[wplug] OT: locked online music!?

[Douglas Green]

The surprise/anger comes because they don't exactly advertise this  
particular limitation, and it's not an obvious extension of anything  
in the DRM. In fact, it only existed since iTunes 4.6. Previously, I  
was able to burn my purchased music onto an MP3 CD. They (Apple) are  
very open about the keys (tracking ownership, 5 max computers, etc).  
But they completely bury the fact that you cannot burn iTunes  
purchased music onto an MP3 CD. On the contrary, visit http:// 
www.apple.com/itunes/burn/ and check out the double-speak for  
yourself. Here's my favorite quote:

"Mix up new tracks with your existing MP3 collection to make killer  
compilations. You can burn songs from the iTunes Music Store an  
unlimited number of times."

Of course, they never directly imply that those two back-to-back  
sentences are related logistically. Don't get me wrong, I love Apple  
and their DRM is supposedly more liberal than others. This thread  
could be generalized to <any> fair-use restriction, but my beef here  
is specifically with the service I used (and I suspect I'm not the  
only one).

The DRM specifies that "multiple perfect copies" are prohibited. AAC  
to MP3 is a lossy conversion, so they aren't perfect copies. Some  
would even argue that MP3s are noticeably inferior. Furthermore, In  
this case they are for personal use and not for distribution of any  
kind. The goal of the DRM is to control distribution. There's no  
particular reason to prohibit this conversion, especially since the  
files can be back-traced to me.

So, why not burn a music CD, then re-import it you ask? Primarily  
because I shouldn't have to. Secondary reasons are: it's a waste of  
drive space, it makes annoying duplicate entries in the library, it's  
a waste of my time, and CDs. In fact, I buy online specifically  
because I don't want a bunch of CD's and plastic lying around.

The whole thing reminds me of when blank audio cassettes first came  
out- they were going to "ruin" the record industry, and everyone  
would dup their vinyl. Then the built-in tape recorders came with  
record players and there was another whimper from the recording  
industry (despite the fact that a portion of the blank sales goes to  
them). Then dual-cassette units were the rage. Oh no- now people can  
duplicate their own tapes! Then, along came CD... unmatched until, oh  
crap- it's a... a... a CD-R! Boo hooo! I suspect that every new  
technology will ultimately face this trend, but only recently have  
they been able to impose fair-use restrictions on the consumer.

So, that's what it's all about: FAIR-USE. I'd be going on a limb to  
say it's cornerstone of open-source, but it's gotta be close. :)

I say- Thank Dog for the JHymn project!



On Sep 21, 2005, at 2:53 PM, Bobbie Eicher wrote:

> Regarding AAC files, I've generally just stripped the copy  
> protection when necessary -- which has been quite rare -- by  
> burning the music to a CD (as a standard music CD, having a CD  
> backup isn't a bad thing anyway) and then ripping it back into  
> iTunes as an mp3.
>
> Considering how open they are about the fact that there's modest  
> copy protection on all of the files they [sell/give away] via  
> iTunes, I'm afraid I'm not really understanding the surprise or anger.
>
> - Bobbie Lynn Eicher
> _______________________________________________
> wplug mailing list
> wplug at wplug.org
> http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.wplug.org/pipermail/wplug/attachments/20050921/cdfa5887/attachment.html