Monday Releases Cause Crashes 170
The two big releases yesterday, Apple's Security Update and the DRM-canceling PlayFair, are causing problems. The Security Update appears to break cvs over pserver under some conditions (hangs for a long time, then quits with a malloc error), and ryanw writes, "according to the SF.net forum for playfair, the 'iTMS DRM stripping tool' destroys your purchased songs: the resulting files crash iTunes, the iPod, and QuickTime." Those who follow the rules -- wait a few days to install Apple's updates, and make backups of your iTMS files -- will be unaffected.
Er...ooops. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even worse, I check a dozen or so Mac sites several times daily, (yes I need a life) so I probably get every update within 8 hours or so of release, if that.
Re:Er...ooops. (Score:5, Funny)
But the coal mines of software updating need canaries like you.
Re:Er...ooops. (Score:4, Funny)
*sputters*
*death gurgle*
(jk, btw... I don't use any of the service that the update breaks, and I have tried to deDRM my iTMS songs)
that'll theach you... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:that'll theach you... (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
being in the UK I _still_ can't buy music from iTunes, and I don't have an iPod so no problem really.
Annoying that they don't check these things more carefully.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Which, it appears, has happened.
The fact that it's bundled with 'Bad News' about an Apple update release sorta 'shields' it's credibility some.
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
PlayFair 0.2 (Score:5, Informative)
I have, however, had no trouble decrypting my songs under Mac OS X. They work perfectly.
Re:PlayFair 0.2 (Score:5, Informative)
I guess PlayFair needs some improved error checking. But I think it's great... now I can listen to my iTunes songs on my linux machine!
Re:PlayFair 0.2 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:PlayFair 0.2 (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, an enterprising hacker would take this as a sure sign of buffer overflows being present in QuickTime.
Then again we all know hackers only use windows so there's nothing to worry about.
Re:PlayFair 0.2 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:PlayFair 0.2 (Score:5, Informative)
Just delete the folder ~/.drms between each decryption. I wrote a GUI for Mac OS X that integrates with iTunes and I just had to make it delete the
Oh, and sorry for replying 2 times to my own post
Brilliant move combining those two stories (Score:5, Insightful)
You just know some ignorant tinfoil-hat wearing
Re:Brilliant move combining those two stories (Score:5, Funny)
Steve is building an army of mind-controlled minions set to overthrow the alien beings who have taken over Western Civilization and are currently raising us for food.
Of course, give me a G5 PowerBook and I'll overlook all that.
Re:Brilliant move combining those two stories (Score:4, Funny)
Don't be ridiculous. We'll just harvest you a little early...
-fred
Of course that would be accurate (Score:2)
Re:Brilliant move combining those two stories (Score:2)
Apple protects fair-use (Score:4, Insightful)
The nerds behind PlayFair are doing nothing but harm the very thing they seek to protect: Fair Use. Apple *already* allows you to make an unlimited amount of regular Audio CDs from music you purchased on iTMS. Apple already allows you to listen to your music on any computer running their free iTunes software. THAT *is* fair use. Why go thru the trouble of breaking encryption? just so you could listen to your music on linux? if you're going thru all that trouble then why not create a few audio CDs from all your purchased music, so you could listen to it on your stereo and in your car, AND RIP UN-DRM'ed MP3s onto your linux box?.
This is all just silly. Why don't "freedom fanboys" either get a clue or stick to WMA, rather than bashing Apple on their attempt to make the RIAA play nice and bragging about circumventing a DRM scheme that has always been loose in the first place.
i still buy most my music off of amazon, i'm a big fan of physical goods in the mail.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:3, Informative)
So point by point:
THAT *is* fair use
It is also fair use to break their encryption. One fair use does not stop another. DMCA may make it illegal though, but that is a differe
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2, Insightful)
Eject, remove, insert, play. Have we gotten this lazy? Most music players have an eject button in the GUI and Mac's have one on the keyboard.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
And as for music, I do not like listening to the whole album at the same time. I prefer my songs randomized, and it has nothing to do with my attention span.
Besides, what does attention span has to do with anything regarding how I use my media. My media, and I chose to listen to it the way I want.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
And yes, people travel on planes as well, so one can not just through huge containers into the back into the car.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:5, Insightful)
interesting points
Could you please define not portable? When you use iTunes to burn an AUDIO CD, you get a real audio CD, that can be played on any CD player. My GF buys a lot of music off of iTMS and makes lots of CDs which she plays just fine in her car. I must be misunderstanding what you mean by "not portable".
Please also define for my slow brain what you mean by "extra loss". You mean audio quality loss? See, I believe this is where you and I disagree. From personal experience, and that of a few other people, creating an Audio CD from a bunch of purchased iTMS AAC music doesn't appear to yield any loss in quality (which I believe, we agree on), and ripping MP3's or AAC's from that same CD does not either seem to yield any loss of quality either. The quality of the result from Audio CD ==> MP3/AAC process, will of course depend on what compression settings your ripping software is set to. This would apparently be where you and I disagree.
I'm sure you are already aware of this and mainly making a point, but there is absolutely nothing legal about getting rid of DRM from music you purchased from iTMS. Most threads I've read about "Fair Use" and Copyright law seem to ignore one simple thing: When you download music from iTMS, you know ahead of time, what the rules are. You agreed to them when clicking "Accept" on the EULA screen iTunes threw at you upon installation. Apple offers you a contract, you accept it by using their service. It is that simple. All musings about "Fair Use" and "Copyright", from this point, are mainly scoped to whether or not Apple and the RIAA have a "moral right" to apply their DRM scheme, whether or not, from a consumer standpoint this is fair, and whether or not, as a consumer, you should choose to use their services and products. If you do choose to use those services, there is absolutely no law you can invoke to justify bypassing their DRM scheme. The only case where you'd have legal recourse would be if you were never warned in advance, if said companies never provided you with the information you needed as a consumer to make an educated choice as to whether or not you should use their services. Such as when certain CDs are sold with DRM built-in, yet advertised as AUDIO CD, which defines a precise digital format which those CDs technically don't conform to.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
So you go through tw
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
uh, franlly, i don't really care "how the process works". i'm just relating personal experience and that of people close to me. As far as i'm concerned, I can buy a bunch of DRM'ed AAC off of iTMS, create an audio CD from those tracks, listen to the audio CD and not notice any drop in quality, then rip that CD back into a bunch of MP3s using the same compression settings as the ones i use when ripping normal CDs i buy from say, Amazon, and still not notice any audible loss in quality. I just use the iTunes
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
If you want to hear what the problems sound like, encode a cd in AAC on whatever bitrate you can bearly hear distortions. I bet 64 will do, but 32 will do definetily. Then reencode it to MP3 (or AAC but keeping the lossy format will probably lessen new distortions intro
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Of course it does.
Silly discussion for anyone caring about their sound, the purchased songs are too low of a bitrate for my speakers.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Just one (non-infringing) example.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:5, Insightful)
Download music isn't a right, it's a privilege. Where do you get this sense of all-encompassing sense of entitlement?
What you're doing is rationalizing your process for circumventing this privilege of downloading music. You *choose not to support* or use the system Apple makes available for the product that you want to use, and somehow you think your intentional non-compliance justifies the right to 'fair use' how you see fit.
Just because something exists doesn't mean you have limitless access, control or influence with it. Cope.
You don't want loss imposed by transcoding between DRMAAC->CD Audio->mp3 (ogg,whatever). So then don't transcode; use the system that was designed for the format. Or, buy the CD or single that you're interested in and have a hard copy that bypasses all this DRM. Or better yet, don't buy anything - not for idealist Anti-DRM reasons, but because you realize that what you want to purchase isn't available for what you intend to do!
Swapping CDs is a pain? I see where the sense of limitless entitlement comes from.
Apple can do what they want. You can do what you want as well. But when it comes to who sets the rules for DRM AACs, it's Apple. If you don't like the rules they've set, there's no law that forces you have to buy/use a specific product that has rules you have fundamental disagreement with. Seek a legal alterative that works how you want it to work, or learn to cope with doing without.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Yes, I have "signed" an agreement with apple that I will only use iTunes, but that does not mean that th e contract is legal. In fact if it is found to contain terms that infringe on my rights, then those terms may be struck out by the courts. That is in fact if Apple decides to sue me in court, whic
Once it's mine, it is a right. (Score:2)
Infringing on copyright, sure, that would not fall under fair use - I can't share the copies with people who haven't got a right to own them, I can't try to pass the thing off as my own work. But that only covers transferring the
Re:Once it's mine, it is a right. (Score:2)
*yawn* read the terms and conditions when buying a DRM protected tune from iTMS. When you buy a tune from iTMS you are agreeing to bide by these terms and conditions. Anything else, include your misinformed rant above, is just blust
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
In fact stripping encryption off itunes format is very much analogous to ripping CDs.
The only thing that makes it illegal is DMCA, which is a poor law that goes against the concept of fair use.
I guess the proper question to ask is are you depriving anyone by changing formats? The answer is no. I already paid for my listening to that track at that quality through my Pepsi purchases, and changing formats
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
There were a few cases of publishing DeCSS, and I think 2600 lost. However, there is noone who has been tried for decrypting something they paid for.
I do not believe that will stand up in court. Meanwhile I will continue breaking the law, hoping that I will not be the one who gets the belt.
So I do not chose
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
This approach will not work for an extensive library, and if I ever get an mp3 player, the size will be extremely important.
But yes, your solution is the only decent one that stays legal.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh. I have five Macs in my house. I can only play music *I purchased* on three of them. It is quite clear: I am being denied my fair use rights. There's really no debating it. What to do about the problem is all that is under debate.
Why go thru the trouble of breaking encryption? just so you could listen to your music on linux? if you're going thru all that trouble then why not create a few audio CDs from all your purchased music, so you could listen to it on your stereo and in your car, AND RIP UN-DRM'ed MP3s onto your linux box?
You argue people should use DRM circumvention instead of DRM circumvention? You're quite confused. One method is no more or less legal or justifiable than the other. Both of them are methods to circumvent DRM, and in my case, perfectly legal, since the existing files prevent me from exercising my fair use rights.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Creating CDs off of iTMS music is a feature Apple has managed to negotiate with the RIAA. You are not messing with the encrypted file, you are not doing anything illegal. The fact that people might start creating MP3s from their newly created CDs is something the RIAA has been willing to live with, as it is a step that is cumbersome enough to limit the amount of rampant piracy originating from iTMS goods, yet convenient enough to decently promote Fair Use applications of this scheme, where, as i've mention
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Yes, and? You are saying people should use it to circumvent the DRM. The purpose of the CDs is to have CDs, not to re-rip it back to the computer. The fact that it is more acceptable to Apple or the RIAA has no bearing on me.
You are not messing with the encrypted file, you are not doing anything illegal.
Copyright has nothing to do with the file itself, but the content. You were talking about fair use, which me
Rendevouz (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically, it is debatable. You can set iTunes on a single machine to share its music, including purchased, with any Macs on the same network. The main reason Apple allows authorization on multiple machines is for fair use when traveling or at an office, and your main server wouldn't be available.
Whether or not this is convenient for you is a personal matter, but the technology already exists to share your music with any computer you could carry CDs back and forth to, without having to authorize/de-authorize.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Limited in number.
Whether or not this is convenient for you is a personal matter, but the technology already exists to share your music with any computer you could carry CDs back and forth to, without having to authorize/de-authorize.
If I limit the number of Macs. It's the same problem. You've not highlighted any interesting difference.
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Besides which, contract law supercedes copyright law, so if the license agreement limits your fair use, you have no legal argument from copyright law.
Surely it does allow it. (Score:3, Insightful)
And, more importantly, it's my right to listen to the music on any brand of device I want. If I can figure out a way to get NetBSD on RISC-Toaster to recognize a sound card, it's my right to use a tune I bought as the "toast is ready" theme song.
As for contract law vs. copyright law - th
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
IANAL, so I don't know the term to describe your facetiousness, but by your reasoning all NDAs and gag-orders would be useless, since they'd interfere with your right to free speech. And while simply clicking 'I Agree' may be unclear software license acceptance, actually authorizing payment after clicking probably is a little clearer as acceptance of terms for a contract.
All fair use arg
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
You are conflating two things. Gag orders are not about you willingly signing away your rights, but you being ordered by a court, regardless of your will. And yes, many times, NDAs are held to be unenforcable, depending on what the right is. Certainly a company has the right to make you agree to some things, but the line is
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
And I will not concede I ever asked anyone to. I merely want to be able to do it without being accused of violating the law for circumventing anti-piracy measures which are there to prevent illegal use, not my legal use.
However, I still feel your initial claim of being denied fair use by iTunes sharing limit is erroneous
My point was never about sharing, but about the fact that I can only play the music on a limited number of devices (regardle
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
On the other hand, I don't consider burning a CD and then using the music elsewhere 'circumvent[ing] the copy protection', since you are implicitly allowed to and that f
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
They've gotten enough kudos from others, so I choose to attack Jobs for lying to us when he said we own the music and implied we can use it any way we wish.
While it would be nice for there to be no software limits, at this point it was impossible for Apple to get that to fly.
I understand that, but it is meaningless in regard to whether or not criticism is warranted. They chose to
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
I can, legally, make as many perfect copies of a CD as I want, for personal use. How is that 'virtually identical' to the 3-copy limit of iTMS?
You can legally make as many perfect CD copies of songs you've downloaded, so I'm not sure how the 3-computer sharing limit enters into this. The only limit is you have to adjust the list every 10 burns or something like
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
No, it is lossy.
By 'virtually identical' I meant that after burning they have no DRM and you will have the ability to do whatever you would have with a purchased CD.
Again, no. According to the terms, if you rip it back tp AAC/MP3 from the burned CD, you will be separating the product from the DRM. According to the terms, this circumvention would be indistinguishable from merely stripping the DRM from the original file. The ter
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
CONTENT USAGE RULES Your use of the Products is conditioned upon your prior acceptance of the terms of this Agreement.
You shall be authorized to use the Product only for personal, non-commercial use.
You shall be authorized to use the Product on three Apple authorized computers.
You shall be entitled to burn and export Products solely for personal, non-commercial use.
Any burning or exporting capabilities are solely an accommodation to you and shall not constitute a g
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
No, burning a CD is pretty accurate conversion of an already lossy format (AAC) to a lossless format CD-Audio. Unless the AAC to AIFF conversion has bugs, the resulting AIFF audio should be the same as the original AAC audio with only a single generation of lossy compression artifacts.
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
"Pretty accurate" is a synonym for "lossy." No, it is not exact, as you are extrapolating. And yes, all conversions have bugs. And more to the point, when I then convert it to any other compressed format later under the terms
Re:Surely it does allow it. (Score:2)
See the definition of "Product" in the Terms of Service [apple.com]: "products purchased through the Service, such as sound recordings and related artwork." When they say "[t]he security technology is an inseparable part of the Products," they are talking not about the specific files,
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Personally, I don't think circumventing FairPlay is any more wrong than normal CD copying is or isn't, depending on int
You have no fair use "right" (Score:2)
Re:You have no fair use "right" (Score:2)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2, Insightful)
You are not being denied anything at all.
You can only listen to *your* music in one place at a time, right ? So, use the iTunes sharing and *your* music is available everywhere, right ?
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
I am in no way affiliated with Dave Winer. You take that back!
You are not being denied anything at all.
You're incorrect. It's quite clear to everyone who has eyes and ears. While it is technically true I am not being denied my rights, it is true that so-called "anti-circumvention" technologies like Apple's FairPlay DRM deny me the exercise of my rights. I have the legal right to play a song I purchased on as many computers in my home as I wish, but Apple's DRM prevents me from
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
But your assertion that FairPlay DRM denies you that right is patently absurd.
You're quite wrong. I am not complaining that the "security" technology exists, I am complaining that it is illegal for me to remove it. I am complaining that it is illegal for me to use playfair, under the DMCA, and under
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
Re:Apple protects fair-use (Score:2)
No, you're missing the point. As explained elsewhere in this thread, the terms don't actually deny my fair use rights, they deny me the *exercise* of those rights, making a not-so-veiled appeal to DMCA provisions. I still have the right to listen to the music on more than three computers, but not the right to circumvent the copy protection; the copy protection is *therefore* denyi
Dont know if this is related (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dont know if this is related (Score:2)
Spinning Wheel of Death sounds like something pat sajak cum satan would use in hell with humormous but sometimes painful results.
Remove Playfair? (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Now this might be pretty basic, but does anyone have a favorite unix scripting tutorial so that I can learn how to script things like this to run on multiple files?
Re:Remove Playfair? (script) (Score:2, Interesting)
Run with
This finds all m4p files in current dir (copy them first!) and saves the files in no-drm/.
Also, run playfair first (and have
#!/bin/bash
DIR=no-drm
usage () {
echo "Usage: $0 suffix newsuffix [converted-dir]"
exit
}
if [ "$1" == "-h" ] || [ "$1" == "--help" ]; then usage; fi
if [ -n "$1" ] && [ -n "$2" ]; then
SUFF1=$1
SUFF2=$2
else
usage
fi
i
Re:Remove Playfair? (Score:3, Informative)
PlayFair Works!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Download it on *nix and do
On windows, download VLC [videolan.org]. Run it and open your encrypted m4p file.
Now, in c:\documents and settings\username(whatever you're logged in as)\application data\drms, you have the key file. Copy that key file to your ~/.drms dir(create it) on the *nix box.
Then on the *nix box run
WHAM! It now works. It grabs the key from your ~/.drms and decrypts it to new.m4p. It works! I've tried it. This is great. Now I can actually buy music(Until apple "fixes" this).
If someone could compile this on windows it would cut down this process to 2 steps: 1. Run VLC with the file. 2. Run playfair.exe in.mp4 out.m4p
Thanks,
Chris Benard [chrisbenard.net]
It DOESNT mess with your iTunes songs! (Score:5, Informative)
CVS over pserve broken? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just did a commit and an update for the hell of it, works fine...
Re:CVS over pserve broken? (Score:2)
If anybody -does- experience this problem, it might help the relevant folks fix it if they knew more about the circumstances. Anybody?
What Luck! (Score:2, Funny)
Crashes!?!?! (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm just emphazing that little fact because my Windows Box at work crashed two to three times a week...I mean 2 TO 3 TIMES A WEEK!!
Anyways, the DR
Simple. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, typically, Apple users expect things to Just Work(tm). So, when things don't Just Work(tm), most Apple users will complain loudly.
Conversely, most Windows users don't have such an expectation. So when an update comes along that does break something, I imagine not nearly as many Windows users are inclined to complain loudly about it.
Of course there will be a small number of users that are adversely affected
It's a real shame. (Score:4, Interesting)
I can appreciate it from the technical point of view, but perhaps a post on what this is now going to do to Apples future fortune now that AAC is not secure is more appropriate, especially as Apples growth recently has been on the back of achievements in the audio area.
Re:It's a real shame. (Score:2)
Now that Apple AAC is an insecure format you won't be able to download the songs anyway because the songs are now easily decrypted. How long before someone puts the code onto the front end of iTunes and decryption occurs automatically?
The only reason Apple provides the downloads is because of DRM. Now that there effectively isn't any, they will have to withdraw because there is no protection for the RIAA or the artists income.
Re:It's a real shame. (Score:2)
No, I think you (and the entire Industry) have missed the point.
People (especially the geek-types who are likely to code around things) are not going to have choices forced on them about exactly how they can play their purchases.
Why am I going to pay for a format which won't play on my software or platform of choice, and only plays on a portable device which costs an arm and a leg - when I already have 2 cheapass players which play MP3s fine.
Plus, by the time ITMS finally shows up in the UK, my Windows
Why new copies? (Score:2)
Fair use and the iTMS (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are in the United States, giving PlayFair to someone else or posting it on a web site probably violates the DMCA: It is not authorized by the rights holder, and it defeats an effective means of copy control.
Using PlayFair to decode your purchases to use on machines that don't have iTunes (such as Linux machines) probably is legal under the reverse engineering for compatibility sections of the DMCA, but that law is very full of contradictions and has not been fully tested in the courts.
I have a suggestion for the PlayFair authors: As you decrypt each song, put the account information in a hidden or comment section of the output file. Anyone using PlayFair to simply use their purchased content themselves would not be hurt by this, and it would provide an additional deterent against putting decoded content up on $P2P_NETWORK_DU_JOUR. It would bolster your eventual defense in court that you were not making a tool for piracy.
Re:Fair use and the iTMS (Score:2)
You have fallen victim to a false way of thinking. You are suggesting, the mere moving of a mouse pointer over a button and clicking is the same as signing a contract. The idea that you "license" software is absolutely NOT supported by US law. Do you license books? A license is needed for distribut
Re:Fair use and the iTMS (Score:2)
But that's a tempest in a teapot.
If a book came in a sealed container that had a license agreement, then yes, you would be licensing the boo
Re:Fair use and the iTMS (Score:2)
Contracts, after the acceptance of item, aren't valid. That's the problem. How can one distribute an item with the IMPLIED acceptance of a contract before the contract is accepted? Why are people expected to KNOW the contents of a contract BEFORE the exchange of an item? They can't and it's absured to think they will. It's absurd to accept MONEY before the contract is accepted. Contracts don't work that way.
Which is exactly why someone can't mail you a book and have a lic
Re:Fair use and the iTMS (Score:2)
Re:Fair use and the iTMS (Score:2)
Re:Fair use and the iTMS (Score:2)
Now, if you want to BUY music from the music store, then you have to sign up with the music store, and BEFORE you do that, and BEFORE you pay money, you are presented with a contract regarding the use of products which you
pserver (Score:3, Interesting)
So, yeah, I'd consider breaking pserver to be a valid security enhancement.
Stop Your Whining, You Guys!! (Score:3, Funny)
Sourceforge (n/t) (Score:2)