According to this article at The Register DVD Jon has added the ability to play iTMS files using VLC. This could be very very bad for all of us that like the iTMS.
For the last time... There is no way for Apple or anyone else to protect music. All it takes is to link the digital audio out on one computer to the digital audio in on another and the music is copied at very good quality.
Nothing new here, just another way of performing the same old trick.
Gah! I hate the Reg. I could hardly deduce anything from the article. If iTMS music is encrypted locally with a system key, as the article suggests, then you still need to have bought the music... it's basically the same as DVD Jon's last program, just more user friendly.
The problem would be people cracking the key and then distributing the cracked track.
Which you can anyway by burning to CD then ripping it. VLC isn't that easy to use for creating files, this is in the same league as the CD solution. And you might complain that CDs cost money, but you CAN use CD-RW.
And in the end, so what. My opinion of the recording industry is basically I'd love them to bleed to death. I do have more sustainable arguments for getting rid of DRM, but I'm sure you've heard them all.
music pircy will always exist until there arent copyright laws. at itms is trying. i can see record labels pulling legal downloads from napster, etc., but itms is the best thing going.
. I was a fan of the reg before they started this campaign against iTMS.
I don't have anything bad against the reg, or jon, but that article seemed really anti-iTMS. I am curious what software license agreement doesn't say that it can change at anytime?
Actually, most of the anti-Apple stuff is in quotes attributed to DVD Jon. And he's right, the RIAA can change the DRM as they please. He's also right that a lot of Mac zealots would go "it's good compromise", when it's obviously not. Like now. It's OK but it's not good. Where he loses me is in trying to cast Apple in the role of the Copyright Police.
The Reg just seems to get it in for people of late. Their Apple articles look like glowing praise compared to their terrier-like attacks on google over recent months.
The register is still fuming over OS X over the Classic Mac OS. plus they're muck rakers, plus they' anti-DRM in any form, reasonable or not. The world including Apple reacts with a resounding yawn at this news. FairPlay and the iTMS was never intended to be foolproof, it was intended to be fair. Anyone who can't stand that might be surprised at the apathy this achievement will garner. The iTMS is too fair and convenient to go to this trouble, the cost of buying too small to go through the effort to dodge paying. If these people were trying to make a point, they missed it. If they wanted to save some money, they shouldn't have wasted so much time (therefore potential income) and energy in the first place, and should have just bought the music at a reasonable price.
Now if someone could find a way to crack those music companies' music vaults and finish all those damn partial albums o the iTMS, I'd be all over that stuff.
Which you can anyway by burning to CD then ripping it. VLC isn't that easy to use for creating files, this is in the same league as the CD solution. And you might complain that CDs cost money, but you CAN use CD-RW.
I suppose it must be repeated everytime that this subject comes up that "defeating" DRM by burning to CD (or otherwise creating an AIFF/WAV/other PCM file) and re-reripping means that you either lose sound quality, or must distribute a very large uncompressed file in order to avoid that loss.
Truly circumventing the DRM means removing the security wrapper while keeping the same compression size, and suffering no loss of fidelity.
I suppose it must be repeated everytime that this subject comes up that "defeating" DRM by burning to CD (or otherwise creating an AIFF/WAV/other PCM file) and re-reripping means that you either lose sound quality, or must distribute a very large uncompressed file in order to avoid that loss.
Which is what happens when you save an iTMS file with VLC. You have to re-encode it in another format using the streaming function. Or at least, that's what I gather, the Reg is so scant on detail.
Which is what happens when you save an iTMS file with VLC. You have to re-encode it in another format using the streaming function. Or at least, that's what I gather, the Reg is so scant on detail.
That's not how I read this:
Quote:
Johansen cracked iTunes DRM scheme in November by releasing code for a small Windows program that dumps the stream to disk in raw AAC format.
Imagine the playback process like this:
1) Check DRM access rights.
2) Decrypt encrypted AAC data.
3) Decode and expand AAC data to PCM for playback.
From this article, and from the previous talk about this issue, I understand the crack to be a way of tapping into the iTunes code between steps 2 and 3, before the AAC data has been decoded, but after the protected form of the data has been decrypted.
And the story gets better. Real announced that their next version of Real player will be able to play iTMS songs on windows PCs. It seems that it the player detects the same key that VLC uses and allows the songs to be played using Real and not just iTunes anymore. The article is an interesting read and could prove to be a tricky situation for Apple. We know how obsessed with controlling the entire user experience is, but now PC users are going to be able to play iTMS songs outside of iTunes. Wonder if Apple is going to go after Real in court or use this as an example of how the iTMS is not as a closed system as people think.
Real's solution is to call Quicktime / iTunes in the background to play iTMS files. That's also in the article. You have to have iTunes installed for Real's player to play iTMS files.
So is there or is there not a way to strip the DRM off of an iTMS file without re-ripping? Let's say, for instance, I want to use an iTMS AAC in a Nokia phone. How would I do it?
It's possible, but the software you need isn't finished yet.
Comments
For the last time... There is no way for Apple or anyone else to protect music. All it takes is to link the digital audio out on one computer to the digital audio in on another and the music is copied at very good quality.
Nothing new here, just another way of performing the same old trick.
Barto
And they are stll wrong with many of their concepts. I was a fan of the reg before they started this campaign against iTMS.
Originally posted by Fran441
The problem would be people cracking the key and then distributing the cracked track.
Which you can anyway by burning to CD then ripping it. VLC isn't that easy to use for creating files, this is in the same league as the CD solution. And you might complain that CDs cost money, but you CAN use CD-RW.
And in the end, so what. My opinion of the recording industry is basically I'd love them to bleed to death. I do have more sustainable arguments for getting rid of DRM, but I'm sure you've heard them all.
Barto
Originally posted by MarkL
. I was a fan of the reg before they started this campaign against iTMS.
I don't have anything bad against the reg, or jon, but that article seemed really anti-iTMS. I am curious what software license agreement doesn't say that it can change at anytime?
The Reg just seems to get it in for people of late. Their Apple articles look like glowing praise compared to their terrier-like attacks on google over recent months.
Now if someone could find a way to crack those music companies' music vaults and finish all those damn partial albums o the iTMS, I'd be all over that stuff.
Originally posted by Barto
Which you can anyway by burning to CD then ripping it. VLC isn't that easy to use for creating files, this is in the same league as the CD solution. And you might complain that CDs cost money, but you CAN use CD-RW.
I suppose it must be repeated everytime that this subject comes up that "defeating" DRM by burning to CD (or otherwise creating an AIFF/WAV/other PCM file) and re-reripping means that you either lose sound quality, or must distribute a very large uncompressed file in order to avoid that loss.
Truly circumventing the DRM means removing the security wrapper while keeping the same compression size, and suffering no loss of fidelity.
Originally posted by shetline
I suppose it must be repeated everytime that this subject comes up that "defeating" DRM by burning to CD (or otherwise creating an AIFF/WAV/other PCM file) and re-reripping means that you either lose sound quality, or must distribute a very large uncompressed file in order to avoid that loss.
Which is what happens when you save an iTMS file with VLC. You have to re-encode it in another format using the streaming function. Or at least, that's what I gather, the Reg is so scant on detail.
Barto
Originally posted by Barto
Which is what happens when you save an iTMS file with VLC. You have to re-encode it in another format using the streaming function. Or at least, that's what I gather, the Reg is so scant on detail.
That's not how I read this:
Johansen cracked iTunes DRM scheme in November by releasing code for a small Windows program that dumps the stream to disk in raw AAC format.
Imagine the playback process like this:
1) Check DRM access rights.
2) Decrypt encrypted AAC data.
3) Decode and expand AAC data to PCM for playback.
From this article, and from the previous talk about this issue, I understand the crack to be a way of tapping into the iTunes code between steps 2 and 3, before the AAC data has been decoded, but after the protected form of the data has been decrypted.
This one allows VLC to play a file by determining the system key. I'm just guessing what the system key does, because the Reg doesn't explain it.
You can save files in VLC, but IIRC you need to re-encode them, VLC can't save to M4A wrappers.
Barto
TheReg sees all DRM as equally bad, when of course iTMS DRM isn't that big a deal, whereas (for example) the DRM is DVDs really sucks.
I don't like iTMS DRM, but theReg blows it all out of proportion.
And they know less about computers than most of the members on this forum, which doesn't help.
Barto
Originally posted by tonton
So is there or is there not a way to strip the DRM off of an iTMS file without re-ripping? Let's say, for instance, I want to use an iTMS AAC in a Nokia phone. How would I do it?
It's possible, but the software you need isn't finished yet.
Back to subject.
I could give a sh*t about this hole deal. It's cheaper, and quicker to pirate CD's using legit CD's than it is to try this flimsy example.