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I just hope DVD Jon will use his talent on BlueRay DVD's.

this will have a shorter life than a fruitfly.

Criminals.

And this helps the consumer how?

There are two good things about this.

1 - DRM-free Music
2 - You can re-download music you've already bought (in case your HDD craps out, for example)

There are also two bad things about it.

1 - DRM-free music (the labels and RIAA are going to be all over this like white on rice)
2 - It's not available on the Mac.

I also like how he uses the word 'fair'. To me, he's just using it to try to make an excuse for what he's doing - very much like file swappers (who say 'sharing' rather than the reality, stealing (not counting non-copyrighted works, of course)).

I hope Apple gets this shut down soon - and I also hope that the RIAA/labels can get their heads out of their A$$es and wake up and let us have legal, DRM-free, music. If they did that, I'd bet that music sales would skyrocket.

JadisOne. You do mean the record companies, right?

Old stealing by new means

Given that Apple were the first company to get equitable and coherent digital rights for the consumer, it is difficult to see any benefit to Johansen's work other than for the criminal/anarchist pirate community. However, MDN's notes actually contain the answer - namely that this new code effectively supports Linux, a platform ignored by both iTunes and the WMA community thus disenfranchising a statistically insignificant geek community.

Additionally, this approach will presumably provide support for all AAC-compatible devices including the Panasonic device announced yesterday.

It will only be a matter of time before Apple announces iTunes 4.8, and it is now inevitable that Apple will take the opportunity to include some form of handshaking code that forces iTMS to validate that it is selling to a recognised iTunes client. However, this development also hastens the path to Apple licensing Fairplay to other player devices including Roku, Sonos and others and for that we should surely be thankful.

To LOL,

I'm referring to all parties. The digital music arena will always be a constant war between labels and consumers.

This is interesting, but only a little. DRM-less distribution of iTMS downloads is already easy. Yes, you lose a little sound quality in the process but for most people who want to get free music, that isn't a problem. And you still have to buy the track in the first place! Even if you use PyMusique, will the file still be identified as an iTMS download? If it is, you can't put it on KaZaA without the RIAA lawyers knowing where you got it.

Nevertheless, I'll bet that the Cease-and-Desist orders have already been issued and that iTunes programmers will be putting in some overtime this weekend.

Is anyone else out there making an honest living anymore, or is it just me ???

macnut222:

I can't work out whether you're serious - we have DRM free music now on CDs and the result has been disasterous for the record industry since the onset of Kazaa, Napster et al.

Do you live in some fairytale world where people won't - if given the opportunity or the incentive - behave in an illegal way?

This is a blow against Apple. It was only a few weeks ago that Steve Jobs was supposedly informing the record companies about Napster being 'hacked.' That was not a hack but this is.

In the iTunes Music Store the record companies provide the music and Apple provides the copy protection. If the copy protection can be bypassed the record companies will blame Apple for not doing enough to stop this. When these Apple-encoded DRM-free files become available on file sharing networks the record companies will be fuming and who knows what they will demand then.

You can be sure of one thing: Apple will bury PyMusique any way it can as soon as it can. Its reputation depends on it.

Now that the story is out about this application it won't be long before Apple's lawyers find him and put his little application to rest forever.

I wonder if this application is "criminal" al all. You buy the music, pay for it, download it and that's it. No DRM is being removed as there isn't any yet.

Sure, that is not the idea of the ITMS and the Music industry, but is there a law, that you MUST use iTunes to buy the music from the iTMS?

This guy is pretty clever, but I do not believe anyway that PyMusique will have a long life...

As noted: "(the resulting files are .m4a, not .m4p) - as if you had used iTunes to rip a CD to 128kbps AAC"...
Is anyone sure or is everyone taking the statements, "The iTunes Music Store actually sells songs without DRM. While iTunes adds DRM to your purchases, PyMusique does not.", as fact.

Maybe PyMusique does a re-rip in software as it is downloading the song. The re-rip (as if the song were being re-ripped to burn a CD) would not have any DRM.

It would be interesting to find out, but that would require reverse engineering Jon Johansen's software. Hmmm... Hacking a hacker? An interesting thought.

It seems to me that you will still have to pay a dollar for every song you want to steal (or help others steal as the case may be) so there will be a built in limitation to the amount of initial stealing. Like if you buy a CD and then put it up on the net for others to steal. Same deal. I shudder to think of the amount of theft that will happen if Jon turns his sights on the subscription services.

Shadowself,
The code is open source. Its written in Python. I just downloaded it myself. I'm interested in looking over the code. If the music on iTMS does not already have DRM, then Apple has been pulling the wool over everybody's eyes.

From what I'm hearing from a lot of you, the only legitimate music purchase is through iTunes. Because apparently, if I buy a CD, it must mean that I'm going to rip it and make the songs available on the net. Just like if I purchase a song without DRM, it must mean that I'm going to make it available on the net.

When did DRM become legit? A lot of you guys roll over too easily. There is no acceptable form of DRM. Yes, Apple's Fairplay is better than Microsoft's DRM, but its still not acceptable if I don't have the freedom to move my song to any computer running any OS or any music player. And don't give me the cd vs. 8 track vs. cassette. It's not an accurate comparison. We're comparing digital music to a cd being able to play on multiple players.

MCCFR:

The reason DRM free music on CDs has been disastrous has not been due to the lack of DRM but the outrageous, indefensible, ever increasing price of the CD, and the the take of the record company, AKA the marketing people. (Yes, there have been some reductions lately - a deathbed conversion if I ever saw one).

Remember that CDs, unlike vinyl records and cassettes are so cheap to produce that they are given away for free on cereal boxes, yet they cost several times more than vinyl records. Heck, I'm even seeing CD's now costing more than DVD movies. Plus music is cheaper to produce - GarageBand et. al.

And, the next major technological improvement, electronic distribution, has made the price situation worse - the record company take has increased, yet again. This is in spite of the fact that per unit physical manufacturing and physical display (store space, clerks etc.) and transportation costs have been eliminated - reduced to ZERO.

I/somebody should do inflation adjusted figures for this, but I would guess that, using the price of vinyl records as a base of say $5.99 U.S., the true price of a CD is something like $3.99 per album and the true price of an electronic album is something like $0.99 per album, yet we're paying TEN TIMES THAT.

People, generally, prefer to obey the law (well, except for Microsoft executives and bribe taking/campaign financed politicans ). When you completely rip people off, you make them angry and, surprise, people get creative and justify piracy.

I'm not saying piracy is ok, but the single biggest thing that the record companies could do to reduce piracy would be to charge a fair market price.

Oh, and stop acting like a predatory monopoly would be good too, even though they are a monopoly. Oh, and put music (and all intellectual property) in the public domain after, say, 25 years.

For the record companies to say, on its own, that piracy is bad, without acknowledging their MASSIVE misdeeds is disenginuous to a fault.

MDN word - together - if we all get together on this, maybe we can fix this mess?

Why is everyone calling this stealing? did the definition change? You still need to PURCHASE the song. Its more like going to walmart, buying a cheap computer and taking out all the components. Removing the packaging. As someone said previously, You cannot make an mp3 CD of iTMS songs that can be played on a DVD player or car stereo that plays mp3 CDs. Its a limitation to those who dont have iPods and want more than 15 songs on a CD.

This is a kick in the balls to DRM, not a backdoor to mass theft (a la Napster)

Thomas B.

Although there is not a law that specifically states that you must use iTunes to access iTMS, you must accept their Terms of Service to use their store:

http://www.info.apple.com/usen/itunes/terms.html

Jeff, you state that "no form of DRM is acceptable." Why is this? Can you back up your opinion? Perhaps you feel that you bought the song, so you can do what you want? Copy & give to others, or put on file sharing? That's copyright infringement, and it's illegal. How does DRM affect your legal use of a song?

I agree that the record companies charge too much and take too much of the profits from the artists. But that doesn't make it right to pirate songs. If you don't like the price, don't buy.

one more thing:

We all need to have a reality check here. Since external speakers are analog, you will always be able to stuff a recording device between the speaker and the computer, then convert it to digital. Presto - no DRM. Now if the analog connection is removed and the computer case is sealed with epoxy that is another matter, but I can't see that, at least not for a few years.

This is even under the grand Microsoft scheme of hardware based protection (which, given Microsoft's track record, will doubtlesly have gaping security holes).

Even now, you can capture the digital audio steam before it goes to the speaker using things like Audio Hijack. Plus, Apple lets you burn CDs.

So, while Apple may shut this guy down, I don't really see this as a gaping hole. Sure, its a little embarassing for Apple, and looks rather careless from a security perspective, but that's it.

ANY security system will always be breakable by a sufficiently skilled, funded, determined attack. Pathetic ones will be breakable by small children.

If you're a nuclear missile site, you have to play the game, and make it as tough as possible, since the price of the prize is massive. If you're just protecting music, the prize isn't that great, so the effort isn't that great. Said another way: a standard desktop machine will never, out of the box, be CIA grade.

Jimbo, why oh why does not having DRm in your music mean you will immediately put it on a P2P network? do you work for the RIAA? I just want to be able to transfer the song I purched to ANY medi player I wish or media I wish for me to get my FULL enjoyment from the product I purchased legally. When you purched your computer, if the salesmen said, sorry, you can not use this to connect to certain websites but dont worry, you can get MSN and Yahoo, thats all we think you need. Its like MS charging the same price for their "reduced media edition" Its moronic.

I'm I the only one who finds the fact that people on this forum want companies to tell them what to do with what they purchace weird?

I you bought it, came to you un encrypted, have a way to play it, why in the world would you all of the sudden for the sake of some comapny that does not owe anything to you would you then want to handicap your purchase to make it less usable

I'm I missing somehting here? Who comes first in your life, You or a company that does not know you exist?

"thup" "creeaaakkkk" "click click click click..."
Rob Glazer drops his KK, gets off his derriere and types an email to music execs: "See? iTunes can be circumvented. Hahahaha, i am the king of know how and Steve can kiss my ass as I have nothing more cogent to write"

Record exec: "Dear Rob, we appreciate your attempts at writing a Ha Ha email which divulges nothing new but underscores your continued intellectual short-comings. We have sent you a dozen KKs for your efforts though.

Sure Am Relieved:

There's a fallacy to your contentions that the price of a CD should be less; you're conflating production cost with value. Basically, you're treating the CD as if it is a fungible good within a competitive marketplace, when in fact it is non-fungible intellectual property over which there is a monopoly. You need to stop pretending that you're buying the CD (a physical object) when in fact you are buying the music (an intangible thing) placed on the CD. That will allow you to disassociate yourself from the notion that the cost of a CD should have anything to do with the price you pay for a music CD.

Consider this (even though I know someone will make fun of my musical tastes, but hey): growing up, Fair Warning by Van Halen was one of my favorite albums. You couldn't take that album and simply replace it with on from Def Leppard or, God forbid, Wham. They were unique. I wasn't buying a CD or an LP; I was buying the music on the CD. "Fair Warning" is different from "Pyromania" is different from "Wham's Greatest Hits." And I was willing to pay $18 for the first, $12 for the second when it went on sale, and absolutely nothing for the latter.

The computer market has become so commodity-driven that I think people forget the distinction between the cost of something and the value that a consumer places on that thing. In a competitive marketplace, the value and cost converge somewhat because companies are driven to minimize the difference in order to make the sale. With intellectual property, however, there is no competitive marketplace. Unless you're Warner Brothers, you can't distribute (legally) the next Van Halen album. And so the price of the CD is determined not by the cost of making it, but by an assessment of the value put on it by the consumer.

And thus it is no surprise that CDs are more expensive than LPs. They have better sound quality, require less care, and last longer. They provide more value to the customer.

Personally, I think CDs are overpriced, but that's not because they are priced far higher than their cost to make. If you don't like the music, no CD can be priced low enough. On the flip side, a CD with some really great songs is a bargain at twice the price.

Buffy & Dobbie,

The reason that DRM protections were put on the songs is so that Apple could sell them to you. That's one of the restrictions that the record companies required in order to allow Apple to open iTMS in the first place. If you don't like the agreement that you make with Apple when you purchase the songs, then don't buy them from Apple. You can purchase songs on a CD that don't have that restriction. It's up to you. But to take a stand that says that you don't like the agreement, so you should break it, is unfair.

Getting back to the origin of this story: Apple is selling something. They have every right in the world to stipulate how their goods are sold. Someone is circumventing that, and that software is obviously illegal. If you had an online store that was accessed through your web site, but I created a new web site that accessed your store, that would be illegal. If my web site gave a 10% discount on your goods, that would be illegal. What DVD Jon is doing is not much different.

Bets on how soon Apple files a C&D;against him?

My magic word is "door" as in, Apple should show DVD Jon the door.

i find it funny anyone calls it "stealing" when you spend $1 to buy a song free of DRM.

I wish you'd come to my house, "steal" the pictures i take for $1 a piece.

dumbasses. This is a great program and intend on running VirtPC to keep on buying music - and simply processing them before hand instead of afterward using JHymn.

As long as you pay first.

Did take apple long to get the website taken off. Dead link MDN

Jimbo, why should I agree with the notion that the music file I purchase online is different from the one I buy in the store? Maybe, you might say, its the priveledge of buying songs a la carte, well then if I download the whole ablum, do I get the restrictions removed? no. The RIAA needs to realize that no matter what, some people will steal content, but that MOST are gonna do thing the right way if they dont feel like their getting robbed

Buffy,

By signing up for an iTMS account, you agree to their rules. This means that you get the DRM. I think that's pretty simple. Despite the fact that most people never read them, they are still in place and still legal. This means if you buy from iTMS, you get the DRM. Sorry, but that's the way it is. Therefore, you can live within the DRM rules, you can break the rules, or you can go to another source to get DRM-free songs.

As for "the real Steve Jobs" stating that he can legally buy the songs without the DRM using the program, you are wrong. You are breaking the law by breaking the agreement you implicitly agreed to when setting up your account. Yes, you paid, but you have broken your contract and therefore the songs were obtained illegally.

Hee hee, my magic word is "free".

I don't think this is bad news for the record companies like the Napster breach - because with Napster they are only getting pennies per song, if that - with this new app, they are still getting paid just as much as they otherwise would. Admittedly, the DRM isn't present after download. I will be very interested to see Apple's response. Also I would like to see if Real will borrow this code and add an iTMS interface to their own RealPlayer, where they would add their own "Harmony" DRM layer after the .m4a file was downloaded. That *might* actually be legal, as long as Real applied the same usage rights & limitations that Apple does. (Which I think they do anyway for songs from their own "Real Music Store".)

People keep saying that it's okay to receive the DRM-free music because they are paying for it, but the point is that Apple is not selling ANY DRM-free music.

I'm not sure how this can be legal or ethical by any standard. You can't buy a product or service without agreement with a seller. In this case there is no seller.

There is no equitable and agreed upon exchange between the two parties involved.... how is that not stealing?

Taken directly from iTunes music store agreement:

"You agree that you will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any other person to, circumvent or modify any software required for use of the Service or any of the Usage Rules."

How would anyone creating or using this software not be breaking this agreement?

If PyMusique is perfect, Apple will not be able tell the
difference between a transaction with it vs. iTunes 4.7.1.
Thus, it will have no way to enforce its TOS. The act of
reverse-engineering a network protocol by snooping
the wires is legal in many countries -- thus, the act
of creating pyMusique was legal. A forced upgrade
to iTunes 4.7.2 that disabled 4.7.1 immediately would
be a real growth-killer for iTMS sales.

Apple has limited options on this one ... shutting down
DVD Jon's ISP becomes less useful with each passing
hour, as copies are mirrored elsewhere. If they accept
a 6-month window before disabling 4.7.1, they lose
credibility with the record companies. Their only hope
is that iTunes has enough backdoor ways to verify
itself to iTMS, that Apple can systematically change their
servers to use them one by one to shut out PyMusic, and
hope they burn off enough months on the clock playing
cat and mouse with DVD Jon to make it reasonable to
disable 4.7.1 access.

James:

You've missed my point; let me put it another way:

My contention is that the 'fair value' has been determined over the years, and was well established at the point that CDs came out. Also, record companies have decided, appropriately in my view, to price music the same, roughly, regardless of the artist, so the Van Halen vs. Wham point doesn't apply.

Sure, when CDs came out it was reasonable to charge more since the technology was new and costly. But price is supposed to be based on cost (with startup costs amortized over a reasonable period, with reasonable assumptions), a reasonable profit, and the product is supposed to be of reasonable quality. This is how capitalism works.

Normally the market takes care of pricing - if you charge too much, somebody else will make a similar product and charge less, forcing you to reduce your price or add more features, improve quality etc.

The problem arises when one company has an effective monopoly (the Microsoft Felon) or an absolute monopoly (record companies, drug companies before patents expire). Here, there is no incentive for the seller to play fair, and a temptation to charge more/gouge your customers, inflate expenses etc.

This is why governments generally regulate/closely monitor monopolies/have price controls on monopoly products. Now when governments/politicans accept bribes/campaign financing from said monopolies, there is clearly a problem - witness the widespread bribing of the U.S. congress (both parties) by the pharmaceutical companies ("campaign finance") - this resulted in a payout of 129 BILLION (estimated benefit) to the pharma companies (over 10 years) by including in the recent medicare drug benefit the REQUIREMENT that medicare pay list price for drugs, unbelievably. And all for a cost of a few 10's of millions, surely less than 100's of millions - hows that for return on investment?

Surely you would not expect, if Bill Gates got cancer, for him to pay billions for his medicine, because he can - its 'worth' that much to him? Or, in general, charging an massive price for life saving medicine, since its value is high because it saves lives, even though, for this example, the cost may be trivial?

Of course music isn't life saving, but I think the parallels are clear. Monopolies are inherently anti-consumer and need to be aggressively discouraged, and where inherent (exclusive intellectual property rights) then need to be closely monitored (with price controls the ultimate 'monitor') and limited (have a reasonable expiry date beyond which they go into the public domain).

Are you aware of the travesty, in my opinion, of intellectual property right expiration? Every time the patent on mickey mouse is close to expiry, Disney and friends gets the intellectual property duration to be extended. Now its 75 years after the death of the artist, up from 14 years, as I recall, when the law was first enacted.

Back to your point: the price of computers is EXACTLY the point. This is how capitalism is supposed to work (well, ignoring the price and quality of software from the Microsoft Felon - the monopoly problem again). Charging what the market will bear because you can is ethically rephrensible and, often illegal, at least for some goods, and government is supposed to make sure this doesn't happen by ensuring good competition (preferred) and good regulation (as a last resort).

nicely said SAR

Sure Am long winded
Get your own website dude. if you can not express your point in two paragraphs, go back to school

Woohoo!
Go, Jon!

Yeah way to go John! Continue to undermine Apple's credibility to the RIAA, and please don't do anything about Microsoft DRM.

This way Apple's DRM and proposed audio file format will fail and we'll be stuck with the even more restrictive MS DRM that works only on Windows! Yeah! way to go John...

(in case you didn't noticed, that was sarcasm)

After whining to labels about the Napster non-hack, now the coward Jobs tastes his own medicine.

Steve Jobs also said many times that no DRM is uncrackable.

this Jon guys has no respect at all and for all of you..bla, DRm this, DRm that, Fair play this, Itunes that.People listen ,musician are the one who is fucked not consumers. People put they soul on a song making a living. You know every single song you guy steal is as the same as cutting the skin from musician and artist. everybody enjoy listneing music but hardly even think about the musician at all , they talk more about RIAA this, iTunes that 99cents bla bla this. Crap bunch of selfish fuckers and i ma just pissed about it. I read alot about iTunes , DRm and stuff, never read as much about musician. Just consumers and more consumers that are being an ASS!

By the way,one more, thing people appreciate what we have right now stop being a bitch and this hacker Jon the pymusicque, i say fuck off and get a life.

itunes displays a message saying that a new version is available and must be downloaded before further purchases can be made.
Not mentioned would be the fact that from this point forward, files will have the drm attached at source.
Where is the problem?

Apple Broke it by requiring iTunes 4.7, which uses a diffrent encryption algorythm then 4.5 and 4.6. Cody is cracking 4.7 now and should be done tonight. As of this morning Apple has taken no legal action against Cody Brocious.

Cody is expecting a Cease and Desist order or another countermeasure once 4.7 is cracked. Cody is not worried about legal action as somebody will back him up and pay all fees and the lawsuit itself. I forget who this is exactly. If any fines are issued he will set up a donation fund to pay.

Ok, using my real name this time.
Apple still does not apply DRM at their servers. The new PyMusique release will support iTunes 4.7 and Apple will have to issue a Cease and Desist order or break it again. My magic word is program, as in let people use the program and don't break it you mother fuckers.

BTW: I previously Posted as Cody's Friend.