“You know, if you sign up for Napster-to-Go and don’t realize that your music is going to disappear when you stop paying them money, you’re not a victim of the bloodsucking media barons—you’re a tard,” Gizmodo writes. “Here’s a way to record music you’re getting from Napster-to-Go into WAV files, to be burned to CDs or re-encoded to your compressed music file of choice.”
Gizmodo links to “marv on record’s” step-by-step instructions on how to rather easily circumvent Napster’s Microsoft JANUS DRM. Full article here.
Find “marv on record’s burning through Napster’s collection for free” instructions here.
MacDailyNews Take: The obvious has happened and rather quickly, too. Let’s see how the music industry likes Napster-To-Go, Microsoft’s JANUS DRM, and the “rental” model now. Hint for music industry execs: if you can hear the music, the music can and will be recorded regardless of the DRM. The best way to make “rental” music’s DRM work is to rent music that people cannot hear or is of a quality that’s so bad it’s not worth recording. Does that sound like a good business model to you?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
‘Napster To Go’ forces you to pay to keep your existing music – February 14, 2005
Cool! I have been waiting for someone to do this ever since I noticed that Napster carries the entire collection of Hanson records ever made. Awesome!
…oops, I posted too early.
I meant to say that I’m signing up for NapsterToGo%reg; today! That is so cool, dudes.
We should have had a running ticker to see how long it took for “Janus” to be circumvented. Does anyone know of a ticker for the delivery date of Loooooooonghorn?
Hey, loser. Don’t you even know simple HTML? It’s “NapsterToGo®”
How do you circumcise a DRM?
This was Napster’s grand scheme from the very beginning.
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Shall we call it Napter’s Revenge?! HE HE HEE……….
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Well that didn’t take long, even by “Internet time” standards.
I wonder how many lawsuits will be filed when the courts open tomorrow.
Today’s magic word: SHUTDOWN
First post®
Ben-
:Sigh: you made a perfect set up for so many jokes and I got nothing.
I guess I am getting old.
Cool. Too bad the sound quality will suck after you’ve re-encoded a previously WMA compressed song back on to your computer though. I’ll just stick with iTunes instead. But here’s hoping it’ll piss off the RIAA enough to get Napster in some deep sh*t.
If this doesn’t prove that Microsoft and DRM (and security of all types for that matter) are contradictory of one another then I don’t know what does. The day Microsoft makes anything that is “secure” will be the same day that pigs fly…
JB: WMA© is so superior to AAC in every respect that even re-encoding a WMA© song several times would still result in an acoustically superior specimen compared to anything you could get from iTunes®. At least, that’s what I’ve found after listening to both through my Dell®’s speakers.
“you’re a tard” …
That’s funny …!
“Circumvented”? Nah…
I could make the same claim about Apple’s FairPlay DRM. I could use Audio Hijack to snag the audio. Of course, I’ve already payed Apple for the song, so it really doesn’t matter.
What’s interesting is that, according to Napster’s End-User License Agreement, Napster tracks the number of times each song is played in order to give the money to the owners of the song (ie, the Record Companies). So when you plug in your music player once a month, it will report back to Napster what songs you listened to and how many times you listened to them.
Also, Marv’s comment that the music was obtained legally, that’s a bit debatable. IANAL, but the Napster EULA also explicitly states that the music you download is owned by Napster, not by you.
As has been mentioned – this can be done with ANYTHING that can be heard from your computer, regardless of DRM – yes, even with iTunes. However, it’s such a hassle. Why bother. It’s so much easier to just use iTunes and buy an iPod. Bam. You’re done.
When you bet your DRM on MS technology (and a goddamn .DLL at that!!!), you deserve your fate.
So as Peter mentions– if you play it once and hijack it, what’s going to happen to the royalties? Napster will save a few bucks– $15 in a month, a penny out?
Yikes, what a future this scheme has…
Any lock made through software can be broken by software. DRM has to be so light that it is unnoticable (Fairplay) or so tough no one can use it.
the “new” Napster feeding the “old” Napster’s offspring. Very ironic.
I can’t believe no one’s said this yet.
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I can hear Record Execs tearing up their contracts.. lmfao
Send out this out to all news sites pronto. (CNET’s got it)
This HAS to be propagated.
Some people on the site actually like hanson. (I’m not joking. They really are good if people gave them a chance). I mean, they write there own songs, what pop stars actually do that?
David
It shouldn’t take long for the DRM to be broken to the point where someone doens’t have to go to the trouble to re-record all the music. Someone will figure out how to simply keep the music on their computer & portable
I totally like Hanson. I even mentioned them in my first post. Next to Ashlee Simpson, Hanson is like totally my fav!
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Since Napster spent so much money on a stupid Superbowl commercial, I am sure they no longer have a legal department to send a cease and desist letter to the poor chap who runs that website.
And so Napster comes full circle.