Mac P2P Music Sharing with iTunes is Online

kraksmoka writes "Spymac.com has already found a way to take the new features of iTunes 4 to new heights. Today they opened up a new section on their site entitled Spymac Music, which is a database of shared iTunes libraries. Anyone who wants can submit their music library to be shared. Currently it sports a search engine capable of searching title, album and artist. " I wonder how long this will last.

Bad Karma

[Gryphon]

1. This is bad karma. I would share my iTunes music with my immediate circle of friends; this is just like them coming over to my place to listen to a new album. Posting my iTunes Library URL to something like Spymac Music is like leaving my CD collection outside my house, with a sign that says "Copy Me".

2. It probably won't work well anyway. Most cable and even some DSL links have upload speed caps of 20 to 30 kpbs. Even an MP3 encoded at 128 kbps will have trouble getting through that pipe quickly enough.

In short, I hope this Spymac Music "service" dies a quick death. Some may point out that not everybody will have copyrighted music in their iTunes Library, to which I would reply "Yeah. Some. Like 0.01% of the population."

In closing... maybe Spymac itself will die a quick death. Most Mac users recognize that it's rumor predictions are consistently way off base, the content is juvenile, and overall, it is just plain bad.

Re:Propaganda

[LordK2002]

Actually I believe the correct legal term is "copyright infringement". The use of the word "theft" is just propaganda from the record companies to make it sound more evil. There is no way that file sharing could be legally classed as "theft" under current law (in the UK, and presumably in the US as well) as it does not involve depriving anybody of material possessions.

If this kills iTunes, its a bad thing

[HighOrbit]

Apple had a hard time convincing the music companies to support iTunes in the first place. People doing things like this might cause the music companies to withdraw support from iTunes. Just when something was finally starting to go right with download music, some knothead wants to srcrew it up for everybody.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:It's streaming

[spoonist]

Yeah, and how hard is it to capture the stream and write it to disk?

(BTW, this is a rhetorical question. The answer is: "Not hard at all.".)

In my book, "saving a stream" ~ "sharing".

Way to take a good thing and ruin it

[I Am The Owl]

You know, Apple was putting their asses on the line w/ the recording companies when they rolled this thing out. The recording companies thought it couldn't be done safely. Apple thought otherwise, and rolled out a fairly permissive system. Now, the system that everyone's been clamoring for as a legit replacement for the traditional sales of whole albums is getting pissed on every which way.

You have set out to bite the hand that feeds you. I hope you assholes starve, because there were a lot of people out there who saw this as a useful service.

Re:Propaganda

[snero3]

Yes Slashdot is pro-P2P. But this is not "music theft". itunes 4 is only capable of streaming, you can only

• listen to it streamed, you can't download it to your PC
• stream to 5 PCs (with online purchased music that is reduced to 3)
• once the streaming itunes 4 application is shut down thats it you, can't get it any more

this is no more music theft than you and a bunch of friends listening to one of your CD's

Security Issues not Withstanding

[Bruha]

That service gives up all those's peoples public ip addresses. Wonder how many of them know that.

Re:You can NOT copy the files

[CausticWindow]

Why do you think it's any more difficult to save anything you stream to disk, than it is to write anything to a disk?

Streaming isn't some kind of magic ritual. It's only packets arriving on your computer, just in time for you to play them.

Somebody MOD UP

[thatguywhoiam]

Parent is totally correct. iTunes limits # of streams to something like 5-6 people. It's just a tiny chunk of QuickTime Broadcaster running in there.

So to summarize: nothing illegal, no hole to patch, no piracy, nothing to see here. Apple knows what they are doing.

QUICK THREAD RECAP (READ ME)

[Anonymous Coward]

This topic has already been discussed, at length, over on MacSlash.

Large-Scale Music Sharing With iTunes 4 [macslash.org]

Quick summary:

Sharing with friends/family (for personal use) is cool

Sharing with total strangers isn't legal and violates the iTunes license

Yes, streaming != downloading, but your rights to stream have some limits.

Spymac Music and others sites will be shut down by Apple and/or the RIAA

Sharing music with friends is cool -- let's not ruin a good thing, people!

Reminder: Sharing music is for personal use only

[DougM]

When you elect to share your music library within iTunes 4 a pop-up is displayed:

• Reminder: Sharing music is for personal use only

I don't know the legal definition of "personal use" but in these terms I would consider it to be about limiting streaming in much the same way you would limit distribution of your purchased CD collection.

I really like this feature and I thank Apple for treating its customers like grown-ups. I'd hate for abuse to force them into dropping it.

You're kidding, right?

[phillymjs]

Contrary to what the headline says this is NOT P2P, it's basically a client-server connection via iTunes-- so how the hell ELSE do you expect people to connect to a server if they don't have the IP or domain name, brainiac? This service is basically a message board for people to say, "Hey, check out my music library, it's at [address]."

You're also forgetting that these are all Macs running OS X we're talking about-- this is not the 'major security hole found every week' Windows crowd putting their boxes on a "Soon to be 0wn3d" list.

~Philly

Re:Bad Karma

[Mike Schiraldi]

Posting my iTunes Library URL to something like Spymac Music is like leaving my CD collection outside my house, with a sign that says "Copy Me"

No it's not; it's like leaving your CD collection outside your house with a sign that says, "Listen to me."

You know, like libraries do with books. Like was generally accepted as the norm from the start of civilization until about 100 years ago.

Re:Awesome!

[feldsteins]

I'd personally like to backhand the geniuses behind at spymac for doing this. Jesus, don't they see that this is the first good thing that's happened to the music industry in ages? This - the humble iTunes Music Store - is the wedge in the door of getting the RIAA to actually do business with us online in a way that doesn't ....suck! This is what we've been asking for!

We should be building on this model, making it better rather than undermining it. What they are doing is going to give the RIAA the jitters and make them think twice about letting Apple and others expand the model. What spymac is doing is irrefuckingsponsible.

Re:Apple promoting piracy?

[margaret]

What's being made use of here is a streaming technology built into iTunes. That means that when you "share" your playlist in this way, the receiver can only listen to the music you provide, while you're online. This isn't about grabbing an MP3, saving it on your hard disk, and then redistributing it even further.

So the feature is still limited, and while I'm not going to guarantee the record labels will demand a stop be put to it - they've done some bloody stupid things in the past - I suspect it'll end up being a net gain as it'll let people properly try music out before they buy, but in a way that nobody in their right mind would prefer to use instead of buying.

The same thing could be said for internet radio, and that didn't go over too well with the RIAA either.

This technology is like a cross between internet radio and P2P file sharing, both of which the RIAA hates. And now that they've sucessfully lobbied for CARP royalties on webcasts, they're not going to like this P2P streaming system, which in effect lets people webcast music while bypassing the royalty payments.

The RIAA did all they could to kill independent internet radio. I don't see how they'd react any differently to this, especially when iTunes for Windows is released and the number of potential users dramatically increases.

Re:Somebody MOD UP

[nilepoc]

I know that my sharing capabillities are hampered by my bandwidth. Even without advertising my stream, I have as many as four users at a time.

I cannot imagine why you would want to advertise your collection, if you plan to use this yourself.

I use it primarily to save the battery on my ipod, when I am at school, with wireless everywhere. Its great, I no longer need to store mp3's on my laptop, and am not limited to what I can carry.

When it is just me streaming, I get no interuptions, but the stream is unlistenable over my cable connection with four people on it.

Re:Awesome!

[GlassHeart]

Actually, this is not a hole in Apple's software. It is an advertised feature. If you want to blame someone, blame Apple, not the people using their software in a way it was designed to be used.

Nonsense. Apple provides the technology that can fall under "fair use" or "copyright infringement", the same way that the use of a gun can fall under "sport", "self defense", or "murder". Apple's software is designed to transport music; guns are designed to move projectiles at high speed. Using a product as designed doesn't excuse you from the penalties of law.

Re:Apple promoting piracy?

[Blic]

How is this any different than Winamp Shoutcast that has been around for years? If you go to shoutcast.com they have a listing of 4,000 streams you can listen to. Has the RIAA tried to bust them? Here's the legal bit they have up there if you're curious... http://www.shoutcast.com/download/broadcast.phtml# copyright

Re:Bad Karma

[GlassHeart]

it's like leaving your CD collection outside your house with a sign that says, "Listen to me."

That's different. In the Real World, doing that will mean your CDs will be stolen, or perhaps damaged by users who are not careful. On the Internet, you can share without risk.

Point is, a publisher of a book or CD can count on the human nature to treasure one's own belongings to not do that. Publishers of on-line music cannot.

Re:It's streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

(BTW, this is a rhetorical question. The answer is: "Not hard at all.".)

Sorry for answering your rhetorical question, but I would argue the answer is "harder than it is worth." iTunes doesn't let you grab the stream at all, so you'd have to capture it via AudioHijack. After dumping the section you want you'd have to load it up in Audacity or Spark ME to edit the wave down just the songs you want. Then you'd have to encode the songs as mp3s and manually edit the ID3 tags. Or you could just go the the Apple Music Store, spend $0.99, and have the song right away.

Re:It's streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

"sharing"="sharing"
"saving a stream without the streamer's explicit permission"="stealing"

If I leave a bench on my front lawn for any one to use and someone walks off with it, that person is the criminal, not me.

It's convenience vs. legality

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not illegal for Apple to provide or for users to take advantage of. It is illegal to use a third party app to record the streamed music. That is not Apple's problem. Most people will find this a hassle to do. It would be easier and probably faster to log onto Kazaa and download your stuff. Apple isn't required to provide a solution that completely elimnates all forms of illegal music trading. They are just required to make sure that what they do provide is legal.

Given the rather limited restrictions even placed on purchased music (the ability to burn the songs and then rip them as unprotected) means that Apple's agreement with the RIAA was simply to provide a SIMPLE legal ALTERNATIVE to the P2P networks that would encourage people to purchase music rather than obtain it illegally. The initial success of the service shows that most people will use such an alternative if it is SIMPLE and PAINLESS. A lot of people used the P2P networks because they were more convenient than going to a record store. I now find the iTMS more convenient than the P2P networks and I don't have to infringe on copyrights. That's the deal Apple made with the record companies (I don't realy know what the deal was, but that's how it seems given the limited restrictions in the service). They convinced the RIAA that people don't really want to do something illegal, they just want to do something convenient. It's just that before, the convenient thing to do was illegal. :)

Back to the streaming. It's a pain for MOST AVERAGE people to record a stream. The kiddies will do it no matter what, but the rest of us will listen to a friends tunes and then buy it for ourselves because it is MORE CONVENIENT and good karma.

Here's the best idea of all. Apple should add a 'buy song' button next to the songs that you are streaming from your friend (or complete strangers). If the song was originally purchased from the iTMS, it could have an identifier in it, so that it can be matched back to the Music Store and you could then purchase the song for yourself directly. You listen to your friends music, hear a song you like, and presto you can purchase it for yourself and have it in your collection and take it with you on your iPod or burn it to CD easily. This would require Apple/RIAA lifting the current restriction on streaming purchased music to only macs with your .mac ID, but if they added in the ability to purchase the music that you are streaming, I bet the RIAA would go along with it. It would just be another way to make sampling and purchasing music convenient.

kman

Re:AAC Has Questionable quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, Have you actually compared the quality of the two yourself. So far my comparison of AAC versus MP3, albeit only for 2 songs so far, shows AAC 128 kpbs chillingly superior to MP3 192 kbps in one case (Coldplay - The Scientist) and slightly better in another. And I think I will take my word for it...