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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Software Utilities (Apple) Apple

iTunes Internet Sharing Restored With Third-Party App 87

Posted by pudge from the w00p-w00p dept.
Suppafly writes "As reported at boingboing, iCommune creator Jim Speth whipped up a little application called 401(ok) that combines a few hacks to restore internet-wide sharing to iTunes 4.0.1. You can download the app from SF.net." As one might expect, it is basically a port redirector.
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iTunes Internet Sharing Restored With Third-Party App More

iTunes Internet Sharing Restored With Third-Party App

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  • About time (Score:1, Insightful)

    by spooje ( 582773 )
    I was wondering what happened to iCommune. It's good to see that if Apple can't provide the product someone else will. I just wonde how long it will be until Apple figures out a way to shut this down. I get the impression this guy will keep hacking iTunes every time Apple shuts him down just out of spite for that sease-and-desist letter.

    • Re:About time (Score:5, Funny)

      by dmayle ( 200765 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @09:13AM (#6123403) Homepage Journal

      The same thing that happened to iSociale. After iCapitale started creeping through Russia, it was relegated to a much smaller amount of the world, though I hear a hacked version of it is still enjoying widespread circulation in China...

      Or maybe this should read: In Soviet Russia, iCommune shares YOU...

  • This isn't very helpful... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sockit2me9000 ( 589601 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @09:09AM (#6123372)
    So Apple is trying to prove to the music companies that it's software is trustworthy. Musci companies notice that anyone can stream tunes ffrom anywhere with iTunes. They also notice that within two weeks someone has come up with a way to take those streamed music feeds and convert them into MP3/s. They get pissed. Apple gets egg on their faces. This program is counterproductive. If we want to convince music companies that the computer is a viable distribution model and that we want those distributed files fairly unfettered by copy protection, than this goes against all that. It makes Apple look bad, and we're at the point where Apple is really our best hope for a scheme which we like. This needs to catch on, or else something worse (Microsoft) comes along and takes over another branch of the internet. Sad thing is, I like the idea of being able to stream across the internet. Leave it to script kiddies to ruin it for everyone.
    • The problem with this approach is that it doesn't change the fact that circumvention is possible in the first place. With that fact established, all this would amount to is a moratorium on hacks to make iTunes stream across any network, until such time as the music companies feel comfortable with the net as a profit medium. What then? Let loose the hackers of music (pardon the badly twisted phrase)?

      Eventually these kinds of applications will be written. If anything, expedient examples of circumvention shou

      • Yea, the fact that CDs could be ripped to tape and now to CDs didnt' stop the music industry from making them. The fact that the VCR was going to "ruin all media" thorugh piracy didnt' stop the MPAA from producing tapes.

        Let's just hope Apple doesnt' start swinging the DMCA around. I'd hope they'd save something like that as a last resort, and you know how Apple's legal dept. gets...

    • Re:This isn't very helpful... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Noonian ( 226 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:18AM (#6124072) Homepage
      The problem is not with tools like 401(ok) enabling people to bypass the artificial restriction in iTunes of not being able to stream music accross subnets -- there's nothing intrinsically bad or wrong or illegal about it. For example, I can stream music to my laptop on the wireless network on campus from my music collection on my home computer. As long as I legitimately have a copy of that music, its all fair game.

      The problem arises when people start constructing mechanisms to allow people to share their music with complete strangers. That's when things get much more into shadow.

      Remember the apple mantra: Don't steal music.

      iTunes music streaming is for personal use only. 401(ok) doesn't change that.

    • If we want to convince music companies that the computer is a viable distribution model and that we want those distributed files fairly unfettered by copy protection, than this goes against all that.

      I don't see how. It's not the burden of consumers not to disappoint the music industry. Rather, it's the burden of the music industry not to disappoint consumers.

      It makes Apple look bad, and we're at the point where Apple is really our best hope for a scheme which we like.

      Well, it is in the nature of some

  • I'd get it damn quick, if Apple's swift wrath over iCommune is anything to go by.

    -- james

  • nothing is free (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Councilor Hart ( 673770 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @09:16AM (#6123424)
    In life nothing is free. Either you pay now, or you pay in the long run. Unfortunately this doesn't simply means a delay of payment. We may end with free music now and no music in the future. This might seem silly, since many can make pretty decent music on their instruments and spread it for free on the net. But it's different with games and movies. I don't see anyone making The Matrix Reloaded on their PC or Mac with only their free time. How the ITMS ends up now, will guide the decision for the moviemakers. And then I haven't even mentioned that DRM-stuff the americans are facing.
    • -I don't see anyone making The Matrix Reloaded-

      Your right, only a huge Hollywood conglomerate would have the resources to pay someone who can't act $30M to play the lead role, and come up with a marketing machine that will make Americans "95% brand aware" of their movie. How foolish we would be to try attain such a level of quality. At least my movies wouldn't rely on product placement, media pressure or company stockholder demands....

      Hell this keeps sounding better, maybe we _should_ drive all these medi
      • I was more thinking about SFX and such.
        Are actors overpaid? Hell yes.
        Do I care about the big companies? Hell no.
        Do I care about my entertainment? (Do keep in mind that not everyone likes high culture stuff.) Hell yes.
        Should I pay to ensure that there will still be my kind of entertainment in the future? Yes.
        Does that mean companies have to right to fuck me over and over? Hell no.
        Do I think that they should change their business-model? Hell yes.

        Why would you want to post a torrent link? Don't

        • that should at least get you the right to this

          http://www.lickmytaint.com/upload/2003-05-14_Ma t ri x.Reloaded.TS-ESOTERiC.torrent

          an admittedly sorry (compared ot real dvd) theatre shot copy of matrix. no 6 channel sound, no hdtv and progressive scan quality, and no director commentary.

          There is only one way to convince them change their business model so that it supports us and not just their stockholders, and thats to nearly drive them into the ground and let smaller indie companies back in the fray.
          The

          • Re:you paid your $8 (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Mononoke ( 88668 )

            There is only one way to convince them change their business model so that it supports us and not just their stockholders, and thats to nearly drive them into the ground and let smaller indie companies back in the fray.

            So, you declare yourself to be lord over media product, and if some company gets too big by your estimation, then you'll release a free copy of their product to the masses "just to show them who's boss"???

            Why should their business model "support us"? Businesses exist to make money, most

  • Now Apple will come out with iTunes 4.0.2 which will make sure programs like this wont work. Then someone will invent i******* which will alow it again. Then iTunes 4.0.3 will come along .....

  • Apple, read your own advice (repost) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mrthoughtful ( 466814 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @09:35AM (#6123642) Journal
    In the 'good old days' of 1997, Apple authored a list of "ten commandments" as a part of it's compatibility tech note [apple.com]. It is the seventh commandment which is particularly interesting: "VII. Thou shalt think twice about code designed strictly as copy protection." Note, that these are the the commandments that are "determined from extensive testing of our diverse software base."

    Of course as soon as you choose to make allies in the music industry, you are going to have to negotiate, but one of the primary issues (mentioned so many times on slashdot that there is no point in providing links) is the question of whether we should have our liberty constrained in order to prevent us from breaking the law.

    We would love to say 'No!', but then watch how many of us flaunt copyright law as a standard practice.

    But also Apple was right - copyright protection is an unending waste of human resource, computer resource, comms resource, and slashdot posts!

    Again and again we find that the music/video/text/etc. copyright and patent laws are incompatible with the Internet as a technology, and the Internet is not going to go away. Sorry, lawmakers, but one day soon you will have to wake up to the revolution that came from a direction you didn't expect, and then we will stop having to put kludges on top of kludges to deal with the cultural soup that we are in.

    Creative minds will find a way of being able to provide a direct passage to it's audience. The huge publishing corporates are hanging onto a dying game. Monolithic software corporations are being replaced by interoperability standards.

    Apple, Listen! Remember! Think different!

    • It's not copy protection, it's fair use protection (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:23AM (#6124127)
      a) The streaming feature was never meant to be used other than locally.
      b) Their testing missed the hole.

      Ignoring that, one reason they don't do copy protection is that they trust people who can pay for products they use will pay for products they use. Streaming music to unknown people not only isn't fair use(*), but may qualify individuals as internet radio stations. Remember the licensing fees that were approved? Would you want Apple to have to collect those?

      Personally, I don't think copyright/patent laws are incompatible with the internet directly, but that endless extensions undermine fair use, free expression, and human progress in general, regardless of the medium they are applied to.

      * A counter example would be 'If I play my CDs loud at the beach, am I broadcasting?' My best guess is since only people in the vicinity can hear it then no, though in the courts it's anyone's guess. An ancillary thought would be if having a radio tuned to a game at a beach counts as a rebroadcast, but I'm probably thinking too much.

    • Re:Apple, read your own advice (repost) (Score:5, Informative)

      by cjhuitt ( 466651 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:35AM (#6124247)
      While I think that Apple was probably very aware of how iTunes 4.0's wide-area playlist streaming was viewed by the RIAA, etc., they also had other reasons to release iTunes 4.0.1 to limit the broadcast range of the program.

      First of all, the documentation for 4.0 specifically had said that it was local sharing only, which seems to me to mean that they intended it to be that way from the start.

      Add to that the fact that they have received bug reports about the wide-area broadcast from companies whose employees were streaming music from their home. (Repeating second-hand, but I might be able to dig up the original report I read of this.) For the companies, this was a bug, as many have to pay for the bandwidth used by their employees, and streaming music does use up a fair amount of bandwidth.

      Finally, realize that the reason that the streams were being wide-area broadcast was, if I remember correctly, forgetting to set a field in the data packets sent out. A very simple fix, and they have fixed a bug, made corporate administrators happy, and not coincindentally, reassured the music industry that they are on top of these things.

      Now, who knows what they will do about this new development? My guess is that they will do nothing, recognizing that, as you say, copyright protection can be an unending waste of human resource. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the next release, for whatever needs fixing/updating, just "accidentally" renders this inoperative. Then an update to this program will be made, and Apple will probably go along ignoring it as usual.

    • Re:Apple, read your own advice (repost) (Score:4, Interesting)

      by prell ( 584580 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @12:51PM (#6125419) Homepage
      So, you actually use this "feature," right? You are actually streaming music through iTunes from internet users on a non-novelty basis? I think sharing music with others is the "number one" way to get new music, but frankly this feature is just something to talk about on Slashdot and never have to try and endure: It does not work well.

      The iTunes Music Store is not Winzip: It does not have a useless license agreement and serial key evaluator for purchases. Apple has presented a burgeoning distribution model for music, and while in one breath, we sigh "finally," in the other, we cry foul? I understand that iTMS has been a long-time-coming, and we want to nurture it and not see it go astray, but to interpret Apple's fair use policy (which is very fair for where we are now), and its reaction to community software, and scream "unfair," is, in my opinion, overdoing it.

      I don't want to call DRM a "necessary evil," but I would like to make two points: The internet, and especially internet distribution of information, is not mature; DRM is a "stepping stone," and sort of an awkward one, as it is a ridiculous notion to think that someone can have a bunch of files and not ever be able to access them: They will eventually. However, this is how the iTMS works, and its DRM is currently not the draconian hardware-supported DRM of Palladium. Will we be using some form of DRM in sixty years? Will we force the square peg of internet distribution into the round hole of pre-1990s commerce? We'll see.

      It comes down to this: You can stream music from people and hijack the audio into your own files. While you can always do that with your iPods, CD players, and other devices, I think it's fair to say that the internet is sort of a sore spot for the record companies, and perhaps we should back off a little for now, and let the nascent iTMS allay any fears the record industry may have. That being said, we have to keep pushing for our rights and interests in what you have rightly interpreted to be the "brave new world" of internet communication. This iTunes hack is one way we could sort-of say "this is what we want," but again, I really don't think this feature is very useful.

  • So what... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:05AM (#6123918)
    Just because a tool is available that enables something illegal doesn't mean that the tool, the designer, the manufacturer, or the distributor is to blame for the crime that is committed. It's the BA$TARD that commits the crime that is to blame and NOBODY ELSE.

    I, for one, am SICK AND TIRED of people's mentality about culpibility with regard to digital piracy. It's like watching parents blame TV or the school for little Jonny's behavior problem. It is freaking disgusting and just stupid.

    I say don't assume that just because a crime CAN be committed that it WILL be committed and let the tools be made but bring the hammer down on those individuals who use them for illegal purposes.
    • Just because a tool is available that enables something illegal doesn't mean that the tool, the designer, the manufacturer, or the distributor is to blame for the crime that is committed. It's the BA$TARD that commits the crime that is to blame and NOBODY ELSE.

      I don't think it's that easy. For example, I agree with the international campaign to ban antipersonnel landmines [icbl.org]. You could say that a land mine is just a weapon like any else. You could argue in the same way as you do in your post that land mine

      • Re:So what... (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yes. And land mines do have a legitimate use. They are a great defensive weapon. The problem with land mines is rogue nations that use them and never clean them up. The U.S. cleaned out the Mekong(sp?) Delta of the mines the U.S. military had laid there. It was part of the treaty.

        Dr. Stash
      • But on the other hand - an antipersonnel land mine hardly has any legitimate use. It is the sort of weapon that kills and wounds innocent civilians, not soldiers. So there are SOME tools and SOME devices that has no legitimate use whatsoever.

        Tell that to the South Koreans, who owe their existence as a nation to a hell of a lot of land mines in the DMZ.

  • Sign of things to come? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nycroft ( 653728 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:11AM (#6123993) Homepage
    Every time the music companies and the RIAA try to stop file sharing, it seems that somebody out there will find a way to do it. Some say that this can only hurt the music industry because artists won't get paid, and the label won't make a profit, blah, blah, blah. If you ask me, I think the time for pop stars and record labels making millions is almost at an end.

    Here's my vision of the future of music: People everywhere are able to share the music they purchase with anyone they want. That gets the musicians' product to millions of people, fast. The musician then has to tour and play live to make money. At the live show, maybe the musician sells some more CDs and other merch, and the cycle begins anew. What's so bad about that? Live shows are great! Maybe this whole new process will weed out those fakers that aren't any good without ProTools. Our ears may get a well deserved break from the cookie-cutter pop music crap that radio stations are forced to play by big-money record labels.

    It'll make the quality of the music better as well. Without the domination by a few music acts that get all the airplay and spots on TRL, musicians will have to be extraordinary, musically and lyrically, in order to really shine and rise above the rest. Sure, they won't make the millions that artists do now. Oh well. That just means musicians that are in it for the music will continue to play.

    One can only dream. And in case you are wondering: Yes, I am a musician. The thing is, I know there are so many musicians out there who are way better than I am. I'd still be at the bottom of the pile. Then again, that could be a good thing.

  • MP3 sharing is becoming like a religion... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DAQ42 ( 210845 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:30AM (#6124199)
    At least it would seem so from a few perspectives. Why the hell do you need to pump your music selection out to the masses? Do you really think I want to hear you favorite crap indie garage band mp3's? I mean really, people. Get over yourselves. If you really want to share your music selection with a friend (and I mean someone you know by thier birthname, not some jack off in another country with the AIM logon of DickBig070002) there are simple and perfectly legal ways of doing so. Burn a CD, or, if you're so smart, set up your own private pptp session between your 2 Macs and share that way. But honestly folks, what the hell do you need to be wasting bandwidth for? Does that bootleg of Madonna's latest album make you naughty bits tingle? Do you feel like you are a part of the revolution sitting at your computer taking money from the pockets of the performers and artists? Good for you. Viva la revelutione you bad ass. My god. No wonder everyone hates you. And don't think for a minute that I don't have aspirations of grandeure, and dream of becoming the next underground sensation that people will love forever and my music will be the greatest colelction of free speech/thought on the internet. Guess what. You are a dime a dozen in the world, so get over yourself. Go outside. Say hi to your neighbor and share some music with them. See if you don't enjoy someones actual company for once. Maybe they own a Mac too and you just didn't know if because you were too freakin busy posting on /. how much the RIAA and MPAA and Microsuck was beating you down. Asshats. All of you.

    As an aside, I think it's pathetic how the RIAA pressured Apple into stopping the internet sharing. Come on, there was a hard coded limit of how many users could connect at one time. Plus, anything you stream on the net, whether it's audio or video or peanut butter, you can _ALWAYS_ capture to file. Bits are bits are bits. Nothing will ever stop them from being captured and written to disk. Asshats. That is the nature of computers. Geez. Maybe the RIAA thinks that the internet is a magical cloud of pixie dust and the data is magically wisked from one computer to another and if you have the pink pixie dust of the grand poohbah DRM you can't capture the data bits (kind of like a good acid trip). Morons. The entertainment industry is about ethereal things. Only it's too settled into the world of brick and mortar. They need to get out of the concrete and back into the minds of the audience. Interesting paradox; there are 5 media giant companies, who own 100's of affiliate distributions, that pump out the same 2 things, black or white (sides of the issue, not color of the skin). Maybe the biggest failure of our society is that we are such a binary culture.

    Anyway. Enough postulating. Back to coding (WORK SLAVE WORK)

    • Re:MP3 sharing is becoming like a religion... (Score:5, Funny)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @10:43AM (#6124328) Journal
      the internet is a magical cloud of pixie dust and the data is magically wisked from one computer to another and if you have the pink pixie dust of the grand poohbah DRM you can't capture the data bits (kind of like a good acid trip).

      I have an Internet computing exam tomorrow. Mind if I quote that?

    • At least it would seem so from a few perspectives. Why the hell do you need to pump your music selection out to the masses? Do you really think I want to hear you favorite crap indie garage band mp3's? I mean really, people. Get over yourselves.

      Yeah, you care about listening to their music as much as I ... well, care about what you have to say. I mean really. Get over yourself.
  • I share* my iTunes music collection from my mac with apache.
    sharing is one of the things I didn't even look in iTunes (as the store, but primarily because they don't want to sell to me).
    -
    * between different room of the house. No internet service, but this is my choice. Technically, it could be done, I just don't want to.

  • Ain't psychology wonderful? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grantsellis ( 537978 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @11:43AM (#6124850) Homepage
    I had and have no intention of using the internet streaming feature, but I downloaded this plugin as soon as it came up because it was something I used to be able to do and now I can't do it any more.

    As my communications teacher would have said in my class on persuasion, "Scarcity principle."

  • Why do this? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xyrw ( 609810 ) on Thursday June 05, 2003 @12:15PM (#6125121) Homepage
    My knee- jerk reaction was `What the f*** were they thinking?'

    If Apple yanked Internet- wide MP3 streaming because of third- party apps, what makes you think they won't yank streaming ALTOGETHER because of this third- party app?

    That is, assuming the copying programs work with it . . . which I myself have no intention of verifying.

  • yay.. (Score:1)

    by prell ( 584580 )
    Awesome, now we can all celebrate our reclaimed ability to do something we will never do, meanwhile getting Apple in trouble again. I really don't think this is some wonderful "secret feature," and frankly its usefulness is, in my opinion, limited to those people who want to stream music from their own computers at some other location (work perhaps), which narrows the legitimate audience for this hack down to about a dozen people. Trying to stream music from random users on the internet is an exercise in

  • iTunes 4.0.1 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dbirling ( 679190 )
    As soon as iTunes 4 came out I fell in love with the internet sharing feature. Finally I could be at work and stream my music from home. Cable is awesome, it's like the music is right there... anyway a few "Thieves" had to ruin it and as I figured Apple would have to move to block it. The ironic this is those thieves probably would never have bought any of the music anyway, but to the RIAA that's besides the point I guess. What I wish Apple would have doon with 4.0.1 is limit the number of internet shares

    • Re:iTunes 4.0.1 (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It seems the only legit reason people want internet streaming is to listen to their own collections away from their main computer. But you don't need iTunes 4.0 to do that, there is more than one way to do this that doesn't require Apple making it kick-in-the-face easy for you. Turn on personal file sharing, copy your iTunes database over to the other cpu to get playlists etc and taa-daa, you can stream. Well, there are a few other steps to take, but really just figure it out on your own, it's not that h

  • DMCA (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pcp_ip ( 612017 ) *
    Just a question... Wouldn't this be considered a violation of the DMCA? Essentially this app is circumventing the DRM system that Apple has choosen for iTunes.

    (and for the record, I'm downloading the app now so i can stick it to the man)

    • Re:DMCA (Score:2)

      by pudge ( 3605 ) *
      Some court might think so, but since the program doesn't change anything about iTunes itself, I wouldn't.
  • When Apple first released iTunes 4 with its network streaming capabilities, and various Mac fan sites began posting URL's to shared music, I was taken aback at Apple's genius -- but then, as a solid Mac user, I often am. As P2P PC clients are slowly crashing and burning (although Kazaa is still running strong, one wonders how long they will be able to persist), Apple has devised a way to share free music, without placing any blame on themselves. Upon updating my system a month later, I was at first shocked

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