone familiar with the DMCA confirm whether or not it supports the claim made here? (emphasis mine)

The DMCA describes two categories of DRM: access control and copy control. It's illegal to distribute a product that can defeat either type of DRM.

There is, however, a big difference between those two types of DRM as far as DMCA is concerned. It's illegal to use a product that breaks access control, but DMCA does not prohibit you from using workarounds to make copies. That distinction exists in DMCA to preserve fair use.

Since the playfair program doesn't let you get around the access control (you still need an iTMS key) and it only allows you to make copies of files to which you have legitimately obtained access, it's legal to use it as long as you don't cross the fair use line.

Trivandrum

It is located in Trivandrum, India

Sounds like a nice place. Gotta visit sometime. Looks like India put a spanner in the works of the good old DMCA.

Apple invoked the DMCA? That was the last thing people thought would happen, right? I mean, Apple are our heroes - right?

what?

"Now that Apple has publicly sided against freedom"

Since when is Apple protecting their and others' copywrited works that they DID NOT RELEASE AS FREE (as in speech) SOFTWARE siding against freedom?

Maybe you can explain that, as I don't understand.

Re:You don't say

Apple strong-arming the little guys? Apple using the DMCA to kill a free software project? Apple behaving like Microsoft et. al? And then reported on MacSlash? What is the world coming to??

I can't wait to read all the apologist crap that's about to be posted here. Let the McFanboy fest begin.

Being free (as in beer or as in speech) doesn't exclude you from being prosecuted if breaking the law. Don't like DMCA? Go lobby your congressman.

If Apple didn't go and prosecute and strong-arm the "little guys" that illegaly (see above) damage its business, it would be a stupid move and be perceived in future lawsuits as "having no interest in protecting its trademarks, etc.".

Apple is only protecting its interests, damaged by people that are acting against the law... how exactly is that "behaving like Microsoft"? I would call that "behaving smartly".

<sarcasm> If some "little guy" mugs you in the street or strips your house bare, it should be your duty to report to the police, however futile. Poverty in the world? Go lobby your congressman. </sarcasm>

Re:Our response should be simple and brutal.

Publicly burn any Apple hardware you own Mac/Ipod/etc. Try to do this en masse, and call your local news station.

I hereby volunteer to be the organizer for a massive event of apple destruction. Please send any Apple hardware (and accessories... don't forget accessories) to me and I will personally supervise its elimination.