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DVD Jon hacks iTunes, creates program that allows you to buy...
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space2go said:
I know this isn't directed at me, but you're right. Right/wrong and legal/illegal aren't matching binaries. However, all things that are illegal are wrong. Whether they are simultaneously right (that is, morally justified) depends on the issue. Some things that are legal can be wrong while being right as well. In extreme cases, the morally right thing can be in direct conflict with the law, warranting illegal action. In the overwhelming majority of cases, however, something that is "right" while simultaneously against the law is an issue that needs to be dealt with through legitimate change within the system.
That's why democracies exist--to give the people the ability to change the law and prevent the law from infringing on individual or group rights. The law, in this case, is not one of the extreme situations and there is not legitimate harm/reason to break the law except that it's easier and more convenient. There is no moral offense being committed by the law, and undermining the rule of law is not a justifiable offense over something as trivial as music use rights. In other words, it might be morally okay to use songs in your wedding video, but it's not morally okay to break the law in order to put them there when you have legal means of either doing so (which is the case--buy the CD) or to change the law to allow it (unnecessary here).
Tulse said:
That was a poor example, I admit. The wedding video situation is fairly complicated, depending on whether you're selling the video (which doesn't seem to be the case) and on the manner in which the song is used. If the song is played in the background by a DJ and it winds up in your video, there's not really an issue. Putting it in in the editing process would fall under fair use for private viewing, but because it's something you're sending out, I can't say off the top of my head whether this is also fair use. You are protected under the law for making mix tapes and CDs, even if you give them away in small numbers. If you make a wedding video and send out two or three copies, I believe this is still considered private viewing. If you send out the video to more than a handful of wedding guests, then you are redistributing and have to obtain permission.
I do not want to enter the "debate" about whether or not DRM and copyright laws are "good" or "bad." But for everyone who believes that the creation of this software was a good thing I would like to suggest that you put your efforts into more productive things, like starting a legal defense fund for that poor individual(s) who helped create the PyMusique software.
I'd just about be willing to bet that federal law enforcement agents will be knocking on his/her door within the next few weeks. No doubt, if Apple wants to press this issue those individuals could be charged with some violation of the DMCA or laws covering internet commerce . I suppose that they could even be charged in a civil suit for violation of the iTunes Terms Of Service agreement.
Seriously, if it is true that some of these people live in the U.S. and they've used their true identities then they could be headed for real trouble. Get their legal team ready (and, of course, I know you'll all be contributing money for their defense).
I'd just about be willing to bet that federal law enforcement agents will be knocking on his/her door within the next few weeks. No doubt, if Apple wants to press this issue those individuals could be charged with some violation of the DMCA or laws covering internet commerce . I suppose that they could even be charged in a civil suit for violation of the iTunes Terms Of Service agreement.
Seriously, if it is true that some of these people live in the U.S. and they've used their true identities then they could be headed for real trouble. Get their legal team ready (and, of course, I know you'll all be contributing money for their defense).
fpnc said:I do not want to enter the "debate" about whether or not DRM and copyright laws are "good" or "bad." But for everyone who believes that the creation of this software was a good thing I would like to suggest that you put your efforts into more productive things, like starting a legal defense fund for that poor individual(s) who helped create the PyMusique software.
I'd just about be willing to bet that federal law enforcement agents will be knocking on his/her door within the next few weeks. No doubt, if Apple wants to press this issue those individuals could be charged with some violation of the DMCA or laws covering internet commerce . I suppose that they could even be charged in a civil suit for violation of the iTunes Terms Of Service agreement.
Seriously, if it is true that some of these people live in the U.S. and they've used their true identities then they could be headed for real trouble. Get their legal team ready (and, of course, I know you'll all be contributing money for their defense).
I doubt Apple would waste their time and go after and sue the people who used this program and broke the iTunes contract. It seems like a relatively trivial matter. (But after looking at their thinksecret lawsuit, I don't know).
I do agree that it is effectively the break of a promise. Hell, it's the breaking of a contract... which is certainly quite wrong. But what if you believe the original terms and conditions to be morally wrong in themselves?matticus008 said:
Yes, yes, I know. Don't use the software, but people do, and people will. In the scheme of things, considering all alternatives, I really can't see such strong objection. For reasons noted in my first post, the software will likely only be picked up by a small number of tech-savvy, yet honest users - and that's the thing. This is a very small market, quite unlikely to be distributing these songs over p2p - which is (correct me if I'm wrong) the main reason for DRM in the first place?
Trying to stay pragmatic here without advocating anarchy. It's not working.
Apple will need to add a few extra Xserves to add DRM to the files before it uploads it to the end user. More bandwidth and processing power required to circumvent this hack. Or, iTMS would require post authentication to authorize the purchase or the user account gets suspended.
Things Fall Apart
Personally, I would prefer to have a bunch of people like you around to check me when I think I know what is right. I am happy to let people see the world from their own vantage without the need to "correct" them. I have no doubt that you will learn that your child will not follow your dictums without question. And here you are, on a forum with adults, and you propose that we simply roll over and agree with you. Pah! Tell us what you think and let us reason for ourselves. The fact that you agree or disagree with an individual is of no importance - except maybe to you.
Sounds to me like your world falls apart when people disagree with you. A small island you must live on when you know all options open to humans who have the same capacity to reason as you. It must feel good to know you are right. Funny how the same arguments you use have be used throughout history and have ALWAYS been seen as wrong over time. You are Midas yelling at the waves.
Personally, I would prefer to have a bunch of people like you around to check me when I think I know what is right. I am happy to let people see the world from their own vantage without the need to "correct" them. I have no doubt that you will learn that your child will not follow your dictums without question. And here you are, on a forum with adults, and you propose that we simply roll over and agree with you. Pah! Tell us what you think and let us reason for ourselves. The fact that you agree or disagree with an individual is of no importance - except maybe to you.
brap said:
Yours is a noble attempt at being pragmatic. It's very hard to be as liberal as possible and still maintain order
. You're right, people will use the software. It will allow them to play music on devices that don't support FairPlay or the AAC file format without them having to take extra steps to do everything in a compliant manner. It's a pain to have to buy a song, download it, burn it to a CD from iTunes, and reimport it. But each of those steps are allowed by iTunes TOS, whereas this software is specifically not allowed. They probably don't want to put iTunes music on P2P services, since they paid for it. But if Apple allows this software to go on, then it just takes one person to buy the song and redistribute it. At least the current system requires you to take ten minutes of your time and a CD to pirate from iTunes. It's not that big of a roadblock, and for the very small market you suggest, wanting just for their music to work on their other players, it's a small price to ask to prevent sales-damaging (as opposed to personal use only) piracy.If you believe the terms and conditions to be morally wrong as they were presented to you, you should not have accepted them, so it's still not right to violate them. You weren't forced into accepting them. You chose to, and you chose them knowing the limitations. There's no cause for illegal action. Of course I don't mean "you" as in you particularly, but in the general sense for this post.
dragonsbane said:
My world holds together quite well when people disagree, actually. Better than yours must, especially since history has proven my argument and disproven your morally relativistic approach. That society exists is a testament to you being wrong.
I'm not here to impose what I think is right. I think that all electronic music-playing devices should support all of the DRM models so that regardless of where I get my music legally, I can use it. I don't like that I can have an mp3 player that can't play the music I buy on iTunes, but I've already written the companies involved, as well as my Senator and state and national level Congressmen. I've worked with people who make the decisions about law to bring this issue to their attention. That's not the point here. No one is stopping you from reasoning or thinking, even though it's clear you have chosen not to do so. But that's your right. It's not that I disagree, it's that the law disagrees. Independent of that, on a fundamental, moral level, breaking your word (wrt the iTunes TOS) cannot be morally justified. Don't give your consent and agreement if you don't intend to uphold it. Where is your moral compass now? If you don't value your word and don't care about breaking the law and you want to break DRM or pirate music, go ahead. But don't come here and say that it's right to do it, because it's simply not. There are legal ways to address your concerns, and you are not using them. There's no excuse.
EDIT: missed this little gem earlier...
I would encourage my children to question and think and come to their own conclusions, just as I encourage students to do in my volunteer work. I'd expect them to stand up for what they believe in, and if they find an injustice, they should do what they can to stop it. That said, if they break the law in doing so, they must also know that there are consequences for that and accept them.
But what you are proposing is not questioning, it's self-serving rationalization. I'm not proposing that anyone roll over and agree with me, because I don't need anyone to agree with me. The law isn't something to agree with or disagree with, there's no room for debate. I expect people to question the law and hold their government accountable, and to act for change when appropriate. That is separate from deciding that the law isn't a good one and just not following it, based on your judgment. It doesn't free you from the consequences. If someone decides that the law that says you stop when the light is red is a bad law and just keeps going, what they just did is wrong, whether or not they get caught or prosecuted. If you do get pulled over, your personal idea that the law is stupid is not going to get you off the hook and you are very much responsible for paying the fines/doing the time.
latergator116 said:
My comments were about the people who wrote the software, not those that just use it. It's the PyMusique programmers that may face legal troubles, while those who merely use the software may or may not face consequences (I suspect that the worse for them might be termination of their iTunes account, in which case they won't have to worry any longer about iTunes DRM).
matticus008 said:
Where are you seeing a difference between digital copyrights and any other kind of copyright in U.S. law? There is no such difference, and current law and current case law says that purchases of copyrighted works are in fact purchases. They are not licenses.
No, you've got it in reverse. The Supreme Court of the United States specifically said that anything not disallowed is allowed. That was (among other places) the betamax case that I referenced.
You seem to be conflating the DMCA with copyright. The DMCA is not about copyright. It's about breaking digital restrictions. The DMCA did not turn purchases into licenses. Things that were purchases before the DMCA are still purchases today.
This is a poor analogy. The real analogy would be that you have purchased the car, but now law requires that you not open the door without permission from the manufacturer.
When you rent a car, the rental agency can at any time require that you return the car and stop using it. The iTunes music store has no right to do this. CD manufacturers have no right to do this.
Music purchases were purchases before the DMCA and they are purchases after the DMCA. There are more restrictions after the DMCA, but the restrictions are placed on the locks, not on what is behind the locks. The music that you bought is still yours; but you aren't allowed to open the locks.
Your analogy with "so that anyone can use it" also misrepresents the DMCA: the better analogy is that you can't even open the locks so that *you* can use it.
Licenses can be revoked at any time. When I buy digital music on CD (all music on CD is digital) there is no license involved to be revoked. It is not in any way like renting a car. It is in every way except my inability to redistribute copies like purchasing a car.
In the sense that you have described it above, books are digital. Books can be copied with no loss and then the original sold. Books are, according to the Supreme Court, purchases, not licenses. Book manufacturers are not even allowed to place EULAs on their books and pretend that it is a license. There is no different law about music. It's all copyright.
Show me. Show me the *copyright* law that makes this illegal and that does so because of a *license*.
Are you claiming that playing my CDs on my iPod is illegal? The file has been modified in ways that it was not originally intended: they were uncompressed digital audio files meant for playback on a CD player. Now they're compressed digital audio played back on an iPod.
That is completely outside of what the manufacturer intended that I use that CD for. I don't believe that's illegal; the U.S. courts don't believe that it's illegal. Apple certainly doesn't believe that it's illegal. The RIAA would like it to be illegal but isn't arguing that any more. Do you believe that it is illegal?
Please also consider going back over my previous post and refuting the Supreme Court cases I referenced.
Jerry
Tulse said:
Bullpucky -- I'm going to steal that one for future use, if that's OK - I presume it's CC licensed? I agree with your points about the way capitalism functions; of course, a good uproar always works better than sitting quietly.
Funny, I don't remember signing a EULA when I bought my last Allman Brothers CD. But I respect what you're saying: "Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws," you'll find everywhere. I care not for piracy, I care more about Apple not being my only service provider when it comes to listening to purchased tracks. But they provide a good service, and I'll continue to use it.
You don't know me. Shame on you for treating everyone with an opinion as a troll. I can spread my critiques and indignation far and wide, that I assure you. Please apologize.
They are purchases of usage rights, not of ownership of the intellectual property contained therein. Review the cases more carefully. If you don't want to call it a license, fine. But it's not ownership of the song. It's ownership of your limited-use copy of that song.capvideo said:
Yes, the Supreme Court said that, but in reference to all laws, not just copyright laws. Anything not forbidden by law is permissable. What this does is break other laws, as well as the distribution component of the copyright law. The DMCA is about digital copyright law, whether it has other purposes or not. It governs your rights with regard to copyrighted digital works. Your purchase of the CD did not and still does not give you ownership of the digital content of that CD, only ownership of the physical disc itself.
Not true. If you misuse your copy of any copyrighted work, you can be required to surrender your copy of the work and desist immediately. The law does not require you to do anything special with material you OWN. But you don't own the music. The analogy stands.
Exactly right about the restrictions placed on the locks, but exactly wrong about the content behind them. You did not own it before the DMCA, and you do not own it now.
No, not at all. The DMCA has issues that need to be addressed, but it does not prohibit your fair use of material.
Again, read the court cases more carefully. You have rights to do as you please with the physical book. You do not have rights to the content of the books. You never did, and the Supreme Court has never granted you this permission. With your digital file, there is nothing physical that you own and control, only the intellectual property which is owned SOLELY by the copyright holder. Books are purchases of a physical, bound paper product containing the intellectual property of another individual. The Supreme Court has supported this since the implementation of IP law in the 19th century.
It's not illegal by copyright law to put your unprotected music on an iPod. You are not modifying the intellectual property of the owner. You are taking it from what you own (the physical disc) and putting it on something else you own (the iPod hard disk).
One more time. The copyright law governs the material, your purchase covers the disc. You can do whatever you want with the disc, but you don't have the same freedom with the data on that disc. No one is stopping you from breaking the CD or selling it or doing whatever you want. You are not allowed to take control of the intellectual property that is not yours (the songs). Show ME a case that demonstrates otherwise from the past 50 years. Older cases are not applicable, and I'm being generous with the 50 year window as well given the wealth of more recent cases, all of which support IP rights and consumer ownership of the media but not the content.
I still say **** it and download mp3s - the music catalogue on iTMS is awful anyway. It may be "illegal" but there are lots of illegal things that most people do anyway and the world hasn't come to a stop. In the UK a few years back we had the Tory government introduce a new tax called the Poll Tax. Its introduction caused mass riots and non payment. Eventually the government had no choice but to change the law. We live in a democracy for crying out loud. The way half of you are arguing with your "its illegal" ******** sounds like we live in a corporate state. The music industry needs to be forced to introduce price competition - not force the consumer to pay rediculous prices for a song. $1 is crazy pricing. Let the market decide.
I think you guys should think about what's good for the customer, as well.
Thanks to DVD Jon, we can now watch DVD with VLC and don't have to buy a new DVD player for every different region code. Isn't that and advantage? Yes!
And thanks to him we can now buy songs of the iTMS and dow whatever we want with them. Think about it - before we had to pay for music with which we could do less than with the one we pirated. That doesn't make too much sense in my point of view.
We need something like Allofmp3 in the western world. Something that actually has an advantage over downloading the albums of P2P (something that can beat no DRM and high P2P bit rates)
Thanks to DVD Jon, we can now watch DVD with VLC and don't have to buy a new DVD player for every different region code. Isn't that and advantage? Yes!
And thanks to him we can now buy songs of the iTMS and dow whatever we want with them. Think about it - before we had to pay for music with which we could do less than with the one we pirated. That doesn't make too much sense in my point of view.
We need something like Allofmp3 in the western world. Something that actually has an advantage over downloading the albums of P2P (something that can beat no DRM and high P2P bit rates)
Thanks for clearing that up, but I still don't undertsand why the creator(s) of PhMusique sohuld face legal charges. What have they done illegaly?fpnc said:
Good for you, I am too. But as someone else here said, "I want a pony!"thejoshu said:
Present your opinion at the next shareholder's meeting. Presuming you own enough shares to bend their ear, they might listen. If not, then vote down Jobs and/or the board (again, owning a bunch of shares is helpful here.)
Remember though, what Apple owes us is return on investment. The only logical reason to buy shares in a company is that you either want to earn profits from it or you intend to buy it out (and earn profits from that). Ask yourself this: does Apple removing DRM from iTMS tracks make financial sense? Before answering, consider that Jobs said (the day the iTMS openned) that the FairPlay DRM was the best balance they could strike with all of the record labels. I'm sure any change in DRM would require ratification of the contracts with those record companies. Fat chance. (The only way I could see this happenning would be if un-DRM'ed tracks cost $5 or something - but even then, I doubt it)
[edit: added]The other reason to buy stock is because you like the company and want to support it. This is less of a logical reason, though, and falls under emotion. Not that there's anything wrong with that (it's probably part of my decision to own AAPL).[/edit]
I disagree with the comment put forth that the programmers are the ones that are breaking the law and the users aren't. Actually, it's the users who are.
Although, I'd asume the programmers also are users, so they too broke contract when they used it.
There might be something illegal about it's distribution, but I don't know enough about the law there.
Although, I'd asume the programmers also are users, so they too broke contract when they used it.
There might be something illegal about it's distribution, but I don't know enough about the law there.
Go to Hell for speeding...
Furthermore, if you lose the argument that breaking a law does not make you, by definition, immoral, then it follows quite easily that folks who want to use this app should and those that don't, should not - on moral grounds alone.
Everyone (except the rich and powerful) is bound by the same laws - there is no disputing that. So if you, or anyone else wants to kill me or break a copyright, you are subject to the laws of the land. I will always support your desire to reason what you will do out for yourself. Follow the laws if you WANT to. But do not follow them just because they are the law.
Can you really disagree with my desire to live my life that way? You yourself said that you speed. How is using this app any different from you deciding to speed or not. Are you going to teach your child that speeding is immoral?
Ho ho, the fact that this program and discussion exist proves the fallacy of your argument. People will always T-H-I-N-K for themselves and make their own minds up about what is moral. That is all I ever said. That is all we are doing here - thinking. You are putting forward the argument that BECAUSE there is a law being broken it is wrong to break it. While I may agree with you on this particular case (I don't), my argument is simply that laws being broken do not define morality. If you would stop winding yourself up I do not think you would disagree with this.
Furthermore, if you lose the argument that breaking a law does not make you, by definition, immoral, then it follows quite easily that folks who want to use this app should and those that don't, should not - on moral grounds alone.
Everyone (except the rich and powerful) is bound by the same laws - there is no disputing that. So if you, or anyone else wants to kill me or break a copyright, you are subject to the laws of the land. I will always support your desire to reason what you will do out for yourself. Follow the laws if you WANT to. But do not follow them just because they are the law.
Can you really disagree with my desire to live my life that way? You yourself said that you speed. How is using this app any different from you deciding to speed or not. Are you going to teach your child that speeding is immoral?