Slashdot Log In
Apple Sends Cease-and-Desist To the Hymn Project
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Feb 23, 2008 03:14 PM
from the lawyers-code-and-money dept.
from the lawyers-code-and-money dept.
Troed writes "Tools for removing DRM from iTunes-purchased songs (myFairTunes7, QtFairUse6) have been available from the Hymn Project Web site for some time. These are legal in many countries. But on the 20th Apple sent a Cease and Desist note to Hymn's ISP, forcing the site admins to remove all download links. It is speculated that this is due to a new tool being created (Requiem) that attacks Apple's FairPlay DRM through cryptographic means instead of by copying the unprotected music from memory while it is being played. But since the tools are no longer available (after several days there are still no public mirrors), discussion around this topic has died out. Many users buy music from the iTunes store and rely on DRM removal to be able to play the content on their mobile phones. Apple may be on dangerous ground here, since those users might now start checking out competing services."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the evil pirates are ruining iTunes by not using it to buy their mus-wait, what?
Try more along the lines of buying coke from a small grocery store and then pouring the coke into a big jug so it takes up less space in your fridge, then discarding the cans.
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Funny)
I am encouraged by my business comrades to hire you for your superior sector of technology information abilities and would like to offer you your current salary to work with us.
We have recently had problems with our code growing mold and this has affected increasing numbers of our computer cluster and Sasha just recently came down with an illness from breathing in so many of the contaminated spores.
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Funny)
Although we would need to negociate the salary, I would require a significant increase, wages from flipping whoppers isn't exactly a career choice you know. None the less, I am fully capable of taking purely obvious puns out of context and relating them to purely obvious and somewhat common technology incompacitated way. After all, I was the top shoe salesman in my area until I burnt the shop down toking on a one hit in the store room. Who knew that the disinfectant was that flammable? Anyways, I can start as soon as the rest of this insurance money runs out.
I am sure we wold both benefit and I could be a complete ass set to your company. And tell sasha not to worry, penicillin fixes a lot of things and they even got stuff better then that now. But if it is something she can't get rid of, I know a guy who can probably still help her make a living.
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Insightful)
Your analogy is also flawed. Because the fact the Coke was chained to the store was no secret. It's not something you didn't find out after you bought it. It's more like you bought the Coke knowing full well it was chained to the store but also knew that if you bought this special Hymn glass you could take the Coke outside, and you assumed you'd always be able to do that. But suddenly Apple came along and sent a C&D to the company making Hymn glasses.
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
It's an extremely flawed analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't have a car in it.
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Insightful)
A real world analogy might be more like if you bought a special cup at a store that gave out free refills. As long as you use the cup, you can get all the Coke you want - but if you want another kind of drink, you have to buy a different special cup. Also, the cup is chained to the store, so you can only have the Coke in the store. Hymn is the product that allows you to cut the chain and take the cup out of the store. Really fine if you just take the coke out of the store and drink it at home, but bad if you take the cup out of the store and loan it to all your friends so they can go and get all the free coke they want. Since Coke is sugar water, it is pretty cheap and they can afford to give free refills to each customer- the store makes money by selling the cups to different customers. But if everyone is using the same cup, the store won't make any money. It sucks that you can't take the Coke out of the store, but the store sees it as their only level of protection. I would rather unchain the cup in this scenario, and not share it with my friends. Sure maybe you could give your friends a drink once in a while, but if they really want all the coke they can drink, they should buy their own cup.
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:In Apple's defense (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Apple has legal contracts with the studios that assure them that it will work in good faith to preserve its DRM in such a way that iTunes remains a store and not a source for widespread bootlegging and Internet distribution. This is somewhat silly because every CD sold is more of a source of unrestricted copying than a FairPlay song, and Apple would just as soon sell its tracks DRM free. That would mean Apple doesn't have to police a system that exists to keep honest people honest with some inconvenience, and try to prevent thieves from stealing, which is somewhat impossible anyway.
However, reality means that Apple does have to stop flagrant activity designed to facilitate theft. The iTunes license specifically outlines how songs can be used. The fact that Hymn allows users to violate their contract with Apple at the time of sale does not redefine the contract terms. It does however force Apple to put pressure on Hymn so Apple won't be sued or abandoned by its studio partners for failing to uphold its own resale license.
Anyone crying about iTunes restrictions should be buying CDs. There's nothing more that can be said about that. Nobody has a right to redefine the licensing terms of a product unilaterally just because they want to use it in a different way than it is being offered. If you disagree, remember how butt hurt you get when you read that TiVo or Microsoft whoever is violating the GPL.
If you support the idea of free software enforced by GPL/BSD/MIT style licenses, you have to also respect the licensing rules offered by commercial vendors, and either chose not to use them or use them in compliance with the terms of the agreement.
But there's no honor among thieves, as this thread demonstrates.
Lessons from the Death of HD-DVD [roughlydrafted.com]
Is Apple Shedding its Final Cut Pro Apps at NAB? [roughlydrafted.com]
Parent
torrents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:torrents (Score:5, Interesting)
I had an itunes plugin awhile ago that mounted a second ipod on your itunes list, with an important difference. You could drag music FROM the second pod to your library. Very neat hack, using apple's built-in plugin architecture for itunes. It didn't break any of the rules.
At that time there were three itunes updates in two weeks. The first two attempted to detect and deactivate the plugin, looking for strings of code from the plugin. Each time the author quickly released a newer version that got around the checks. The third release of itunes in that run looked specifically for the plugin by name, and deactivated it. The author at that point decided he was fighting a battle he wasn't going to win, and stopped releasing updates.
Now while I think he should have kept trying, as the mac users would not have tolerated a new itunes update every week, I see why he did it.
The problem with the torrent isn't that it's hard to distribute an old release, it's that it's hard to keep distributing new updates every week after apple breaks it again. That's why they had a web page for updates, and that's why apple CnD'd it.
The CnD is questionable, and it's very likely there was no legal teeth to it. The text of the CnD is usually just a formality covering up the sabor rattling of a large company that is ready to drag you into a meritless yet expensive lawsuit, to discourage your legal behavior.
Parent
LINK? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Good old DMCA. (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn Sony and their DRM! (Score:5, Funny)
Ooh, look over there! Shiny!
Re:Damn Sony and their DRM! (Score:5, Interesting)
back OT, back in 1999 (I think, don't remember it exactly), one at my university user was publishing some Windows XP themes created by him which gave Aquas look and feel to XP (OK a far look and feel but anyway). After a week we got 5 (F I V E !!!!) letters in 2 days from Apple's hounds trheating us with legal actions if we don't inmediatelly deleted those icons and themes from our servers.
We obviously deleted them because nobody likes legal problems here for nothing, but anyway, that was overeacting: all other themes from BeOS, OS2/WARP, Super Mario, The Coke theme are still inplace and nobody reacts. Hey, that's free ads for them anyway... But hey, that's Abble for you!
Parent
Re:Damn Sony and their DRM! (Score:4, Informative)
And for some support for all the anal replies about the specific dates:
XP officially came out in 2001, however there were 'liberated' versions floating around the warez groups of beta versions for a long while before the official release
Plus, even I remember a number of XP themes released for the betas that were out years before the official release also.
* Not to imply you were using That
I didnt even bother looking up when OS X came out, cuz it doesnt at all matter.
The OS X hype was out YEARS before OS X was, and you would have to be living under one of slashdots many rocks at the time to have misesd it
Parent
Watch out DVD Jon! (Score:4, Interesting)
Why bother with the iTunes Store anymore? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why bother with the iTunes Store anymore? (Score:5, Informative)
Some of us want particular songs. iTMS has many more songs than Amazon at this point.
Parent
Re:Why bother with the iTunes Store anymore? (Score:4, Informative)
Songs don't just magically appear when an online store signs a deal with a label. Rather, they start making songs available over time, and it can take quite a while before they have them all. The last album I bought was the second album from the Urban Verbs (a sadly overlooked band--their lead singer was the brother of the Talking Heads drummer, and so people just pigeonholed them as a Heads wannabe). When I bought it a few weeks ago, it was on iTunes and not Amazon. Now it is on Amazon. At the same time, I bought a Julia Ecklar album that was on both, so I bought it from Amazon.
Parent
Re:Why bother with the iTunes Store anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what part of the United States do you live in?
Parent
Re:Why bother with the iTunes Store anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you.
Parent
Yeah, okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, okay (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure if this is a geek-specific variant version of the "I'm an important customer so they should do what I want or watch out", or if it's just the less arrogant(?) but equally deluded flaw of Slashdotters to assuming that their views and behaviour are representative of more than a tiny percentage of the market. Probably a mixture- they're both facets of the same thing anyway.
The latter case is something like when people say "I [or 'people'] would be more likely to buy the PSP if they removed the DRM restrictions etc. and let me do what I liked with it". Sorry, but a guaranteed sale to 1, or 5 or 500 people is going to be vastly outweighed by the profits Sony thinks (or hoped) it'll make by tying down the machine and selling people content or applications instead of letting them add their own.
I mean, personally I'd have been far more likely to buy a PSP if it had been more hackable or at least an open development environment, but I'm under no delusions as to my importance in the market, or to what Sony actually want.
Parent
Beating the Bully (Score:5, Interesting)
And when the C&D sender loses such a case, every other recipient of such a letter should be able to file to get the same results applied to their own case, if they can prove it was the same circumstances (which should be cheap, easy and quick if they were indeed the same). That should load up the fines and strikes on the sender and their lawyers.
Which in turn will deter lots of these C&D letters, especially when they're just bluffing (and they know it). Why should a law license and a retainer let these bullies litter the land with their C&D letters that get enforced with just the threat of intimidation, but which don't have a legal leg to stand on (or ever have to demonstrate they do)? They should have to face some consequences for abuse themselves.
Re:Beating the Bully (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is, in the United States they often do have a legal leg to stand on, in the form of the DMCA. That doesn't make it right, or just, or even good business
Parent
Re:Beating the Bully (Score:5, Informative)
In point of fact, there is exactly one way for any party to ask the courts to give their opinion of what's legal and what isn't: filing a lawsuit. And in this case, Apple hasn't even gone that far. All they've done so far is send a letter to Harmony saying, "we think what you're doing infringes our rights, and if you keep doing it we're willing to take the matter in front of a judge."
By itself, that letter holds little or no legal value. It certainly hasn't been endorsed by any court. About all it does is prevent a defendant from saying, "I was ambushed.. if they'd only asked me to stop, I would have," when the matter actually does appear in front of a judge. And since there's absolutely no legal force behind this kind of C&D letter -- not even an immediate threat of a lawsuit -- the courts don't give a flying shit what they say.
Now, if Apple had actually filed a bogus lawsuit simply to harass the defendant, that is illegal: It's called barratry. [wikipedia.org] And the courts have no problem slapping down plaintiffs who can be proved to have engaged in that
Whether you like it or not, though, Apple is on the side of the angels here, at least in terms of legal fitness. Stripping the DRM off a purchased song when you already hold a legitimate key is a legal grey area, and Apple hasn't pushed too hard on that question. Cryptographic attacks that make it possible for someone to unlock a track even if they don't hold a legitimate key are gonna be pretty hard to defend in court. So there's a legitimate question as to whether the tools are legal at all. Apple has contracts with the labels which require Apple to watch out for this kind of thing, and Apple faces contract penalties or harder negotiations on future contracts if the labels decide Apple isn't working hard enough to guard the barn door. So Apple stands to be injured if the tools are illegal and the distributor keeps handing them out. That means Apple has 'standing' to sue.
So when Apple's lawyers wrap those two facts up in a letter and say, "the fastest and easiest way for you not to hurt us in a way that would lead to us suing for damages is to stop distributing the tools," that's frickin' polite.
When you finally grow out of thinking C&D letters are a form of extortion, you'll see that they're a proper and necessary part of a legal system with many players who hold diverse interests. It isn't Harmony's responsibility to check every possible law and every possible player in the market and bulletproof themselves against any suggestion of stepping on someone's before deciding what to do next. They're free to do their thing, and if Apple sees a legal issue, it's Apple's responsibility to A) discover the problem and B) let Harmony know that there might be a problem.
The proper response to such a letter is to have your own lawyer talk to Apple's lawyers and work out a solution that makes everyone happy. The C&D letter is a request to start a conversation about legal matters where both parties have an interest, and to work out a compromise where both sides can move forward with as many of their own legitimate interests intact as possible.
For all we know, Apple's lawyers might tell Harmony, "according to our engineers, changing these bits of the program right here would put you completely in the clear.. of course we're not allowed to say that in public for fear of reprisals from the record labels. But legal conversations are privileged and you'd be able to subpoena the information from us if we went to court anyway, so what the heck." That's unlikely, but at least give Apple the chance to have a conversation before pumping bricks out your ass over how they're such big mean stinky poopyheads.
Parent
As a myFairTunes user... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As a myFairTunes user... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because Apple isn't trying to sell music to Linux users, they're trying to sell iPods. Maybe there was a big need for Hymn back when the iTMS was the only store around with major recording artists (I mean ones you heard on top-40 stations, not college rock stations), but with Amazon's store seemingly redundant with Apple's catalog, why don't you just start using them instead?
Parent
The only dangerous ground apple is in.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not to say that apple is blameless. They aren't. Apple, at this point, has had the chance to shame record labels (at least them. It appears we are doomed to repeat this nonsense with video) into changing their contracts. They took the opportunity to sound like a white knight in copyleft circles for a few weeks and did nothing. Maybe this was because companies were intransigent in negotiation. Maybe it is because apple's commitment to DRM free media was less than sincere. Probably both.
Part of what is allowing this silliness to happen is the dMCA itself. These folks can be send a CnD because they might be cryptographically breaking DRM, but regular old listening and rerecording is ok. The anti-circumvention clause allows companies to litigate in the absence of real infringement. That is the problem.
Many? (Score:3, Insightful)
more rubbish (Score:4, Insightful)
Cease and Desist *Letter* not *Order* (Score:5, Informative)
A C&D ORDER on the other hand, comes from a court and you'd better do what it says or risk pissing off the judge. Almost always a bad idea.
In any case, a C&D Letter can be responded to by a letter of your own back to the sender requesting "clarification", setting off a torrent ( :-) ) of correspondence that could level a forest while consuming time as you continue to do as you please. Or you could just use it to pre-emptively go to court and threaten the sender with attempting to interfere with your business/life/whatever by harassing you. And you will have the letter/evidence in hand, signed by the sender.
And of course, in the greatest of Slashdot Traditions, IANAL.
Last year I would have cared (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that Amazon is in the mp3 business I've been buying all my music from them. I've bought more music from Amazon in the last two months than I did in the last year from iTMS. iTunes was great when there was no other legal way to get a large selection of artists. That's changed now.
A few thoughts from the author (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't hate Apple.
In fact, I rather like them. They make good stuff - both hardware and software - and I enjoy using it.
For what it's worth, Apple is entirely within their rights to request that I cease distribution and development of this software. The WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act (a component of the DMCA), 103, says that "manufacturing" and distributing software (i.e, ffh) to circumvent a protection system (i.e, Fairplay) is illegal. While I don't agree with this law, I don't really have much of a choice but to follow it.
If you disagree with this as well, good. Tell your senator as much. Apple isn't to blame, though.
It's also probably worth considering that Apple is probably bound to pursue any violations. Although I'm certainly not privy to the details of their agreements with record labels, I strongly suspect that one of the terms of those agreements is that Apple must maintain the integrity of the Fairplay system (or - I imagine - risk dire penalties, either in terms of cash penalties or in companies breaking off music licensing contracts). I certainly can't fault them for doing what they've got to do.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why put up with that crap? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:It's theft of service (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were to download a song or software program off of a p2p network, you haven't prevented the bits from being sold to other people, the business is no better, or worse, off than it would have been had you chosen to not use it at all. In some ways, the company might even be better off for you having done it, because if you've downloaded an installed their program in that manner you haven't joined a competitors install base, and they can use the install as an indication of prevalence anyways.
I wish trolls like you would come up with a better set of analogies, because this is just as tired as it always was, and it isn't even logically consistent.
I don't personally agree with downloading content without respecting the licensing agreement and paying any relevant fees, but it really undermines the interests of the content producers to have trolls like you trying to make analogies which are as severely distorted as this one is. This isn't any different than any other situation where you have free riders using a resource without contributing to its creation or upkeep.
Parent
Re:It's theft of service (Score:4, Insightful)
But, what about services with a lopsided value, where the "cost" (in time, training, materials) to the provider is way in excess of the value of the service to an individual? Those type of services will then generally not be available in the general market, because there are no customers. Unless the service can be performed once, and be sold to many customers. In those cases, a group of people split the cost among themselves. Like in the case of a theatrical performance. There is no way an average person could afford to hire an entire acting troop for one private showing. But by selling that showing to several thousand people that show up at the theater, it all works out.
But what about the person who sneaks in. Assume there are a few unsold seats. That individual isn't depriving the theater of money from a paying customer, since there are still seats available. But I would still say that individual is committing a theft of service, even if there is no way that he would have paid for a ticket even if he wasn't able to sneak in. Yes, the legal term may or may not be "theft of service" in this case, but he is still enjoying the fruit of someone else's labor without paying his fair share (and potentially causing other customers to pay more in the long run).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's theft of service (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's theft of service (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine you'd feel that blocking advertisements with a proxy or similar would be stealing. If I don't install Flash, am I "stealing" from sites that have Flash-based ads? If I choose not to display
Do you ever borrow a book, CD, or movie from a friend or the library? THIEF!
Do you ever skip the previews (aka commercials) on a DVD? THIEF!
Do you ever get up to use the bathroom during TV commercials? THIEF!
Do you ever pay your credit card bill in full, thereby depriving the CC company of any interest for their loan? THIEF!
Have you ever walked by a street musician without dropping money in the case? THIEF!
Have you ever written a research paper in which you cited material you did not personally own? THIEF!
Have you ever sung "Happy Birthday" and forgotten to pay the royalties? THIEF!
Jeez, by your flawed definition of "stealing" (that any time you "deprive someone else of payment", you've stolen from them), Linus Torvalds has stolen millions of dollars from Microsoft for all the lost customers. And GM better watch out before they get arrested for stealing from Ford!
Backpedalling begins in three... two... one...
Parent
Re:It's theft of service (Score:5, Insightful)
That is such a sad, negative viewpoint. How much do you pay for air to breathe? Monthly bill for rain and sunshine? When wildflowers bloom spontaneously on your yard, or the birds sing a song, who do you send a check to? Free prize? Quantity discount? Traffic ticket? Christmas, birthday, wedding, going away, welcome back, happy anniversary or graduation gifts must all be out of the question, too.
Most musicians actually want people to hear their music because that tends to make it easier to get an audience at live performances, which is the only place we've ever made any money and probably always will be.
Most of us were also taught to share. Mysteriously, everyone only wants to listen to the three percent that didn't learn this lesson.
Parent
Re:You don't need software... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:You don't need software... (Score:5, Insightful)
And I thought
Parent
Yes you do. (Score:5, Insightful)
But judging from the other comments here, while they're self-righteous enough to bitch about DRM, they don't have the fucking backbone to just not buy DRM'ed music.
Parent
Re:Steve Jobs = Hypocrite (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that is two-faced. Jobs position has always been that DRM on music is counter productive and a flawed concept. His position has also been, that it is a necessary evil if you want to do business with the RIAA cartel which controls the music distribution in the US. First he pushed for the most user friendly and unrestrictive DRM of any company reselling RIAA music. Then he pushed to get them to sell some music with no DRM, for a slightly higher price.
Sometimes you can not agree with something, but still have to put up with it to do business.
Parent