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Don’t Torrent that song: DRM free iTunes songs can identify you

Thursday, May 31, 2007 · 10:14 am · 50 Comments

“Sure, you can now download music from the iTunes store without DRM, but that doesn’t mean you should just willy nilly start sharing that music with your friends. For one thing, it’s illegal. For another, your account information is embedded into that m4a music file,” Erica Sadun reports for TUAW.

“Bottom line: DRM-free doesn’t mean that Apple suddenly supports piracy,” Sadun writes.

Full article, with instructions on how to see identifier strings in iTunes songs, here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "qka" for the heads up.]

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Comment Feed

50 Comments

1 2 3 Next »

yas

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:19 am · Reply

meh

not even that interested in any EMI artists…boooo
One guy from Finland

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:21 am · Reply

Wow. So that is how they solved the DRM problem.
Very clever. Poison bill.
JadisOne

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:22 am · Reply

One would have to be crazy to share a DRM-free purchased track from any online retailer. The RIAA’s lawsuit hungry lawyers’ jobs get a lot easier if folks share those files on Limewire et al.
tom riddle

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:26 am · Reply

i believe i called this exact type of protection right after they announced that DRM free music was coming. Being the dark lord has its prognostication advantages.
golly

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:36 am · Reply

It’s strange that use unix commands to search for your name in that DRM-free song.

I bet there’d be several people willing to test their accounts to see what apple does to them.

At the end of the day, if it were as easy as embedded just like that… then my golly, apple is making their security a lot easier than I thought.

More likely they would be watermarking their songs, with phase-shifted frequencies that are invisible to the ear… but detectable using DSP algorithms.
BuriedCaesar

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:38 am · Reply

Predictions to the first related lawsuit announced by the RIAA?

Two weeks?

Tomorrow?
WizeGuy

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:40 am · Reply

What happens if you convert it into an MP3 file and then change the metadata?

Is that even possible?
@yas & @OG from Finland

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:41 am · Reply

How is this a bad thing? This is the perfect balance between protecting copyright holders and allowing consumers fair use with their music. The only way this gets you in trouble is if you allow your music to be shared illegally. Music isn’t free and the people who make it have a reasonable expectation of being compensated for what they do.

This gives honest consumers all of the fair use they have always had the right too and is an awesome first step. The only negative is its just 1 label so far. More to come though, cause the floodgates have been opened.
@yas & @OG from Finland

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:41 am · Reply

How is this a bad thing? This is the perfect balance between protecting copyright holders and allowing consumers fair use with their music. The only way this gets you in trouble is if you allow your music to be shared illegally. Music isn’t free and the people who make it have a reasonable expectation of being compensated for what they do.

This gives honest consumers all of the fair use they have always had the right too and is an awesome first step. The only negative is its just 1 label so far. More to come though, cause the floodgates have been opened.
@yas & @OG from Finland

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:41 am · Reply

How is this a bad thing? This is the perfect balance between protecting copyright holders and allowing consumers fair use with their music. The only way this gets you in trouble is if you allow your music to be shared illegally. Music isn’t free and the people who make it have a reasonable expectation of being compensated for what they do.

This gives honest consumers all of the fair use they have always had the right too and is an awesome first step. The only negative is its just 1 label so far. More to come though, cause the floodgates have been opened.
@yas & @OG from Finland

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:41 am · Reply

How is this a bad thing? This is the perfect balance between protecting copyright holders and allowing consumers fair use with their music. The only way this gets you in trouble is if you allow your music to be shared illegally. Music isn’t free and the people who make it have a reasonable expectation of being compensated for what they do.

This gives honest consumers all of the fair use they have always had the right too and is an awesome first step. The only negative is its just 1 label so far. More to come though, cause the floodgates have been opened.
schmluss

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:43 am · Reply

I updated my music collection to DRM free last night. A whopping $3.30. One album and one song was all the EMI music I had. This is out of over 400 song purchased! It sounds a lot better though.
Me

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:45 am · Reply

This is a preemptive strike on all the tinfoil-hat comments that are sure to come…

Sure sucks when you realize that the stack of bills you swiped from the ATM got tagged as you broke in, and now the cops have you nailed. Sure sucks when the convenience store security cam got your tags as you sped away with a full tank of “liberated” gas.

Sure sucks when you buy IP after agreeing to Terms of Use, misuse it, and get identified.

This is completely innocuous unless you are a large-scale thief. Even if your theft IS noticed, you can probably argue that someone must have stolen the song from you – there’s no password or special protection on it.

Lest some say and say (as others constantly whinge) that this is the same as indiscriminate wiretapping — have a look at the bills in your wallet. They most likely came from an ATM. Bills go into it sequentially, and that sequence is probably recorded somewhere. This is about the same thing – unless you rob the ATM/bank, there is no chance that the info could affect you in any way.
allgood2

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 10:54 am · Reply

I can’t believe so many people expected this data to be removed from digital purchases, just because the song is now DRM free. The Purchase History, which includes: purchased by, account name, and purchase date have nothing to do with DRM at their basic level of functionality. They’re basically the equivalent of a UNIX Timestamp when making database modification. You combine the timestamp with the user account, and you have a unique variable.

Just like Amazon, and a whole host of internet sales company, Apple tracks sales, some users may not like it, but most users find the convenience of having a system that tells you when you’ve already purchased an item, or the ability to be able to go back three years and search for the title of purchase, as great features and functionality.

Personally, I use those two functions a lot. And while I’m happy to verify my taste and music and books are predictable, I am appalled at the verification that ‘my memory just ain’t what it use to be’; because I attempt to repurchase the same singles and books quite frequently. Also a downside of only keeping 30GB of my over 300GB music collection on my PowerBook. I’m also a fan of the various recommendations that iTunes and Amazon offers, so I don’t mind the tracking of purchases.

The data is purchase history data, it was used to help create DRM, but stands on its own; and existed before iTunes. So why expect it to go away just because DRM did? Stupidity, I guess.
HA HA

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 11:18 am · Reply

Digital Watermarking of all content has been going on for quite some time, what you DON’T KNOW IS THAT…

Id information is stored in sound and video not just a simple metadata, so it’s transfered as you convert the file to other formats.

TRUSTED COMPUTING courtesy of Intel and their EFI standard which is now governed by the UEFI group consisting of Microsoft, Intel, HP, Dell etc. (no Apple) have created this powerful firmware level that sits between the OS (and any apps) and the hardware.

EFI can contact the internet, download, report on WATERMARKED FILES and all sorts of other things, like refusing to play ill gotten content WITHOUT THE OS EVEN BEING LOADED!!

Old Apple is sliding the most privacy evading firmware and stringent DRM right under your noses. And they have given ALL CONTROL OVER TO THE UEFI GROUP!!!

Apple refers all questions about EFI to Intel and Intel gives you a little bit and sends you to UEFI.

GOOD NEWS IS EFI ON INTEL MAC’s FROM APPLE IS ESSENTIALLY BLANK. NOTHING IN THE EFI GUID PARTITION ON YOUR HARD DRIVE EITHER AT THIS TIME.

However thrid party developers CAN INSTALL SOFTWARE IN EFI ON INTEL MAC’s.

For more information visit, also search Wiki

http://refit.sourceforge.net/
iMat

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 11:26 am · Reply

hmm… I just gave an album to a friend today :S

Thought about that though… but didn’t think it was anything untill now :S
dallas

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 11:26 am · Reply

Really, who didn’t see this one coming a mile away?

I’m not worried. The record industry doesn’t care that you share it with 5 of your friends or so. They care when you share it with 5 million “friends” or so. I doubt iTunes will regularly check your purchases to make sure they are yours. But you can count on the RIAA checking songs on LimeWire for names.
Horseman

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 11:32 am · Reply

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Geez, guys, get a GRIP. You have NO expectation of privacy if you conduct your affairs in PUBLIC! That means, if you download music from the iTunes Music store, and the upload your songs to LimeWire, and you get busted, you can’t whine and cry that your privacy was violated because you were breaking the law and you were doing so in public. GET OVER IT. So your name, address, social security number, blood type, next of kin, and sexual orientation are all encoded on that mp3 file. Who cares? The file was sold to you for your own PRIVATE use. If you gave it away to the public, guess who’s fault that is? Like it or not, this is the information age, and really, the only people who should care about all this data collection are conspiracy theorists and thieves.
Just Say No to EFI

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 11:37 am · Reply

Ahhh, watermarking is also going on in cd’s and dvd’s

After all it’s a simple matter of changing a section or two of video/audio information before a cd/dvd is burned.

It might not have the users info, but a tracking number that can be gleamed later when the cd/dvd is first used, then compared to video/audio fles found on p2p networks.

One way around this watermarking

Is to have “all your media stolen”, make a police report and don’t upload anything locally.
Dave H

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 11:38 am · Reply

Not entirely unexpected and does raise one question. Say your PowerBook gets stolen and the music files contained within get P2Pd. Are you liable?