DVD Jon vs Apple
p2pnet.net News:- In an event that reinforces the old net saying that there’s no such thing as perfect copy protection, Jon Lech Johansen and friends have re-opened the back door that allowed iTunes customers to buy and download music files free of DRM.
Late last week, Travis Watkins, Cody Brocious and Johansen (aka "DVD Jon" for his DeCSS software that first made DVD copies possible) released PyMusique, a Linux client for the "popular" iTunes Music Store (iTMS).
Three days later, Apple struck back, patching the "hole" and forcing its customers to use the latest version of the iTunes client.
So DVD Jon promptly reverse engineered Apple’s futile attempt, again opening PyMusique for business.
All this cat-and-mouse chase in a mere five days.
It’s important to note that Johansen and his teammates weren’t trying to get free, as in beer, music out of iTunes. They only wanted to allow Linux users to enjoy the "benefits" of Apple’s offering.
People still need to pay the usual buck-a-song.
But, as it turns out, it’s Apple’s client software that endows the song with its DRM armor, so one side effect of using PyMusique to buy music is: the final music products are free.
Free as in bird, free of any copy protection, allowing legitimate buyers to use the music in the way they, and not how some fat mogul behind a desk, decide is best.
Sixto Luis Santos – p2pnet
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March 23rd, 2005 at 6:29 pm
HOOOOORRAAAAH! For “DVD Jon”!!!!!!!!!!!
When will we finally triumph over corperate America’s unchecked efforts to ruin generic media standards in order to protect the gold lining in their own pockets?
Maulkye
March 23rd, 2005 at 6:41 pm
When are peple going to realize that everybody needs money to live.
Well run companies, like Apple, create goooood jobs for employees and supporting businesses in the area, and good returns for investor’s retirement accounts.
Who else benefits? Tons of people. From the bands, to the bus driver driving the tour bus, to a waitress serving coffee to a journalist covering the band. It’s not greed, it’s live.
Grow up. Asking 99 cents for a tune is reasonable.
March 23rd, 2005 at 7:00 pm
Would you buy a CD that only could be played in your car and no toehr player? Thats what Apple is doing they are limiting how you use something you buy. you still pay the 99 cents with DVD Jons hack you juts get to play the song on non-ipod players. So no money is lost maybe more money will be made if poeple can use what they buy however they like
March 23rd, 2005 at 7:02 pm
It’s not 99 cents a tune – it’s 99 cents an mp3.
There’s a big difference.
Morg
March 23rd, 2005 at 7:07 pm
“Grow up. Asking 99 cents for a tune is reasonable.”
grow up yourself mate, Jon is NOT helping people avoid paying money for the work of others, just thwarting the grotesque assault on our rights and freedoms that is DRM
apple seems to have convinced thousands of clueless nathan barleys that they are just real cool people and not_really_big_business_at_all
wake up, get real, dont buy [that or any] corporate bull**** – people who use p2p are MORE LIKELY to go out and buy the music, the only reason we have this [RIAA DRM] bull, is idiots in suits who dont get it – a bit like you, just *better dressed*
March 23rd, 2005 at 7:07 pm
“When are peple going to realize that everybody needs money to live.
Well run companies, like Apple, create goooood jobs for employees and supporting businesses in the area, and good returns for investor’s retirement accounts.
Who else benefits? Tons of people. From the bands, to the bus driver driving the tour bus, to a waitress serving coffee to a journalist covering the band. It’s not greed, it’s live.”
That’s one way to look at it, here’s another:
There are many ways to create means of distributing goods and services. While social exchange (and therefore economic exchange) is the essence behind human civilization, do not assume that the current corporate model, characterized by mass production and consumption, is the ONLY way people can negotiate the exchange of goods and services.
The larger question might be: do conventional models of distribution of goods and services remain relevant in an era where distribution itself is revolutionized by electronic networks? What are labels/broadcasters/distributors actually doing to the content? Nothing. Once it is produced, traditional distributors are nothing more than middlemen. Capitalism has always been about the elimination of inefficiency. Distributors, unless they can offer something worth paying for in the way they distribute content (comprehensive collections, high quality content, etc) run the risk of being made obsolete.
No different than television replacing radio.
I am all for artists and PRODUCERS being paid a fair share. But when distributors whine, I say fear not, you will have a long lived career as a museum piece.
March 23rd, 2005 at 7:56 pm
No ones taking money out of anyone else’s pocket on this one. What they are doing is making it “More available”. The people still have to pay for the music files via I-Tunes.
March 23rd, 2005 at 8:42 pm
How would you describe this?
http://p2pnet.net/story/4304
Cheers!
March 23rd, 2005 at 9:24 pm
The genesis of this problem is that iTunes doesn’t run on linux. If Apple provided the iTunes software for Linux the energy to produce this software would not have existed.
The side-affect of the missing DRM is not worth the effort put in by the people who did this work. iTunes has a fairly trivial workaround for the DRM and it can be employed, even scripted, quite easily.
So – if Apple wants to rid themselves of this nuisance they should produce some of their wonderful software for Linux. Befriend this highly energitic (even if sometimes misguided) community.
March 23rd, 2005 at 11:09 pm
Ah, you are so right, perhaps we should go to your house DVD JON and enter through the back door and do as we please? NO harm done, right?
This was Apple’s idea and they should be paid for it. Not to mention, the more money they get, the more inventions they can put out for us to enjoy. I am all about free enterprise. So what if they make money, they also spent a lot to get us the products we seem to enjoy. To me, you have invaded their privacy. I don’t think you would like it if it were done to you.
March 23rd, 2005 at 11:47 pm
solidarity to johan!
March 24th, 2005 at 2:08 am
I will sell you an apple (a real one), but you can only eat it peeled with my 250,00$ knife.
Go Jon Go !!!
March 24th, 2005 at 5:52 am
Apple a good run company? If it were, it would have ported it’s brilliant operating system to other hardware instead of locking it to thier rounded style boxes and hoarding thier licensing. Microsoft would be a name of the past if apple were well run. We’ll see if it improves after steeve is gone.
99cents reasonable? No. It’s more expensive than a cd, yet costs less to produce and distribute. It has more limitations than a cd. It is lower quality than a cd. How is 99cents reasonable?
March 24th, 2005 at 6:06 am
” Befriend this highly energitic (even if sometimes misguided) community.”
I think this community is guided like a heat seeking missile aimed at the sun. We know why we are fighting. No matter what is said, iTunes is a corp farce to provide the music industry a “legit” model to point at. They still haven’t gotten it right. The days of getting everybody’s money are over. They still make money in torrents. More money than ever. Just not my money (except the iMax, i like that). The publicity they have provided P2P has only added seeds. Seeds that they have sewn. Greed is greed. An iTunes track that can play on all players for 39cents, not greedy. Same thing, one player, 99cents, greedy. Yes the RIAA forces the price up by thier cut. So, apple, don’t sell them. Get some leverage. The RIAA is undoubtably losing it. We all know it. I’m doing my part. It’s only a matter of time. The class action lawsuit that could come out of this(lawsuit victims) against the RIAA will be staggering if all the facts are weighed before a statute of limitations applies. Music is art. Art is culture. It will all be free over time. Always has been.
Long live Sony Betamax VS Hollywas!!!
March 24th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Wow, you all are such rebels… Nobody gave 2 craps about the RIAA 10 years ago, now all of a sudden it’s “the hackers & nerds of America” vs the RIAA. What if somebody found a way to walk into Best Buy and walk out with as many CD’s as you wanted without paying? Once Best Buy decided to stop them, would it then be “the hackers & geeks of the USA that have nothing better to do” vs Best Buy? 10 years ago, downloading free music was the only option you had to get music online. Now you have other options, if you want to download music online then buy it, work with the DRM, and get over it. You all are wasting your time.
March 24th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
you think cd’s cost a lot to make? I think not. pennies.
March 24th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
The continuing juvenile behavior of hackers like DVD Jon will do nothing but make the record companies more reticent to embrace modern technollogy to distribute their music. Human nature being what it is, if the music was released without some form of DRM, it would be passed around by a large number of people who have no ethical problem doing so. Don’t look for this to happen. Instead, look for more and more legal action against the “free the music” crowd. Apple’s iTunes is the best thing that’s happened to legitimate online music distribution. If this shortsighted hacking continues, I have no doubt that legal action will be brought against these people, the websites that distribute the software, and the end users that support it. I will applaud and support this action when it surely becomes a reality.
March 24th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Um, yeah that is until the downloaded copy gets posted to a P2P site and becomes available for free to thousands of ethically bankrupt downloaders. This lame attempt to make this some kind of freedom issue is total bulls**t and anyone honest knows it. So is the “it’s just for Linux users, the DRM stripping is not the primary goal” crap out there.
March 24th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
The Internet has really become the haven for people who want everything for free. Let’s rip off software! Let’s steal music and movies! It’s my right to steal because I can! Ugh. What juvenile losers.
I know pymusique doesn’t allow the user to download the music without paying for it, but Apple’s music store was the first online entity that got music labels to come to the table and allow their products to be sold digitally, legitimately. Props to them for that. Let’s not piss in the punch bowl by screwing up that deal.
If you don’t like Apple’s DRM then don’t use Apple’s music store. Go back to doing what you used to do — buying the whole CD regardless of how many of the songs you wanted — and rip MP3s from it all day. No one is forcing you to use Apple’s music store except for the fact that maybe it really is a good solution.
March 24th, 2005 at 7:31 pm
Funny how this poster uses the terms “torrent” and “seeds” in their discussion. Hmmmm.
So you get to decide that 39 cents is acceptable and 99 cents is greedy? How oddly arbitrary. If Apple had launched the ITMS at 50 cents per track you probably would be saying that’s greedy and 19 cents per track is acceptable.
Now who’s greedy? You want something for nothing, that’s the bottom line. “It will all be free over time. Always has been,” you say. Don’t you believe artists should be paid for their art? Doesn’t art have value?
You’re just cheap and you’re using this argument to try to justify theft. And just like you, I’m not buying it.
March 25th, 2005 at 4:40 am
It’s not the manufacturing price of the cd. It’s the quallity, and the fact that is a physical meduim you recieve.
March 25th, 2005 at 4:45 am
I’m refering to the fact that art outlives the artist. It is rarely the artist that make the money anyway, its the business people.
Yes, 39cents was arbitrary. I mean charging more for a compressed version with no physical meduim is rediculous.
I have bought vinyl, replaced that with cassette, and replaced that with cd’s. I don’t need anything free, but buying a cd does not necessarily pay an artist. You know that.
There is nothing illegal about bit torrent.
March 27th, 2005 at 5:17 am
Learn to read before you write… the Linux users who are gaining access to iTunes ARE ARE ARE ARE ARE paying for the music… 99 cents, just like everybody else. Seriously, though, you and about half a million other people should actually take time to read the articles before you go shooting your mouths off…
March 27th, 2005 at 5:23 am
I already posted once, then I read some more posts from the morons who don’t read. For the last time… people who use PyMusicque are PAYING for the fucking music!!! They aren’t “walking into wal-mart and walking out with as many CDs as they can carry without paying for them.” I don’t mind when people disagree, but for christ’s sake, base it on reality! All you dumb-asses who can’t grasp the concept that PyMusique was created so that Linux users could go to the site and BUY FUCKING MUSIC need to go special education classes so that you can understand what it is that you are “reading”.
March 27th, 2005 at 5:23 am
I already posted once, then I read some more posts from the morons who don’t read. For the last time… people who use PyMusicque are PAYING for the fucking music!!! They aren’t “walking into wal-mart and walking out with as many CDs as they can carry without paying for them.” I don’t mind when people disagree, but for christ’s sake, base it on reality! All you dumb-asses who can’t grasp the concept that PyMusique was created so that Linux users could go to the site and BUY FUCKING MUSIC need to go special education classes so that you can understand what it is that you are “reading”.
March 27th, 2005 at 5:25 am
wow… people are idiots