Joshua

APPLE MUSIC STORE MOMENTUM BUILDS, BUT PIRACY PROBLEMS LOOM

Apple Computer's revolutionary iTunes Music Store has logged more
than 2 million digital song downloads in its first 16 days, the
company announced this week. More than half the songs were purchased
as part of complete albums, at least temporarily dispelling worries
that the service would harm album sales. But iTunes Music Store is
regarded by many of the major recording labels as a grand experiment
and one that might not work as well when the service is ported to the
99 percent of the computer-using world that isn't running Mac OS X.
Damaging the service's credibility this week are reports that people
have figured out how to use a software service that Apple built into
its music player to illegally download music over the Internet from
Macintoshes running iTunes. Will this problem spiral out of control
and doom any chance of Windows users getting access to iTunes and the
iTunes Music Store?

The hack takes advantage of a new feature in iTunes 4, which lets OS X
users stream music within a small area such as a home to other Macs
running iTunes 4. Streaming music isn't downloaded to the secondary
Macs, and when you move the secondary Macs out of range, the music
stops streaming. Apple CEO Steve Jobs demonstrated this feature during
the April unveiling of the iTunes Music Store. In the ensuing weeks,
however, enterprising users figured out how to offer their music for
free streaming over the Internet, and now hacks have appeared that can
not only stream the music but download it to another PC. I tested one
of these applications yesterday and successfully downloaded two MP3
songs (already in my music library) from a random Mac somewhere on the
Internet.

Apple launched its music store because none of the major online music
services supported the Mac and its relatively small user base.
However, the iTunes Music Store is definitely off to a fast start, and
the elegant way it operates should serve notice to the competition,
which tried to foist subscription fees on customers. As Microsoft
discovered long ago, however, software is never perfect, and the
apparent speed and ease with which iTunes was compromised should be a
warning to Apple's developers, who should fix the vulnerability as
quickly as possible.

There are other troubling signs for the service: According to reports
last week, only two of the five major record labels that agreed to
publish their songs on the service have agreed to do so when Windows
users come aboard. That's because the Windows user base is so large
and diverse that these companies aren't convinced Apple can keep a lid
on piracy. Although Apple is obviously working to counter those fears,
this week's revelation about the music-download hacks certainly can't
help. Apple's response to these concerns will probably determine
whether the service is a long-term success or just a historical
footnote.

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The Apexer formerly known as SnotRocket.

"Like I ****ing said, "Ok, so I hear it may be a repost. Blah But I had never seen it, so..." **** you Canta." -Jenny 12/4/2003

Jeffbx

This whole scene still makes me crazy. As fast as the RIAA & record labels come out with copy protection, it will be cracked. If they just ignore the whole situation, it'll quickly die down.

I was surfing around on The Register yesterday, and they have some very enlightening articles about our good friends at the RIAA. You might stop by & read some of the more interesting articles.

mcs328

I read another article on the same subject and it had a different take on the hack. I can't find it right now but it basically said that the RIAA isn't concerned about the ppl who've downloaded music through the hack b/c their a small percentage of the MAC ppl who've been downloading music through Apple.

The million or so songs and albums that have been downloaded for a buck is better than zero money that they could get free through alternative methods.

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spigidygak

Well the thing with the hack is you can share the MP3 files but the ones from the apple store (AAC) are not useable by other users unless if they have your iTunes account. The DRM Apple uses for the music purchased only allows up to 3 computers to access the file by having them "registered" to the account, just a simple e-mail and password that is used to purchase music at the store. one way around is burning it onto a cd and ripping it back on as MP3, but you lose a lot of quality and who would go through all that trouble. So basically iTunes is just letting them share already stolen music so RIAA probably isn't too concerned about it.