iTunes, MyTunes, ourTunes
p2pnet.net News Feature:- iTunes, MyTunes, OurTunes.
Whose tunes?
That’s the question at the bottom of a controvery that’s currently raging online and because of it, Apple’s Steve Jobs is coming across as a mean-minded miser.
Apple just plain won’t let people who’ve paid good money – a lot of it – to download Big Four record label cartel tracks from its iTunes play them on anything except its iPod.
So RealNetworks boss Ron Glaser decided to launch Harmony, an application which effectively nullifies Apple’s consumer control technology called FairPlay.
The punch-up caught the mainstream media’s eye but the natives have, in fact, been restless for some considerable time because although most hard-core Apple users will put up with just about anything Steve and his crew care to dish out, the vast majority of consumers aren’t so complacent.
Some time back Jon Lech Johansen, aka DVD Jon (the Bane of Hollywood) and an anonymous programmer, got fed up with Apple’s bullshit and decided to do something about it. The results are here (Johansen -vs- Apple) and here (Anonymous Programnmer, PlayFair and HYMN -vs- Apple).
Now, of course, we have RealNetworks doing the same, but for wholly commercial considerations.
Before DVD Jon and HYMN, there was Bill Zeller’s MyTunes, a Windows p2p application. But it, too, came and went, thanks to Steve Jobs & Co.
Mind you, Zeller hasn’t given up on making apps to work with iTunes. There’s also his iTunesAlarm (”Plays any playlist at any time”) designed to work with iTunes 4.5.
Now we have ourTunes v1.3, distributed under the GPL and with “lots of bugfixes, download queue viewer and host status tab”.
“I’d put the status firmly at beta,” Dave told p2pnet. “We’re back to doing a lot of development on the codebase, so check back often for updates.”
In the meanwhile, even bad news is good news for Apple.
Yesterday it announced it’s recalling close to 30,000 very dodgy batteries – an internal short can cause the cells to overheat “posing a fire hazard to consumers”. It says “no injuries have been reported”.
Any other manufacturer would have been hung, drawn and quartered and shock-horror headlines would have been everywhere.
But it’s Apple. So that’s OK.
August 20th, 2004 at 8:00 pm
Actually it’s Apples iTunes, they can and will break any attempt to bypass the record industry plutocrats DRM, like it or not; otherwise your waspishness is wasted
August 20th, 2004 at 8:15 pm
“Any other manufacturer would have been hung, drawn and quartered and shock-horror headlines would have been everywhere.” – You mean the South Korean LG Chem, who is footing the bill for the battery recall?
August 20th, 2004 at 9:16 pm
Any chance it’s not actually Apple that wants the music so tightly gaurded? Maybe they are trying really hard to KEEP the contracts they have with the labels by bending to their (albeit off-colour) wishes to encrypt/protect/lock-up everything they can.
I was under the impression that Apple actually wanted to find a way to sell the music without ANY DRM and they couldn’t get any labels on board without it.
Somehow I feel all this antagonism towards Apple (above article included) is a tad bit misdirected.
August 21st, 2004 at 12:09 am
Hell i remember when one can “share” their music in iTunes with damn near anyone else who had iTunes as well…. me thinks Mr,Jobs is dreaming of even more $$$. Oh well, i have my hotline, my KDX, and my Acquisition to fill all of my musical needs…and all the while iTunes reaps the fruit of their labor.
-ZURIEL-
August 21st, 2004 at 1:29 am
What a bunch of typical…bullshit
August 21st, 2004 at 1:41 am
“Any other manufacturer would have been hung, drawn and quartered and shock-horror headlines would have been everywhere.
But it’s Apple. So that’s OK.”
—————————————————————————————–
RE: Usually Apple gets unwarranted coverage from uninformed people like yourself. You are wrong on just about every point you are trying to make.
http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/35999.html
August 21st, 2004 at 4:59 am
hehe – another Appler
August 21st, 2004 at 6:48 am
There has been headlines everywhere about the batteries problem, dozens of articles in mainstream media outlets, There are tons of other Apple Haters working as “news reporters” just waiting to say “ah ah! told you so, you pay tons of money for your hardware, and look, there are some defects!”. Sorry I’m sure you’ll find many more cases of consumers electronics and computers recalls in the financial results of most computer makers than in the news, as for Apple, every single problem is overly scruntized by many (non-mac) news outlets often with factually challenged articles.
“Apple just plain won’t let people who’ve paid good money – a lot of it – to download Big Four record label cartel tracks from its iTunes play them on anything except its iPod.”
You can play bought iTunes tracks on as many as five computers, thats for every song available on the iTMS. People forget that not everyone wants/needs portability…People who buy tunes on iTMS are informed of the limitation induced by the DRM, including the fact that you can only use an iPod as a portable music player to play the DRM tunes. You can also burn tracks on CD’s that are the equivalent of what can be heard from playing those on iTunes or on the iPod.
Before puting DRM on the iPod put a couple of things to prevent straightfoward copying of tracks between computers using an iPod. But this was to please the RIAA, they didn’t advertised to them that you could turn this mechanism off very easily with a check box. Apple is not fundamentaly a pro DRM company, they do it in this case because they have to. Mac OS X doesn’t require to be registered online, the rare quirks introduced for commercial purposes are easy to go around. Apple doesn’t try to make infaillible DRM, it is almost purposedly weak. Funny to see the hackers so proud to have hacked some Apple DRM when really Apple didn’t even try to make it infaillible. The way to do an almost totally unhackeable DRM would be using a hardware solution like “Palladium” from MS, Intel and other partners, and then you would have your music collection locked in the Windows platform.
But anyway, I’m guess you don’t have any DRM tunes because they are “evil” and because p2p and mp3russianmafia.com are soooo cheaper. Oh and by the way… you can also play normal mp3’s, AIFF’s and a lossless codec on the iPod…
The only way to legally buy tunes from the Big 4 labels “cartel” is to accept their conditions, is it that hard to understand? Apple has to go after utilities that could in a way replicate a free mirror server of the iTMS. They have to give the impression that they got things under control or they could lose leverage or their contracts entirely. If you want to boycott DRM well don’t say you want to be able to chose your DRM flavor…
August 22nd, 2004 at 4:43 pm
he he he another uninformed idiot.
August 22nd, 2004 at 7:47 pm
It’ is misleading to say that Music purchased from the iTunes music store is only playable on the iPod. It can be played on a users’ Macs or Windows PCs (And I think Linux too using VLC), streamed over Airport Express to a nearby stereo, perhaps even playable by other iTunes machines on the same subnet. And lets not forget one can burn audio CDs playable in traditional stereo equipment. And those CDs can be read by whatever software works with non-iPod players. If one doesn’t want to keep the music on audio CD, use CD-RW discs to avoid waste (fine for reading back into a computer, but fewer stereos can read themm than CD-R). I have to wonder just how much of this whining about limitations in using protected AAC files is from people really dealing with a limitation, and how much is from people trolling. Sony’s music store and player essentially only work with each other. And I believe DRM’d WMA files from wherever don’t work on the iPod.
I don’t know who in their right mind would even think about wanting to buy music from REAL. It may be cheaper during a promotion, but to most informed people that’s irrelevant. Most wouldn’t buy a “discounted” stereo from a drug dealer, and many wouldn’t by from a company that’s been sleazy (spyware, adware, buggyware, burying access to free versions, spam….)
Another thing. Apple’s DRM-AAC isn’t “Apple’s bullshit”. It’s what Apple had to due to satisfy the music industry and still make online sales a reality. They would have never been obtained the agreements needed to be a distributor otherwise. DRM adds some limitiations, but Apple’s implementation has been a hell of a lot better than anything else I’ve seen.
IMHO Apple has generally done a great job of looking out for the user experience. I recall long ago being interested in Mac programing and picking up the “Inside Macintosh” developer books from them. In there Apple actually discouraged developers from using copy-protection schemes. The reasoning still applies. Protection schemes never provide absolute protection, and they often cause problems for the intended users.
If Apple is so bad, put your money where your mouth is and by from the competition. From what I’ve seen, the competing music stores hit the mark about as well as cow-dung with frosting on it passes for pastry.
My comments are not made out of any blind loyalty to Apple. I’ve got PCs here too (although the only one used recently is the one running Linux). I’ll use alternative products if they meet my needs better. For instance I’ll likely soon put together an Intel/Linux based box for use as an Analog/HDTV personal video recorder. (I’m still hoping to see a good OS X solution before the broadcast flag rules take effect). I feel that Apple delivers very well designed hardware that is competitive for all but the low-end, and integrates it extremely well with OS and application software that just works. They listen to user feedback too. (I love the built in mechanisms in Safari and iTunes for that) I’m an engineer, using what I use because I’d rather spend my time solving my own problems instead of those of the computers.
August 23rd, 2004 at 6:31 pm
Jass,
THIS IS STRIPPING MY GEARS,.. I LOVE YOU AND I THINK I KNOW BETTER THAN TO DO ANYTHING ELSE,… I RECONIZE THAT I HAVE A STRONG CALLING FOR YOU, SOMETHING SERIOUS, LIKE A STONG OVERDOSE OF MY OWN HOMONES,.. NOW CAN YOU HANDLE THE FACTOR THAT IN THE PALACE TIME DOES NOT APPLY ?,…….
August 23rd, 2004 at 8:53 pm
Just like you cannot load tracks from a store-bought CD directly into your ipod, you must first convert it in itunes. Load CD. Highlight tracks. Click convert.
Hey, what about all these tracks I bought at the Real, Cokemusic & Virgin store? Well, if THEY let you, burn tracks to a CD.
open FREE itunes. Highlight tracks. Select from 7 FORMATS (including 3 lossless). Select CONVERT. It’s ready for your ipod (if you have auto-sunc, it’s already in there).
Hey, what about all these tracks I bought at iTMS, I hate DRM. Well, if you have 5 minutes and another blank CD-R (and we know how expensive CDR’s are – what? 2 cents after rebate?). Drag all your AAC M4p tracks into one playlist. Select BURN.
That’s it – you have a backup CD playable on billions of devices worldwide.
As for the battery, Apple did not manufacture them. As far as we know – ZERO machines have actually caught fire and now after 1-3 years, you are getting a NEW, better battery FREE even postage! Where exactly is the downside?
Besides, Dell had a huge recall last year also.
To reimport into itunes/ipod with NO DRM? Put in CD. Highlight tracks. Select up to 7 formats (including 3 lossless), Select CONVERT.
That’s it. If you want to jump through hurdles to use Mytunes or some other hack/crack – be my guest but you’re basically scaling a 15 foot barbed wire fence when if you look a little closely, there is gate and it has a latch – you do have to push it up to let yourself in if you have opposable thumbs – it’s mostly to keep out the SHEEP.
September 22nd, 2004 at 12:50 am
why can’t I just convert my bought music directly to mp3’s instead of having to burn it to a cd first? If I buy alot of music, then that starts to add up burning it to a cd first then converting it. Also, cd-r’s are starting to become expensive compared to dvd-+r’s now.
I shall go through those hurdles because I have the right to do what I want with music that I bought. And I don’t feel like wasting cd-r’s just so that I can put music that I bought on my portable mp3 player instead of having to buy apple’s ipod.
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