D'oh! remove my freedom

Those bastards! Dammit.

Anybody know if this is easily removable?

Who shares ACC files? Convert it to MP3 and be done with it.

Keebler- It will be, in about 3 hours when someone releases a tool to do just that.

Actually, I don't see any problem with that. DRM is a pain in the ass when it becomes a problem to USE. This doesn't change personal use at all, other than putting some accountability on how we'd copy the tracks to other people. Which is the point of good DRM, really.

I hope it has more than just your NAME to identify you. Otherwise every John Smith who uses iTunes is gonna be in a heap of trouble.

@Keebler
Of course it's easy to remove. Why would you WANT to? I guess you are the reason for DRM in the 1st place.

It's a good move, but assumes people must be responsible to guard the music, similiarly to fire arms (hmmm... bad example). I don't neccessarily agree.

I think people should take a certain level of care in not distributing their music (i.e. don't post it to an unprotected ftp site or install p2p software on the folders). But beyond that, why should government require any additional steps? For example, if my laptop fries and I decide to throw it out and replace it, am I responsible for someone salvaging the hdd and then sharing my music? What happens with stolen laptops/mp3 players?

You could just convert the file into a diffent type and that should get rid of it. From what I have experienced when doing that is your track and artist info is moved over but not any additional file info but it depends on what you are requiring the new info to contain.

I agree with the non-adwhore. Convert it to mp3. It's just better to have all your music in one universal drm-free format.

Kinda crappy but I'm sure it'll be easily removable if you don't want to go through converting them.

I find it interesting to see who really likes DRM-free content for "legitimate" reasons, and who wants to do exactly what the record labels fear.

Hypothetical situation:

X is legally using their DRM free acc file on a personal thumb drive. X drops his thumb drive in the street. Y comes along and picks it up, and decides to share it on limewire using his school network. The RIAA picks up on it and now threatens to sue by X and Y.

What then?

I'd sooo much rather have a watermarked file like this one than a DRM-crippled one.

Good move and good call, Apple.

LOL!!

It just never ends for you people, does it!

Im in ur songz ratin u out!

(goes to rip another disc)

You know, I'm really sick of all this senseless bashing of Señor Sleazy. He's put so much effort into refurbishing the old tumble-down Pirate Palace... Really, do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a Vegas quality replica of the Taj Mahal aloat on a scow? Any idea at all? I didn't think so.

I think someone is owed an apology.

But you wanted DRM-free tunes so you could play them on multiple devices and copy them for personal use, not for piracy, right? Right guys?

Yeah Adam, that's exactly what I wanted it for.

Thanks Apple.

@Otterking:
I think that's a pretty damn convoluted scenario. I find it hard to believe that someone finding a free thumb drive in the street thinks "Sweet! Now I can Pirate some music!"
For those of you who seriously want to buy music to share with the internet at large, just buy the damn DRM'd ones, burn to a CD and re-rip it as a non-DRM'd track, like you've been doing all along. The idea of removing DRM isn't to make a Pirate's job easier, it's so that you people don't have to cause the rest of us to be inconvenienced.

someone should release a program that doesn't remove the name but rather lets you change it to whatever you want, then we could have some fun. but seriously who shares m4as anyway, or better still who downloads m4as.

Does the tag data really matter that much? I mean, I don't think you're going to get pirates all of a sudden starting to buy their music because there's no DRM, I suspect they'll probably just keep pirating it.

Isn't this more or less a non-issue? Those who pirate won't buy their stuff from iTMS anyways, and it hasn't really got anything to do with freedom, since sharing music is illegal. It's a bit like claiming a hunting licence limits your freedom (even though you shouldn't take that analogy too seriously).

Are we really surprised? I don't mind. With non-DRM and 256kbps AAC I don't find too much to complain about (except, that is, for the lack of experimental/alternative music on iTMS).

You guys have it all wrong. Apple and EMI are not doing this to track pirates. This is being done as a service to you, the valued consumer. Now you can easily identify your own music by opening up a sector editor and looking at the information embedded within the file. It couldn't be more convenient or useful.

Thank you for shopping with iTunes. Have a nice day.

There is no way I am paying $1.29 and then letting a bunch of douchebags "share" my music by putting it out to the public.

This is totally fine by me.

I imagine this is for accounting information like if you downloaded only a patial album, etc. If you're worried about this information getting out then don't torrent your downloads.

This seems perfectly reasonable to me, if all I want to do is use my music on another MP3 player, then this solves the problems. Its a concession on their part, I see no reason why they shouldn't be allowed some security.

I *mostly* applaud this move and it seems like a smart solution.
I think all the scenarios where somebody else gets a hold of your music and shares it on the internet resulting in you getting into trouble with RIAA are probably not going to happen. It would be just a case of telling them that your laptop (or whatever) was stolen or lost and that would be the end of it. Unless it kept happening, in which case they'd have reason to be suspicious.
What I'd worry about more is what information is embedded in those tracks? Could a thief potentially use information from these tracks stolen off your computer to hack your account?

Pretty funny, Apple does this and it's "no big deal, you can just convert to MP3".

If it had been Sony or Microsoft doing the same thing, we'd have a 100+ comment argument from apple fanboys about how evil and wrong M$ and $ony are.

i see nothing wrong with the embedded information in the DRM-free content. you're either getting the music for yourself or you're gonna share it. don't pretend like you want it on principle. "what if i drop a flash key and someone picks it up and pirates it?" WTF, you douchebag.

I just saw this comment on /. by 'Boogaroo'
"Yes, you could put something else in there, but why not be creative and put something like the name of the RIAA chairman(Mitch Bainwol)?"

Then... copy the ACC music files to cheap USB drives and 'accidentally' misplace them for someone to find/torrent.

(all in fun)

actually, I think this is brilliant. its DRM free. You can move it around from computer to computer, from device to device, etc, etc.

if your computer gets stolen - we'll I assume you report it. So any music that might be shared _after_ it got stolen will not make you liable to RIAA.

If you toss out your hardrive without a good wipe... well, you'll have more to worry about the whether some dude is sharing your itunes collection.

The question of course is whether itunes checks to see that all the songs in your collection have your name embedded in there... and reports you if you don't. or, better yet, charge you for all the songs that have someone else's name in there.

Does anyone use their real name on the internets?

"chelsel says: Does anyone use their real name on the internets?"

No, but if you buy a song on iTunes (using your credit card) it will give Apple all the information that they want...

It's a super good call from Apple. Guess they always have some nice tricks up their sleve :)

And as far as converting to MP3 goes... I assume they're going to encrypt the music file using your personal data (just as they do now with the DRM keys), which may make converting harder that expected.

wjousts says:

"It would be just a case of telling them that your laptop (or whatever) was stolen or lost and that would be the end of it."

I'd like to agree with you, but the RIAA doesn't have the best track record. Didn't they sue a cripple, countless pre-teens, and a couple of dead people?

Embedded user info is not an issue for me, as I'm not going to upload my music for others to "share". Portability to other devices doesn't matter to me, either.

I will buy DRM free music because I want the higher quality (even though I probably can't hear it), and because I really hate the idea of smug recording industry executives dictating the terms under which I can use music that I legally purchased and own.

seems fine to me.. though I wish they'd use a username or something, rather than yur real name.

I also wish i could get these files in MP3 format, to play on my existing mp3 player.. transcoding them to mp3 is gonna total the quality.

it's a piece of cake, I think, to change that information. All you'd have to do is grab the stat struct, modify it, and write it back to the file. I could care less about removing it, and anyone who knows what I'm talking about surely already knew that (assuming it's correct, which I'm pretty sure it is) so it's not like it's any big secret for the people who can remove it.

I won't share my mp3's with more than a friend or two anyways, and that's just so they can hear a good song and maybe buy the album too, so there's no way I'm going to bother removing it.

To be honest this doesn't affect me. I never intended to share the music openly anyway, I just wanted to be it to be drm free. In fact I don't think there is a problem at all, to me the reason why music should be drm free is so we can access it just as easily as a cd. If I don't own an iPod then the DRMed music is no use to me besides on my computer, now I can throw it onto anything, or even on my 360, so it's all good with me.

Seems alot of people think the only people who should decline police searches are the guilty people. I won't be sharing my music, but I can still see ways this may compromise my privacy. I'll admit it's a minor risk, especially since I now know it's there, but it's still not 100% the right answer.

don't pretend like you want it on principle. "what if i drop a flash key and someone picks it up and pirates it?" WTF, you douchebag.

Before calling people names, perhaps you should think a little more. It isn't just plausible that music purchased from iTunes will be on lost or stolen iPods, it is a statistical certainty. Once those songs are in the wild, there will be no way for the original purchaser to control them.

So, now that all the non-DRMed songs from the iTunes store will have your name embedded in them after download, how long until every illegally downloaded song's ID3 tags have "mbainwol@riaa.org" in the metadata?