From technology to politics to video games; these are the random thoughts of a geek with too much time on his hands
And funny enough, people are mad about this
Published on June 4, 2007 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

Last month, Apple launched a new iTunes service for DRM (Digital Rights Management) free songs.  These songs, which not only lacked copy-protection software to prevent purchasers from easily transferring tracks between computers and digital players, also come encoded at a higher quality.  So not only are you getting a music track that doesn't limit how you use it, it also sounds better.  Win-win, right?

Well, evidently not if you're on the extreme side of the anti-DRM debate.

You see, while there's no code in the file to limit users on how and when they can play the music, there is a little bit of information tacked on.  Specifically?  The name on the account used to purchase the song.  The idea is that if you upload your newly downloaded track to some music piracy site, if anyone on the law enforcement side of things picks up the file, they'll know exactly who uploaded it.  Pretty smart, if you ask me.  You're not limiting use in any way, but you're putting in a major deterrent to anyone who wants to use this new-found freedom to redistribute the track.

However it's caused a small firestorm online as people complain that Apple is doing something truly heinous and evil.  When in reality, Apple is doing nothing more than they always have.  That info has been embedded in every song sold through the store since its launch.  Seems some people not only want DRM-free, they want piracy-protection-free too.  Which they aren't likely to get anytime soon.


Comments
on Jun 04, 2007
Is it stored as meta data? What's to prevent users from removing that bit of info?
on Jun 04, 2007
I still dont see Law enforcement checking 145632 Quazillion MP3's to check for data integrity but higher quality encoding sounds nice.  
on Jun 04, 2007
Supposedly it's easy to strip out, but most people on file-sharing networks aren't all that tech-savvy and will likely miss it.  And I can't see law enforcement checking all those MP3s, but if for some reason they're doing a round-up effort, chances are much better of nabbing the person who put it up in the first place.
on Jun 04, 2007
145632 Quazillion


That's alot.
on Jun 04, 2007
I'm sticking with my .99 downloads.  Never had a problem with iTunes.


on Jun 04, 2007
The reason I want DRM free music is so I'm not forced to play it in iTunes.
on Jun 04, 2007
The reason I want DRM free music is so I'm not forced to play it in iTunes.

I'm using my iTunes library with Xion.
on Jun 04, 2007
Real simple.....

Use IP masker.... sign up with one time use credit cards..... Use a disposable email address like from Walla.com.... Fake Name and Addy

Works wonders
on Jun 04, 2007
yeah, as mentioned, some ip changer soft and fake information and it's done...
on Jun 04, 2007
I'm using my iTunes library with Xion.


Purchased songs? It's only playing ones Ive ripped from CDs.
on Jun 04, 2007
even though itunes is a very good piece of software i will not use it because of a natural hatred of apple products (see we pc owners are capable of hatred too ). also i dont like the way it infiltrates itself into my system just like the way quicktime does. But like i said, if your happy with the program there is no reason why you should stop using it, as for DRM. draconian socialist comes to mind i dont want to be limited to what software i can use to play my mp3's and as i have 60,000 mp3's at this time i like to have a multitude of software at my beck and call to play them. i should mention that all my mp3's are for my own personal use and i don not participate in sharing or serving them.
on Jun 04, 2007

You see, while there's no code in the file to limit users on how and when they can play the music, there is a little bit of information tacked on. Specifically? The name on the account used to purchase the song.

Sounds like Apple got something right at last....

First time for everything...

on Jun 04, 2007
Mr. Nimbin you have SIXTY THOUSAND MP3? Isn't that like, all the music in the world?   
on Jun 04, 2007
JayTee10 i used to have more but i put a lot onto dvd to clean out some space on my computer. all up i would say i have almost 100,000 mp3's between harddrive and whats on dvd.
on Jun 05, 2007
I think this move is great, it completely shuts down the amateur sharing uploaders. Those dumb guys that put up crappy files on the popular p2p's can be shot down easily, and it will allow non-obtrusive fair use for the people that buy the music.

Of course this won't stop the real scene, but I'd guess that over 70% of music downloaders are not getting scene releases anyway. Keep in mind the scene groups can easily release cracked or clean files regardless of what the music companies try to do, so fighting that with obtrusive DRM does more harm than good overall.

Kudos to Apple, finally we can have fair use while they can still keep an eye on those people who take files directly to p2p.