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FairUse4WM Breaks Windows DRM
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Aug 28, 2006 11:47 AM
from the not-so-secret-any-more dept.
from the not-so-secret-any-more dept.
An anonymous reader writes "FairUse4WM, according to engadget, "can be used to strip Windows Media DRM 10 and 11". What does the slashdot community think of this development in the ongoing cat-and-mouse game going on between big media and what is available online?"
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News: iTunes v6 FairPlay DRM Cracked 421 comments
luaine writes with an Engadget article claiming the cracking of iTunes v6 FairPlay DRM. From the article: "[A] new app called QTFairUse6 looks like it can now be used (with some amount of difficulty) to dump iTunes version 6.0.4 - 6.0.5 files of their chastely protection." At present this is a Windows-only tool for those who are "not afraid to get [their] hands dirty with a little python." Engadget does not provide a link to QTFairUse6, and neither will we. We've run several DRM stories recently, but it's been 19 months since Cracking iTunes' DRM with JHymn.
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Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
should read:
FairUse4WM Fixes Windows DRM
'cause it makes something previously unusable, usable. (Not that I will ever be using this app, I've never been stupid enough to buy a DRM encumbered piece of content).
Oh - and for those hoping it stripped the DRM from WMV9. Nope, WMA DRM only.
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
You may not have hit a DRM wall but that could because
1. You're not an enthuiast
2. You don't know what your rights are anyways [fairuse?]
3. You're not doing anything special with your media.
Try making a backup [shock! that's legal!] or a clip for a class or
Try to watch that movie on a "non-approved" device? Try to listen to that music CD in your computer, try to
DRM breaks otherwise valid products in a futile attempt to extract more money out of you.
Tom
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know well what my rights are. They are listed right in the EULA when I installed the various Music Stores.
Then you don't know what your rights are - because all those Music Store licenses allow them to change your rights, without notice, at any time, for any reason.
I hope you wouldn't accept the same conditions for your constitutional rights.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
My music collection is roughly the same size, but I use MP3 files instead. I have many more playback devices (two car stereos, two discman units, several PCs running various OSes, component stereo in sitting room, home theatre system in living room, and a boombox).
99% of the songs I have in MP3 format are ripped from my own CDs. I also know what my rights are, and since I did not have to sign or accept a EULA I suspect I have signicantly more flexibility than you do in terms of what I can legally do with the music I've purchased over the years. :-)
It's a term I sometimes use to describe people who are willing to accept a severe curtailing of their rights and think the whole concept is a really neat idea. It isn't, except to the middle men who do the distributing, and both the artist and the listener get screwed in the process.
I've been collecting LPs since 1976 and CDs since 1986, and I pirate neither music nor software. That doesn't mean I agree with DRM schemes or the rationale behind them.
I also believe that some software is far more efficiently produced in a free environment, but acknowledge that proprietary software development has its place. I don't pirate software -- open source provides most of my new applications and utilities on all of the platforms I use, but I'll register shareware I use and purchase retail software when necessary.
Face it: history is against you, and against those who would use DRM. In the end, DRM will not work. It's as effective as classic software copy protection schemes were -- only those who are legitimate customers are limited by them, and actual pirates typically have cracks to the various schemes within days if not hours.
It's fine if you accet DRM and its limitations, but that doesn't mean *I* have to.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Informative)
Well good for you, but please don't generalize your own situation to the rest of the world. I happen to have a Linux machine, and as such I can not (legally) do whatever I want to do with music I've purchased from iTunes.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Interesting)
I own some Apple DRM'd music, and I want to play it on my mobile 'phone, which supports AAC. I want to play it on my spare machine that runs FreeBSD. I can do both of these with AACs I've ripped from CD, but not with iTMS DRM'd music.
it has never been legal for me to transfer rights to other people's work and that's all that (Apple's) DRM stops me from doing.
If my musical tastes change, I can sell music I own on CD. I can't resell iTMS music. Transferring rights is find from a copyright perspective under the doctrine of first sale. If I buy a CD, I can sell it on. I have to delete all of my backups, but I don't violate copyright law by selling it.
Copyright should be about the right to make and distribute copies. If I create something copyrightable (and I'm a writer, so this is not just a gedanken experiment), I have the right to restrict who distributes copies of it. That is the only right I have under copyright law. I don't have the right to say 'blind people are not allowed to feed it through a screen reader.' I don't have the right to say 'you may not read this from a mobile device.' I don't even have the right to say 'you may not photocopy a few pages of this book to read on the train when you don't want to lug the entire book with you.' If you want to tear pages out of a book I've written, or change the font of something I've written for online distribution, then that is entirely up to you; I don't have the legal (or moral) right to tell you not to.
Copyright is a limited monopoly on distribution granted to encourage the production of content. It is not a right, and it is not a privilege; it is a trade. The state awards me limited rights in exchange for my relinquishing others (which I could retain by simply not publishing). We both win; I gain a method of producing income, while others gain access to the material I produce. By exercising copyright, I am agreeing to this; I am saying 'I wish to retain exclusive distribution rights, in exchange for publishing this work and permitting others to purchase it.' DRM alters this balance. If I publish a DRM'd version of something, then I am attempting to retain more control than copyright grants me. This is nothing more and nothing less than vigilanteism.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
In many jurisdictions, there are "fair uses" for copyrighted material in an educational context. DRM ignores those fair uses - that's why tomstdenis used 'or a clip for a class or
Jesus Christ, I can't see how people can be so thick about this issue...
Yes - I agree with you there - but perhaps with a different definition of 'people' to you
How freaking self-centered does a person have to be to believe that their rights to pirate music are more relevant than the rights of the people who actually own the music?
How freaking self-centered are those who put the protection of entertainment over the education of our children?*
* (won't somebody think of the children?)
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Informative)
But that teacher isn't. Educational use is enshrined in the Copyright law as an allowable use. DRM that refuses to allow this is illegal, as it infringes on a legal right.
Similarly, commentary, parody, and many other "Fair Use" exceptions exist, none of which the current DRM regime respects.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
So even if you assume Morailty==Legality, legality does differ from country to country.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
But I was talking about me! Neither my preferred music software, nor my mp3 player support fairplay *spits* music. To me it is unusable.
Some of us don't have this fixation on the thought that software and music should be free.
Strawman.
I have a fixation that I should be free to listen how I like to music I've paid for.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have albums over 50 years old that I can still play, and due to the lack of DRM I can easily convert them into OGG / MP3 and play them on the latest music players. I can keep converting them and enjoy my DRM free music for the rest of my life. It's VERY VERY unlikely that the GP will have that same ability.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with privacy. It has to do with being usable under the rights granted by fair use under the United States Copyright Act and similar laws in other countries.
Under fair use, it is my right to be able to take copyrighted music that I have legally purchased and be able to play that on any device I own. That would include being able to burn music to CDs, listen to it on an MP3 player, convert it from one format to another (say, WMA -> OGG or MP3, listen to it on my PC regardless of underlying OS (i.e., under Linux or *BSD), sample it into my music synthesizer/audio sequencer, etc. DRM prevents me from excercising my legal rights.
Or maybe you don't care about your legal rights... but one day, you will get a right taken from you that you care about. We'll see who's complaining then.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
One encourages the other. And I'll let you in on a little secret, it's not the one the RIAA wants you to think.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that's the whole justification for it? If you can't copy it, you obviously can't violate copyright*. Any other reason why you would want in whole or in part to copy it is collateral damage.
But you can copy DRM'd materials. You can make an exact copy, you can strip the DRM, or you can plug your speakers straight into a recording jack. It is an inconvenience to copying, but for the most part you can just download a DRM-free copy elsewhere and the fact that it is illegal does not matter if you're a pirate to start with.
I thought the myth that DRM stops piracy or even is intended to stop piracy was debunked long ago by a huge variety of different people. It is useful to make things hard for the law abiding, not for pirates.
Parent
Re:Headline incorrect. (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, you can't force people to obey the law. Well, you can, but you have to have some sort of fascist state in order to do so - fine if you're a hive dwelling insect, but not acceptable for humans (at least not for me!). Write me a ticket if you catch me speeding, but don't put a governor on my car that won't allow me to speed. Lock me up if I bash someone with a club, but don't handcuff me at birth. That's the way it has to work.
I absolutely disagree with that statement. In fact, I don't think most people would do that even if it were not illegal.Parent
ones and zeros (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ones and zeros (Score:5, Funny)
No, you don't. What gave you that idea?
Parent
Re:If only it were so easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
As zoning laws apply to your property by precdent, licensing applies to the ones and zeros on your HD by precedent.
Wow. that's quite the analogy.
I don't understand how one is related to the other. Putting up a replica of the Taj Mahal is (arguably) an eye sore, and should have community consultation before said replica is built. I don't understand the parallels you've drawn. I don't understand how doing anything to my hard drive has any affect on my neighbours.
Parent
Follow-up; Cory Doctorow on DRM at MSFT (Score:5, Informative)
This whole thing reminds me of Cory Doctorow's DRM and MSFT: A Product No Customer Wants [boingboing.net].
Re:Follow-up; Cory Doctorow on DRM at MSFT (Score:5, Funny)
-- Ravensfire
Parent
Cat and Mouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Predicted. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone knows the DRM is nothing but an inconvenience to normal users suckered into repurchasing music they have owned for decades in format after format. It had zero impact on wholesale media rip off, where "pirates" duplicate the original distribution medium. It's had zero impact on file sharing. Sooner or later, legitimate users are going to get fed up with format changes and eternal copyright. DRM is the last gasp of industries that depended on expensive physical distribution and government broadcast franchises to survive. No one else wants it and it's going away. Until it does, I've given up on their content. Big media won't be seeing any of my money till they make life easier for me and their artists.
Re:Actually hope they fix this (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'd rather these services died a market death than a technolocial one. Then maybe the media companies would realize that people don't want to pay for something continually.
And, well, if other idiots think that renting music is better than buying than maybe they should be allowed too.
Parent
Re:What do I think? (Score:5, Funny)
First they need to figure out if it's dead or alive, and whether it should be treated as both.
Then when they are cetain that the cat is alive|dead, they need to figure out where they are.
Parent
Re:Bittorrent breaks Windows DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, a better way to be would simply to have avoided buying DRMed music in the first place, but not everyone has that foresight.
That would be better, if music distribution was not run by a cartel, repeatedly convicted of abusing their control of the market. I'd love to see everyone become enlightened and move to all DRM-free indy music, but realistically, the market will not properly counter a monopoly or cartel and the legal system and legislature are corrupt and easily bribed.
Parent