[wplug] OT: locked online music!?

[Patrick Wagstrom]

On Mon, 2005-09-12 at 23:01 -0400, Douglas Green wrote:
> Hey all-
> I recently purchased a vehicle with an mp3 CD player in it, and tried  
> to burn a few mp3 cds from some of the music I have <legitimately>  
> purchased online. To my surprise, these files are LOCKED! I'm so  
> P.O.'d about the whole thing that I wanted to get the word out about  
> JHymn, an open source piece of software that strips the locks/keys  
> from your files. I have no connection with this project whatsoever...  
> just a really REALLY annoyed (former) customer! I'll spare the rant  
> over fair use of my purchased music for another time. Bottom line: if  
> you've been purchasing music online as I have, you may be in for a  
> rude surprise when you want to play it on something other than your  
> computer!
> XMMS is starting to look really good right about now...
> -Doug

A nice solution to this problem is to use allofmp3.com.  It's a russian
site that due to loopholes in copyright law lets you buy MP3s by the
megabyte ($0.02 a meg or something), all unencumbered.  They also offer
ogg, flac, etc.  Very cool site.  Yes, its legal.  They have a license
to operate in Russia, which hasn't updated their copyright laws to the
US level of draconian-ness yet.  Under the current copyright regime, if
you purchase something in another country that is legal there, and they
are party to the international copyright treaty (forget the name), you
can bring it back.  Thus, Russian mp3 sites are legal, but Iranian and
Qatari sites are not.

You may be concerned that the artists aren't getting compensated for
your downloading here, which is probably true.  But then again, don't
delude yourself into thinking they're getting much of your $0.99 iTunes
price either.  Most still goes to the record companies, which now can
get a bigger piece of the pie than before, thanks to not needing to
manufacture CDs and distribute them.

One recommendation, as you are dealing with a russian entity, you may
want to get a virtual account number for your credit card beforehand.  I
haven't heard any horror stories, but you can't be too safe.

--Patrick