Comments on: Napster hack leads to free downloads
Subscription music services battle ability to turn copy-protected downloads into unprotected files.
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my breath until the Labels pull the licese from Napster. Jobs was
right.
If Napster can't compete on the basis of a quality service, then I
guess they have to give away artists property for free. Maybe if
M$ had an ounce of creativity, they could come up with
something better than Janus.
Glad to see them go.
To a much lesser degree iTunes has the same problem. Apple gives away a free single and Hymn can be used to crack the DRM. If you're looking for quality you don't buy music that has been lossy compressed. Most of the music made today isn't work keeping beyond a few times listening to it. Personally I wouldn't pay for any of these download services. I will however take advantage of their free offering and various peaces of software to get rid of DRM. Who would ***** about getting something for free? DRM encumbered media sucks regardless of who sells it.
1. the fact of the matter is no drm is hack/work around proof...period. so the arguement of the napster to go could pay a fraction ($15/month) of what an iTunes user (.99/each) is a small almost irrelevant one. the fact that the first person paid the 99 cents on iTunes doesn't mean that that song hasn't been stripped of the drm (and its REALLY easy...) and sent around the world thousands...maybe millions of times over. and considering that iTunes has the lions share of the online paid music service, i would easily argue that iTunes has contributed more to P2P networks than Napster.
2. Napster is offering a choice. Whaaaaat? from MS (<--i tried really hard not to use the $). You must be joking. If you want to buy them one off, you can. You can subscribe to streaming music for $10/month. AND you can use your portable player now for a little more. what a novel concept...something for everyone.
3. Download subscriptions may not be for you and its not for everyone, but for the true music lover, its just a fantasic service. it allows a person to try out new songs without 'chancing a buck', new artists, new genres,...its simply a great service for those that love music. but what about ownership???
4. ownership. you don't really own the music anyway. sure its semantics but if you bought a CD and you broke it in half, Tower or the record label won't send you a new one. ok, so you want to 'own' it. great, then download then one off. cool. but if you look past this usage model that we all have come accustomed to then you will see what a good deal it is. we don't have any problem paying a monthly fee for content or services elsewhere but somehow music is different. whether its cable or satellite tv, satellite radio, online porn subscriptions (cmon, don't lie...), HBO channels, DVD rentals, etc. but not music? cmon...that's crazy. what is your broadband provider partnered with napster and said for an extra $10 you can have all the songs you want at home and while your mobile...you wouldn't at least consider it? but you like paying $10 a month for that digital cable box or cable modem that you could legal buy and own. there's your ownership that you want so much but you don't take it. and lastly...
5. Hacking. Like i said before, there's no way to stop it. much like assault gun legislation, you can make it illegal and do everything you can to stop it, but in the end, those fringe folks that want it, be it criminals, collectors, 'hunters', etc. will get it. but it will essentially stay out of the hands of the vast majority of us...you know why? because the effort is not worth it. same thing with music. if the industry charged $10 per song then you would see pirating even by grandma. charge a fair price, make it easy to use, and have a good user experience and the vast majority of people will opt to pay for it. reminds me of late last night when i went to the store. they had pallets and pallets of 12 packs of soda sitting outside unattended with sales signs etc. while i was going in i noticed what seemed to be a guy walking up, taking one, and leaving. now that guy's an ass, but i didn't steal one. most of us wouldn't. just because he did means NOTHING. if the industry freaks out because of a few freaks with nothing better to do than to download, play, strip, encode, and redo each ID3 tag then we are in trouble...
Why doesn't CNet cover this story at this same length ???
http://www.infoanarchy.org/story/2003/11/24/22326/600
so screw the pay service... until i get a good deal ... ie... a song for 10 cents im not paying... unless i REALLY want it... all that other crap music i can listen to on the radio anyways
Yawn.
Mike
Nobody seriously expects me to pay again to listen to it on a my home stereo, and again in my car do they?
I will never subscribe to any service that doesn't allow me to manage the music I've purchased as I see fit.
Home users have always had court up-held rights to record music for personal use. This most certainly falls into that category.
Stripping a song of DRM, while a crime, is not an economic problem for anyone. And as we all know the industry is taking aggressive steps to stop P2P song trading, so... where is the harm in this?
Indeed, the loss of quality with MP3 players and such actually hurts more than it helps. If you are in a car, or jogging, you are not going to get concert-hall level acoustics. Who cares if you don't have that extra 50 or 100 bits of sample, you'd never hear it the way most people play it anyway. Thus cheap, free, legal, or illegal downloads, copies, and bootlegs are always going to be around.
Even if they don't know it, they are already at the point of diminishing returns with their attempts, which are costing more money, lasting few and fewer weeks, and at some point another "big new thing" will overwhelm their ability to monitor, sue, or otherwise counter.
And they haven't even pushed anybody to just run a cable from one system to another to create fresh files devoid of any DRM. Some Russian will figure out there is a market for mainstream audio cards or toys with Vacume tubes to wash the audio through. They already make MOBOs with them.
The best advice for DRM companies: Go into the light, goooo into the light....
NWLB
****
http://www.nwlbnet.blogspot.com
subscription is only allowing you to rent the music and copy it to
an MP3 player. This hack allows you to burn the files and keep
them even if you cancel your subscription.
It's true that you can burn a song from iTunes Music Store to a
CD to rip off the DRM, but you could keep the song in the first
place because you bought it. Napster only allows you to keep
the songs as long as you keep paying the monthly fee.
That's why this could be huge.
Yet, though I initially did actually rip the stream to capture songs i really liked it soon got tiresome and now I don't rip at all. Cost versus effort not worth it. Same goes for Napster, the cost is cheap enough that is it really worth it to rip. I mean what you spend $180 a year for listening to any music they offer. I don't know about you but the time to rip and re-encode is just not worth it.
I think once you continue to see inexpensive pricing models like this that the majority of people will not rip them off. I don't and now actually enjoy purchasing music I want because these "all-you-can-listen" services enable me to sample my tastes and find those songs I want.
So I think this really is a non-issue at this time.
and like the music they listen to. If you're a boy band afficianado
or if you are on the bleeding edge of nu metal, napster should
suit you just fine.
used with any DRM-protected music. The big difference is: you
still have to purchase the songs from iTunes in order to strip
them of their DRM. With this new Napster service, one can get
the tunes for FREE (during the first month trail period).
after it debuted way back when. Doesn't seem to have affected
the sales at the iTunes Music Store. Hmmmm.....
On a more realistic level, let's say one has a digital music player and wants to fill it with de-DRMed music. With a 40GB player, you have 10,000 songs at 4 minutes a song which is 40,000 minutes of music. Divide that by 60 and you get 666 and 2/3 hours to de-DRM it. Divide that by 16 and you get 41 and 2/3 days to de-DRM it.
Maybe people only want to de-DRM some songs. I currently have a little over 500 songs on my iPod, so let's go with 500. Multiply that by 4 minutes per song and you get 2,000 minutes of music. Divide that by 60 and you get 33 and 1/3 hours to de-DRM it all. That's slightly over two days of every waking hour of my life.
Of course, I won't be able to get near that perfect efficiency never mind the time spent on it. If I really wanted to de-DRM music through this method, it would take me months even for a small music collection. Plus, the resulting files wouldn't be as high quality (not that WMAs are that high quality to begin with). This is one of those areas where a protection isn't needed just because it is too cumbersome to pose a real threat.
outrageous rates that iTunes charges, you don't have to deal
with 'renting' your music from Napster, and you're not providing
any additional demand or income for crooked record companies.
Concerned about the selection at your local record shop?
Amazon.com has just about everything you can think of
available used. Want music on your favorite mp3 player? Rip the
cd to mp3 and you've got digital music that you can take
anywhere and do anything with.
charges" ... WHAT outrageous prices! It cost less to purchase
the music from iTunes than it does from a store.
You think that a dollar a song is too much!? Write your own
damn music!@
I don't work for Napster's marketing team, but I applaud this very unique timing!
Of course if you want the hack here you go:
Just so everyone knows, I thought about taking advantage of this cause I love tinkering with things. But for only $10.00 a month I get access to their whole catalogue! Great deal if you ask me.
the easy hacks i can remove all DRM, pay for a month and be
part-cause of a multi-million (possibly billion) dollars loss for
the music industry.
I hear the arguments about DRM being easily removed, but if
that were truly the case, then Apples DRM would have been
exploited much further... but it has not. Hmmmm maybe all
DRMs are not the same and the model that apple provides by
controlling the software and player prevents easy hacks.
Sounds similar to their operating system.
Granted I can burn my AAC encrypted files to a CD, but guess
what. I PAID for them. I didn't RENT them.
Bottom-line, if you want to cheapen the work of artists, there
will be few true artists willing to sell their work. Why would they
want to. All of you clamoring for the "rent" modeling structure
only want to steal from them. You're not helping them, you're
not supporting them, so why should they give a damn about
you?!
the easy hacks i can remove all DRM, pay for a month and be
part-cause of a multi-million (possibly billion) dollars loss for
the music industry."
Actually their is a 14 day free trial. So you wouldn't even have to pay for month. For all I care the record companies can go out of business. I have zero sympathy for the record companies after they were convicted twice for price fixing.
"I hear the arguments about DRM being easily removed"
Which it is.
"but if that were truly the case, then Apples DRM would have been exploited much further... but it has not."
I am not sure how much further you can exploit then completely removing it. JHymn (tool for stripping Apples DRM) can create a fake GUID than can be authorized with. It can also download and save the keys used to decrypt songs to a local harddrive. It will also strip out the user information Apple embeds in the file. This is in addition to removing the DRM. I am not sure how much easier it can be made to remove DRM. Then there is MyTunes Redux that basicly turns iTunes into a LAN based free music swapping service.
"Hmmmm maybe all DRMs are not the same"
Who said they were?
"the model that Apple provides by controlling the software and player prevents easy hacks."
You mean easy hacks like the previously mention MyTunes Redux that turns iTunes into a filesharing app that will let users swap tunes freely. You don't need stream ripping software like with the Napster exploit because there are tools that will decrypt a protected iTunes song in a matter of seconds.
"Granted I can burn my AAC encrypted files to a CD, but guess what. I PAID for them. I didn't RENT them."
Good for you.
"Bottom-line, if you want to cheapen the work of artists, there will be few true artists willing to sell their work. Why would they want to."
If they don't, then they have to find a new job.
"All of you clamoring for the "rent" modeling structure only want to steal from them. You're not helping them, you're not supporting them, so why should they give a damn about you?!"
The don't have to give a damn about me, cause I certainly don't give damn about them. Given the chance I'd gladly run them into the ground. I've downloaded over 400 songs on Napster with the 14 day free trial. I'll be starting multipule instance of WinAmp and converting them to DRM free Wav files.
Death to the record companies.
I have no problem with companies making a profit, but they are stealing from their 'artists'. You really think any money the RIAA gets from these lawsuits are going to the people that make the music? Very doubtful, and if any does trickle down, it will be a small percentage of the award AFTER lawyer fees.
The reason sales are down is because CD's are overpriced, and nearly everything they sell is uninspired, prefabricated crap from talentless hacks. You really think that performaers like Brittany Spears, Madonna, Christina Agulara would have sold so much if they hadn't ****** themselves out and made music by number? Or what about emiminem without the manufactured controversy?
Then there are bands that forgot how they got big because of piracy(metallica-bootleg tapes mainly).
The music scene today is a total joke. With or without online file sharing, the music industries sales would still have dropped over the past few years. That is what they can't see and why their sales are not improving.
make them suffer more.
While I respect your point of view, you need to take a better look at your facts. Most artists revcieve very minimal returns from the record companies. They usually sign for a small amount of money, and are expected to cover most of all expenses out of their percentage of sales. The ones making tons of money are the record companies (And the few artists that had enough money and good fortune to self-manage like Metallica.. although I will say after their tirade with Napster I never listened or purchased another Metallica song). Ask yourself why a product that is mass-produced like a CD has cost $19-$22 for the last 11 YEARS?? Its unit cost is closer to $0.13. How many artists end up struggling while the recording companies drop them for the next big thing. You want to protect the Artist.. support change that puts the rewards from their music back to them.. instead of making a select rich bunch of hollywood morons fatter.
Please up the effort towards accurate headlines.
- CNET you are WEAK for contiinuing to run this story
- by streamOG February 21, 2005 8:47 PM PST
- WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE QTFAIRUse this much coverage. It completely strips the DRM from iTunes Files.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- Missing the point...
- by zarathustra911 February 21, 2005 9:24 PM PST
- You still have to buy the iTunes song or album, and you have to
- Like this View reply
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (56 Comments)Weak.
have the DRM key on your machine for it to work. I couldn't just
steal someone's files and then clean them of DRM.
In Napster's case you just sign up with the trial period, download
any number of songs and rip them. You cancel subscription and
sign up again with a different user name. You could do this to
get free songs - with iTunes you buy the song and then can
remove the DRM if you so desire.