h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm trying to follow this:

F16034?thread=3749750

Is it true that itunes store's downloads are restricted in that way?

Yup, iTunes has fairly heavy-duty DRM. Although, if you have an iPod and a Mac or Windows PC it lets you do more with your songs than many DRM systems - as far as I remember you can have a song on your iPod and two PCs licenced to the same person, plus burn one (reduced quality) audio CD for the car. However, you still have to "jump through hoops" to transfer licences between machines, and many people feel these restrictions reduce the value of the songs to the point it's not worth paying for them.

However, if you're a "True Believer" and only want to carry your music around on a genuine iPod, then the song quality is good and the purchasing system is simple. Mind you, there are some fascinating limitations they *don't* talk about...

Like the fact that buried in the licence is a clause saying that if you ever go bankrupt you must inform them and they will disable all the songs you have /already/ downloaded.

But surely if I downloaded something onto my mac, I'd be able to play it in itunes? Given that I was downloading it via itunes.

Good to know about the rest though I don't have to feel so left out about not buying music online then.

"But surely if I downloaded something onto my mac, I'd be able to play it in itunes? Given that I was downloading it via itunes."

Yes... But... You might have difficulty playing it anywhere else, including on any new computer you buy in the future, and backing it up in case you lose it is nigh on impossible. You can re-download it, but only for as long as your credit card remains on record with Apple. Hence the bankruptcy clause I mentioned above. Oh, and when your credit card expires there's a chance the music you've *paid* *for* will too.

Jeez, that's *really* bad. I can see now what Alfredo is talking about

It's not as bad as it sounds. In fact I think that the Fairplay DRM is the least restrictive DRM in current use.

Also the limit to how many CDs you can burn is purely based on the songs put on the CD, add another to the list, take one away or do both and you can burn again. With reguard to how many PCs you can listen to your songs on I can't remember the exact number, but any which are 'authorised' with your iTunes account will play any music you have purchased with that account.
Further to this you can play the music for as long as iTunes is authorised by the account used to puchase it. Therefore you do not, or should not, need to worry about your credit card expiring however if you change the iTunes account used to autherise the PC, or de-autherise it, then the songs become unplayable.

One work around for this, and one I know people have used to get iTunes bought songs onto non-iPod media players, is to burn your songs to CD and then rip them back onto your PC.




PS the term PC is used here to refer to all PCs, not just Wintel machines

DRM is pure evil, plain and simple.

On the other hand, I've purchased lots of music on iTunes and the way they handle it is not bad at all. I've "deauthorized" computers so i could move my music to another computer without any problem. And once, after I had my motherboard replaced, iTunes failed to recognize the authorization but Apple reset my whole account - all I needed to do was type my password on the computer to "reauthorize" it and listen to the music again.

- Currently you can authorize 5 computers, but that can change
- You can burn a playlist to CD five (maybe 10?) times, but as already noted you simply change the playlist to reset the count. The CDs burn at full quality.
- You can rip the CDs back into iTunes to create plain old mp3 (or m4a) files - the ripping process will decrease the quality a little however.
- You can put the music on as many ipods as you want. iPods do not require authorization. But iPods are the only portable player that recognize the "fairplay" DRM code.
- Maybe this changes from country to country, but in the US you *cannot* re-download songs, you need to repurchase them if you lose them and have no backup copy
These terms change from time to time, it's best to look at the current policy on Apple's web site. The terms for video are completely different, and much more restrictive.

Apple's approach to DRM has been to make it difficult to distribute copies or to mass-produce CDs, but in a way that tries not to affect the casual listener. That's far better than the "plays-for-sure" model from Microsoft, where in many cases you need to keep paying your subscription fee - failure to pay the fee deactivates your music collection.

The real problem with DRM is not in the inconvenience - as Peet said it's in the strangeness of the limitations, bankruptcy is only one example. There's no legal precedent for allowing corporations to dictate how or where or on what equipment we listen to music (or perform any other activity), and the effect on culture and the free exchange of ideas may be devastating. If anyone has some free time to read a good book, I suggest http://www.free-culture.cc/ - click the "free content" link for the PDF version of the book.

Interesting.


I've started reading that link, but am finding myself annoyed by a lecture about the evils of concentration of power from a man who doesn't seem to realise that not everyone with internet access lives in the US.

Sorry, I should have warned you that the author being a lawyer specializing in US law, the book is somewhat US-centric. It's still an interesting argument though, I think effect on culture is true everywhere.

I'll try and perservere I never really got the hang of reading long PDFs though.

Try this one:

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/pdf/cspdcomichigh.pdf