“Apple’s iMovie can be used to strip the FairPlay digital rights management protection (DRM) on iTunes songs, according to a report by German news site Macnews.de. The site reports that Apple’s own video tool can be used to create unprotected song files that be played on any computer without recompression, circumventing iTunes’ DRM protection,” MacNN.com reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Whoops! We tested the method with a song purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store and created an unprotected AIFF file that sounded great. Then we trashed it. Don’t steal music.
I’m surprised it took this long for somebody to figure that out.
GREAT! Now Apple is going to make our life even harder if they have to fix that loophole.
This is not new news, this has been floating around awhile.
Long live the Public domain. Support Free Culture.
Creativecommons.org
What’s the big deal? Can’t you do the same thing with itunes just byburning a Music CD?
AIFF would require recompression. It doesn’t only strip out the DRM. It also uncompresses it. To get it to MP3 or AAC requires recompression and that will not be lossless.
Ironic… isn’t it.
That’s not a loophole. The function is their to allow you to add music to movie you create. Apple’s own announcement that mention that you could now use songs from iTMS in iMovies and iPhoto basically indicate that this feature was present in both applications. Though of course what you can do with it is dependent on the App itself, since they have different purposes.
The Kahuna,
“Can’t you do the same thing with itunes just byburning a Music CD?”
Yes, you can.
wish I had known this before I downloaded Hymn
Another reason to buy a Mac !
kahuna..guess which one is less cumbersome.. thanks
Considering Steve has shown off this capability to include iTunes music in iMovie since its introduction, this should be a surprise to nobody. I’ve done it myself!
Doesn’t matter since most iTunes users are actually PC users. If the RIAA didn’t bother to copy-protect Velvet Revolver’s Contraband CD from Mac users, I’d doubt they’d care.
MDN: Why did you trash it? You already legally owned it throught the iTMS, didn’t you? You were not illegally distributing it. Your use was legal, wasn’t it? Did I miss or forget something in the iTMS agreement? What’s that have to do with stealing? It’s necessary if one is creating an iMovie and wants to use an iTMS piece of music, no? Personally, I am happy it does work that way. I can’t tell you how many times I have forgotten all this or couldn’t remember what was iTMS and what wasn’t and created a slide show in iPhoto that wouldn’t play anyplace else. The video plays, but the music doesn’t play on another Mac–and nothing plays on a PC. That has frustrated me a number of times. (PC people already think the Mac isn’t compatible and they see that it doesn’t work to play a simple slide show on their PC.) I am very happy the same thing doesn’t happen out of iMovie! I wish it would be fixed out of iPhoto!
I guess if you want to give people music that you’ve spent your hard earned money then go for it.
I’d be surprised if anybody makes copies of the Velvet Revolver CD…what a piece of crap
yup Roxio Toast can do this as well, but you have to compress the file.
“MDN: Why did you trash it?” – Hg Wells
Why would they need 2 copies of the same song?
It’s not actually “stealing music”, but it is circumventing the copyright agreement.
That said, the fact that you can’t have a copy of music you have legally purchased to play on whatever device you want is not a legal right indicates to me that fair use laws need some tweaking. I understand the need to prevent easy P2P file sharing, but it should not be illegal for me to make a unlimited copies for MY OWN use. I could buy the CD and burn a billion copies, but I can’t replicate an inferior sounding file? The music industry should embrace legal downloads and listen to consumers about the flexibility they would like so that it is an attractive alternative to CDs. Both sides would benefit from this.
re: “wish I had known this before I downloaded Hymn” Although, the sound quality of the files after removing DRM with Hymn should be better than a file that went AAC -> AIFF -> AAC. Decompression -> recompression either via burning the AAC to disc or via iMovie should degrade the sound. Removing the DRM with Hymn should not (though it does conflict with the copyright agreement).
Sure you can save the new aif song but what a huge project to convert a whole album. Not only you’d have to export one song at a time but you’d have to re-enter all of the songs summery, info and artwork by hand. The aif format is also much bigger. You would need major storage to hold the new library. You could convert the file back to mp3 of course but the triple compression would now make the music sound like crap. by the time you’re done you’ll realize that you might as well just download the stuff illegally from a peer to peer app.
“MDN: Why did you trash it?”- Various sources…
Have you guys checked out the file size of an uncompressed AIFF???
Same file (Orb-07 Abstractions (Trance Pennine).m4p)
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AAC 6.7MB
AIF (uncompressed): 68.8MB
OUCH!
Screw the DRM. There’s still a little thing called “Fair Use”, which means I can make back-up copies as long as I do not distribute them. How those back-up copies are encoded is up to me. If this gets the RIAA or whoever all in a tizzy, I don’t give a shit. There’s got to be a point where corporations can’t Big Brother their way into our lives, and nanny over us so they can squeeze every blood-soaked penny out of us. Capitalism and blatant harassment are not the same thing, despite the RIAA’s assertions to the contrary.
I have Amadeus II that can clean anything
it cost only 25.00