Jon Johansen Breaks iTunes DRM Yet Again 1286
ikewillis writes "Remember earlier today when Apple released an update supposedly blocking the hole in iTMS recently discovered by Jon Johansen? News.com reports that he has already worked around the update, and iTMS can now be accessed from non-Windows/MacOS X systems using the new version of his PyMusique software. You can view his blog entry on the issue (ironically titled So Sue Me). More power to you, Jon!"
A Name! (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder, did he work around it that quickly, or was he anticipating Apple's fix and already knew another way around it?
Why not Tivo? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hire they guy.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More power to you, Jon! (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe they should have encrypted the music before it got sent over the network... Or maybe they should figure out a way to save their business without lobbying congress to bail them out. Or MAYBE they should do something innovating to gain marketshare rather than lobby to change laws to put their competitors out of business? Guess they never thought of that. You probably didn't either. You were too busy listening ot U2 on your ever so popular iPod.
Get real.
Re:A Name! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As a record store owner. (Score:1, Interesting)
Face it. The business landscape has changed. Whining and blaming isn't going to help anybody. If you are that worried, then start an education program. Explain to your customers why pirating music is bad.
On the other hand, I just think of how the horse and buggy makers felt when the automobile was released. Their business was going away, and there was nothing they could do about it. Some adapted and became metal shops and embraced the new business opportunity, many others went away.
12 years ago, a record store was prolly a great investment. You got 12 years of support out of it. That a lot longer than most
Oh yea, you can prolly blame the big box stores as well. But your post didn't even mention those stores. I think that those types of stores would have done more damage than internet piracy. Wallyworld for example is within a 20 minute drive of 90% of the USA population. Total domination.
More power to you, Jon, and I stand by that! (Score:5, Interesting)
The music industry is plagued by an enormous problem of legacy. Creativity has been stifled by the labels' continuing drive towards commercialization. We have "artists" like Gwen Stefani releasing cover after cover, first covering Talk Talk's It's My Life then covering If I Were A Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof, and both covers are atrocious. These are examples of an industry which is creatively bankrupt and where profit is the bottom line. It seems like nowadays the only place you can find creativity is in underground music, before the industry has commercialized and destroyed it.
Music needs a new distribution model, one where the artist is in the driver's seat and has complete creative control over their work. The Internet has rendered traditional music labels obsolete, they're aware of this, and they're fighting their eventual downfall tooth and nail. They will lose.
DRM is based around cryptographically unsound principles. In order to play DRM encrypted music you need the encrypted content and the key on your local system. Given this you have everything you need to unlock the encrypted data, it's only through obfuscation in the client that the key is hidden.
Eventually the industry will have to come to terms with this fact and the fact that their distribution model is antequated and obsolete. We need people to continue proving DRM is an unsound technology so eventually they give up on it entirely.
Re: Apple won't let you "buy" songs (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple's Terms of Serivice say they don't even "sell" songs, instead you are offered the chance to pay for a license to use the song. --And as for that great deal for $.99, well Apple has used it's ironically named "FairPlay" Digital Rights Restriction system to continually erode the value of your purchase by taking away the rights they promised you when you bought it. They reduced the number of times you can burn a playlist from 10 to 7, they shrunk the network you can share music on, and now they have reduced the number of listeners from 5 simultaneous listeners to 5 daily listeners. Tomorrow, who knows, maybe you'll only be allowed to listen to a song a certain number of times per day. The DRR allows Apple to control your purchase, even after you have bought it. That is just plain wrong.
Back in 1984, Apple leveraged the imagery of "1984" in an ad featuring a Hammer thrower taking on Big Brother. Now Apple has lost that sense of perspective. They are part of the establishment now.
Re:Companies won't let us "Get over it" (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, your "rights" are not being violated by DRM.
Re:A Name! (Score:5, Interesting)
PyMusick could send the same public key, iTMS would send it the same song, and PyMusic could decrypt the song with its private key, yielding the same unencrypted, DRM-free file. Adding public key cryptography does nothing to solve the problem.
They could use private key cryptography, but the key would have to ship with every copy of iTunes, where it could be discovered through disassembly of the encryption algorithm. This is the exact approach KaZaA used, and it was reverse engineered, but 3rd party KaZaA clients were halted thanks to the DMCA.
Re:So sue him? (Score:1, Interesting)
I guess Apple's software licence isn't enforcable in Norway? Can someone clarify?
Jeez... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. DVD Jon lives in Norway, where the majority of this stuff, including the release of DeCSS which breaks DVD encoding, is illegal. The court case failed.
2. Nobody broke Apple's DRM. All this does is retreive the music before the iTunes client adds the DRM. How is this possible? Apple's iTunes client adds the DRM because it needs the client to generate the key. Doing it any other way would likely be a tremendous processor increase on the iTunes servers.
3. Apple can sue DVD Jon if they choose, but it will likely do no good.
The way I see it, there's only one safe path for Apple. They should release an iTunes client for Linux along with a statement that any further attempt to block their DRM will be followed up with a lawsuit. Sure, the lawsuit part is either a bluff or a waste of time, but at least they eliminate the "It's just so we can run on Linux" argument.
Re:Why are we proud of this guy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Mirror? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Companies won't let us "Get over it" (Score:3, Interesting)
You have no legal right to "listen to the song on the device of your choice" (as others have posted that they think then do). Apple doesn't need to make it possible or easy for you to listen to it on a Dell DJ, for instance. When you purchase a song from iTMS, you are bound by the license agreement which you agree to buy using the store (though the law does limit what can be included in a license agreement, and at times, parts of these license agreements have been invalidated by the courts).
So if DRM prevents you from playing a song on your Dell DJ, your rights are not being violated because you never had such a right to begin with.
Adapting to the digital age (Score:2, Interesting)
And hey, in general when I read this I have always thought "Hell yeah!"
What I find interesting is now I am seeing posts saying the DRM is bad because it "erodes the fair use rights we have always traditionally had when we purchased music on CDs".
This just got me thinking. Maybe the adaptation to the digital age has to be a two-way street? In addition to the RIAA needing to rethink its evil ways, maybe we also have to consider that the world has changed since the days of CDs. And not all changes are good for everybody.
Perhaps our "traditional" fair use rights also need to adapt with technology. Remember that with power comes responsibility (no Spiderman references please. I know, I also winced when I typed that). We now have the power to digitally transmit music anywhere in the world for close to zero cost. Unfortunately there will always be a few people that will abuse this power. Maybe something does need to change?
Not saying I agree with that idea or not, because I haven't really had time to think it through yet. Just putting it out there for consideration.
Getting technical with the law... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More power to you, Jon! (Score:3, Interesting)
It has everything to do with Congress. Copyright is a right Congress defines. It defines it not as a basic property right, but it defines it for the purpose of encouraging the creation of good content.
And, traditionally, it has always been a limited right. For example, content is supposed to fall into the public domain after some time. You are supposed to be able to resell it. Those are restrictions that have always existed for content.
Now, with the technological possibility of DRM, content "owners" have attempted an end-run around the conditions under which Congress originally granted copyright in the first place.
If you don't believe in copyright, licenses, or "trade secrets", then kiss work on open source or other original work by yourself, things the GNU General Public License, and your own privacy goodbye. Oh, I forgot, those things only apply to the things you want it to, not corporate interests
I am a strong supporter of copyrights. But granting copyrights on content that is also subject to DRM is a mistake. Companies should choose whether they want to rely on copyrights or whether they want to attempt technological solutions. They should not be permitted to have both.
And, yes, abolishing copyrights altogether would be better than the current situation. But the best solution would be to return to the original idea behind copyright law: limited term protection (maybe 20 years) for content, but only if the content is actually published (i.e., not subject to DRM or other technological restrictions).
DRM threatens everybody (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it only hurts schemes that rely on DRM. It doesn't hurt on-line music sales that don't rely on DRM.
After all, we can't just NOT BUY THE SONGS if we don't like the DRM, right?
The existence of DRM still threatens me because as long as people erroneously believe that they can make DRM work, they will be trying to put all sorts of bogus technological protections in my hardware.
So, I don't buy DRM'ed music, but I still consider it very important, and applaud, that people break the hokey DRM schemes that companies try to build business models around.
The Traxsource.com Approach (Score:2, Interesting)
I just started to buy house music from http://www.traxsource.com/ [traxsource.com] as a replacement of vinyl now that I have my digital 1200's: http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/tech nics_dj/video_flash.asp?/ [panasonic.com]
Traxsource uses an inaudible signature key inside the waveform but the files are DRM free. You can use the files as you see fit, however if they find a file with your signature on it (they can identify you by analysing the file with their software) in the P2P networks they will crack down on you and probably sue if you can't explain yourself (they are a friendly bunch of music lovers after all). You can even burn the file, rip it, re-encode it and the signature will still be there.
allofmp3.com (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This Is NOT to Be Applauded (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not just that I don't like their terms for myself. Copyright law has been completely hijacked by corporate interests to the point where it goes far beyond what the public good requires. Our government is corrupt and doesn't even pretend to do anything on behalf of ordinary people anymore. The DMCA is bad law which came into being by illegitimate means, and if it's necessary to break the law to undermine it, so be it. I feel like this is the only means ordinary people have to fight back in a game that has been rigged against them on a massive scale.
Re:A Name! (Score:3, Interesting)
The usual case for encryption is that Bob wants to send a message Alice and keep Eve from listening in. Assuming the crypto is good, this works because Alice at the very least possesses decryption keys Eve lacks.
With DRM, Bob wants to send Alice a message. He wants Alice to be able to read the message but not be able to share it with Eve. This is ludicrous. Alice has the cyphertext and the keys in her physical posession. At best, hardware DRM means the keys are glooped up in epoxy. DRM also assumes Alice has no technical savvy. Even expoxied chips will eventually fall to determined analysis. This is all true before the analog hole comes into it. Once protection from the analog hole is considered, the situation becomes surreal instead of just ludicrous.
You can chuck your fine moral arguments out the window because you've put the cart before the horse. They'll "hand us something even less comfortable" and it will be cheerfully broken in a handful of years at most. Weeks is probably more realistic. You might as well argue the Earth is flat.
If you insist on moral arguments then chew on this one: Any technological artifact I own will serve my intents and purposes and my intents and purposes alone. The xxAA does not get an ownership interest in my property. Period.
Re:Thanks! (Score:3, Interesting)
So you're saying that pointing out the fundamental flaws in DRM is being a dick, because other people have knee-jerk reactions to it?
Now the chip-in-your computer analogy is ridiculous. Nobody is going to force application developers to sign their executables. For one, they change far too frequently. For another, downloaded software would cease to function. For a third, it would be grossly anticompetitive in a way that even the US government would ignore. And if you don't sign your executables... what's the point?
Second, how would a secure computing platform work? You would still need virtualization capabilities. And once you can virtualize a platform, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.
Third, how would a remote computer connecting to mine even realize that I was on a trusted computer or not? It's all information sent back over TCP-IP packets, packets that can be faked. If the key is in the hardware, and the hardware is running an SSH tunnel to the server, well we just hack the hardware, figure out what key it is using, and setup our own SSH tunnels in an application no more invasive than this one. Depending on the type of protection, there is a always a viable counterattack because information sufficient to decrypt the stream must be present on the host machine. Even if the host machine itself attmpts to deny access to itself it can be run virtually, and the important bits picked out directly. Even if it is hardware based you can listen to the pins. And ultimately none of this results in the end-user needing to do anything more than install a small piece of software to bypass once the protection system's keys are known.
DeCSS is exactly the same as you're proposing. It was a hardware implementation of trusted computing. And if failed miserably because even if you offload the knowledge to the hardware, the hardware still has to know how to decrypt a file or it won't work.
The fact of the matter is DRM in it's current incarnation is fundamentally flawed.
I work in an industry where DRM has been a fact of life for many, many years, and the best a DRM system can hope to do is delay the inevitable crack by two weeks. But that's enough for game developers, and we continue on. The music and movie industries will have to live with the idea that their content is going to be cracked, and that is just a cost of doing business.
If they looked at it sanely (Score:4, Interesting)
The key advantage to online sales is cutting out a lot of middle men and the convenience to customers that allows them to buy when the desire is there rather than having to go to a shop. IE they can reduce the cost of distributing their merchandise and increase it's accessibility and value to customers.
The labels are insane for buying into this DRM snake-oil. It will never be significantly effective and the degree to which it is defective inevitably makes the very product they are selling less valuable to the paying consumer.
On average I used to buy 3+ CDs a month. When they came out with "copy controlled" CDs that would not work with my Network Walkman (or laptop, or Xbox etc) I simply stopped buying any CDs thus afflicted (with the single exception of Radiohead's "Hail To The Thief" as I was seeing them in concert and thought it would be good to know the album properly beforehand). Fortunatly there are still some labels who haven't gone down this road but I am buying far less now.
Re:Companies won't let us "Get over it" (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem you're running into is that the person you're selling it to can't use it. Is it a violation of your rights that a record company won't provide you a CD version of the 8-Track you bought so long ago so that someone can buy the song from you and use it today?
Re:Apple is the least of his worries... (Score:5, Interesting)
What he is doing is helping people bypass Apple's terms of service on iTMS (i.e. no Fairplay DRM, no restrictions to 3 machines, etc.)
Re:Companies won't let us "Get over it" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thanks! (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not for, against, justifing or promoting anything. I am simply stating a fact. When you build a system that is supposed to be secure, you better not rely on any type of obscurity or hidden feature because it WILL be found and it WILL be bypassed by someone.
I don't want to end up having to get a modchip for my computer just because dicks like him are circumventing existing methods.
Your anger is displaced. Hardware protection in computers will only be forced on you if it becomes a law. It will only become a law if the hardware and software companies lobby enough. They are the ones you should be angry at. The fact that you find a specific in use DRM system acceptable but decide that any further restrictions would be unacceptable is the exact point that people have been stating for years! Where do you draw the line? Many have stated they want no DRM, some are happy with a little, some have no idea what DRM is but eventually they will and they will be just as pissed off as you are now. For the majority, it will be too late.
For every dickhead you get pissed off at for cracking something, there are 5000 other dickheads that others get pissed off at for supporting companies that use any DRM systems at all like the one in iTMS. If no one supported DRM in any manner, companies would not feel inclined to continue to push it and expand it every chance they get. As the DRM gets more and more refined and restrictive, you will be trapped and stuck using that system as it gets worse. Wait another 10 years when regular old non DRM audio cds are no longer produced and you are forced to stick with one company or pay per play. People have been trying to point this out for years with DRM. Little by little, your rights to copyrighted material are fading away and you are supporting it.
Re:Yes, let's lump them together. (Score:2, Interesting)
Then why did they do it in the first place?
Re:Companies won't let us "Get over it" (Score:3, Interesting)
Correct. But no company has the right to prevent me from modifying their product so that I can do with it as I please. If Apple wants to make it hard for me to play music on a Dell DJ, fine, but that doesn't prevent me from making modifications that allow me to do so.
Re:So sue him? (Score:5, Interesting)
Check it out: www.apple.com -> view source -> search for "sosumi"
Re:Yes, let's lump them together. (Score:3, Interesting)
That might be about to change. A new law has been suggested in Norway, making it illegal to copy protected cds. Copying non-protected cds would still be legal. However there has been a lot of heat against this law; politicians have protested against it, consumers have protested against it, and most of the major labels operating in Norway have stated that they do not support such a law.
Re:A Name! (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a product which used that, but I won't name the product or the byte it used - that might be illegal.
Re:Interestingly enough (Score:4, Interesting)
Automatic updates please (Score:3, Interesting)
Otherwise people may pay Apple for unusable music files. Well, selling something that has been intentionally made unusable should be illegal anyhow.
Re:Apple is the least of his worries... (Score:3, Interesting)
So they're basically telling everyone "we're not releasing a Windows version, if a Windows hacker finds what we did wrong with our C++ code, no problem with us and more power to him"
There is no antagonization issue here, they just don't care about that
Re:BHA SAGAN?!?! NO! Crystal Quest Sound EFX ! (Score:3, Interesting)
I always thought the sound was orgasmic, because the level exit gates were shaped like labia, which the player had to penetrate to go to the next level. The exit is at the bottom of this picture [apple-x.net], but it's shown closed before killing all the enemies (cherry, anyone?).
Re:Yes, let's lump them together. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the most classic display of public 'Disobeyance of Authority'. DVD-jon is like an evangelist or something. iTunes, I dont believe is the target, nor were the MPAA when he cracked DeCSS. Its more of classic CIVIL DISOBEDIANCE. I mean, something has to be done here. I'm not talking in the near future, but the slightly more distant. People have to stand up against the copyright enforcers. I mean, that's what we're here for right? We love linux, We love not getting told what to do constantly because we are smart enough to think for ourselves.
DRM and iTunes or Microsofts or anybody's is becoming a ****ing nuisance. Digital technology just enables people to do this stuff. Its the way things are, and there will come a time when we are really going to have to confront intellectual property and its owners instead of just pissing around and wondering if Apple Legal are going to send him a letter tommorrow or not.
He can get away with it, so he's doing it. To force their hand. To force all of our hands eventually. I mean, checkout what Lessig [lessing.org] is doing. Checkout the Creative Commons [creativecommons.org] and what it really means. We have to be free to do this stuff eventually.
Or else the world is going to fall into contradiction.
which I spose it is,
read this site:
http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes
Re:T'is a sad day when DRM is compared to racism (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe you're deliberately misrepresenting the grandparent's point, which was that our freedom is being stripped from us by unjust laws and practices, and that we must take a stand against those laws and practices.
In essence, your rebuttal: "The civil rights movement and the anti-DRM movement are not on the same level because I see the import of the former, but fail to appreciate the relevance of the latter."
Really, your rebuttal is (deliberately, I believe) an attack not on his argument, nor his point, but on his analogy -- which amounted to nothing more than a (perhaps poor) way to underscore a citizen's moral obligation to oppose tyranny in any form, no matter how extreme -- as was the case in the south -- or how subtle, as in the case of Digital Restrictions Management.
It is also worth noting that comparisons between the cause pursued by the American Civil Rights movement and the cause pursued by the American Revolution -- comparisons common in the 1960s -- drew the same sort of disdain from nationalistic racists who appreciated the importance of the latter but saw the former as nothing short of an aberration. Their responses were shockingly similar to yours -- a pretended disbelief that a social revolution granting civil rights to niggers could have the same importance, on any level, as a military revolution guaranteeing white men "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
Now, from our enlightened perspective, we see that anything short of complete social equality for African Americans is unacceptable, and we continue, as best we can, to fight the good fight because that war has not yet been won.
Unfortunately, DRM is a much more subtle thing -- it is an example of a power grab by corporations seeking to limit the flow of information, because they understand all too well that information is power. You think of it as an issue relevant only to file trading pirates bent on having "free music". I see it as an encroachment first on music, then on movies, then on books, and eventually on everything. It is the sort of thing that must be nipped in the bud. It may not have as spectacular social consequences as the American Civil Rights Movement, which sought to right an existing wrong and thus changed society. No, it will be subtle, because it is a fight to prevent freedom from being ripped from our fingers for the betterment of the priviledged few.
We are protecting the status quo -- you may be willing to give up your freedom for convenience, but I am not. I would suggest that you reconsider your position. This fight -- the fight to determine whether it is the People who control information flow, or a select clique of the wealthy and powerful -- is every bit as important as any other major social movement in the history of this nation or indeed any other.
We are entering the information age, and this is more important now than ever. But even historically, consider how power has been centered in the hands of the few in every nation on earth -- through control of education, through control of information. The Catholic Church in Europe, the Scholar class in Imperial China, and yes, the practice of keeping African slaves illiterate -- all these are early examples of how information is power. Real power.
They've controlled it for centuries. But now, we are taking it back.
Re:As a record store owner. (Score:3, Interesting)
Secondly, fewer and fewer customers are entering your store to buy CDs because the costs of CDs have gone up during an economic downturn where OTHER electronic media are becoming cheaper and cheaper. Mass-market DVDs cost the same price as mass-market CDs - how is the price point not broken on this? You are losing money because you are paying too much wholesale for music, and because of that, you have to put your retail price points up way too high for people to buy them. This would be happening even without peer-to-peer.
Guess what, though. Peer-to-peer was helping you out, even if you didn't know it. From 1998-1999, didn't you have a great year? That was Napster. People were "trying before they buy" with Napster and becoming more informed consumers. They were also exposed to new artists and new music that isn't played on the radio, and went out and bought it.
But then the RIAA shut down Napster and started suing students - right when your business took a downturn, I'm guessing. Personally, I stopped buying RIAA CDs (which, let me guess, are just about all your store stocks.) I still buy music, but I buy it from places like www.cdbaby.com - indie music only. (And not Indie the style, but indie the business model.) Locally, I buy from places that stock local artists and local music - Encore and Waterloo in Austin.
Anyway... your plan to stop piracy is to prevent people who download music from buying music legitimately. Which means that instead of going with piracy as a model of "try before you buy," you're going to force them to go either to your competitors or to the Internet. Now, can you tell me why this won't work?
You may have felt morally justified in kicking out that "pirate," but the guy was just about to make a sale when you kicked him out. Not to mention the future purchases the kid would have made. Not to mention the kid's friends' who have now heard this story and have considered you - rightfully - an asshole and will not shop from you.
Finally, don't give me a sob story about your goddamn kids. You started a store based on one type of product from an industry dominated by a monopoly trust supplier. The monopoly trust is now screwing you over and screwing itself over. You didn't think to diversify your selection with DVDs, or with video games, or t-shirts or something so that you didn't have more than music to sell. Well, whoop de doo, I wonder why your kids have to have ragged haircuts. Maybe it's because your business model is horribly flawed.
From the "Christian Rock" to the "War on Drugs fought with skill" (ha) comments, to the way that you treat your customers, I'm willing to bet you voted for the Republicans last election cycle. If that's the case, I extend no pity when you try to declare bankruptcy and find out that you can't. I love small businesses but only when they treat people like customers rather than consumers - something you've long since forgotten.
You are confussing things. (Score:3, Interesting)
But they are still copyrighted material.
Digital music could be exactly the same, easily copiable, but that would not give people the right to make millions of copies.
DRM has a completely different agenda that is to rent you the music, or pay per play. I am amazed how many peoplr just don't see that simple fact and are not up in arms against any move in that direction.
Re:Wrong about the EUCD (Score:2, Interesting)
iTunes "region coding" (Score:2, Interesting)
To be honest, I've always wondered why they let you BROWSE other-country iTMS stores? I mean, what's the point? "Hey, here's a whole bunch of stuff that YOU CAN'T BUY! Sure, you can listen to previews and run searches and everything but we're not gonna let you buy the track! You'll just have to hope we added it to your own country's store, otherwise you're SOL!"
Re:Yes, let's lump them together. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:He doesn't access the system nor has he a contr (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's say I connect to iTunes with Apple's software and I pay for stuff as a normal user. While I'm doing it, I capture network traffic logs, debugger output, etc. Then I write a spec and hand it to Jon. He writes the code and hands it back. I run his stuff and the 'real' stuff and issue change requests. He implements the change requests and we iterate. His hands are clean (mine may be dirty but his are clean). He never connected to iTunes.
Or, I could reverse engineer it, build the server (as you mention) and let Jon code against my server.
The whole clean room reverse engineering methodology is more complex but similar in intent to this (you'd REALLY like both sets of hands to be clean).
Re:So sue him? (Score:4, Interesting)
IAAL (in Europe but not Italy) and can state for a fact that this is not the case in all of Europe, and I very much doubt it is in Norway or Italy.
Think about it. What is a contract? It's not a piece of paper, it's any legally enforceable agreement between two or more people. Every time you buy anything, that's a contract. And any time you buy anything online there will be sellers' terms and conditions to agree with, regarding payment and delivery if nothing else. So either this person is wrong, or online commerce does not exist in Italy (and nor does any business not in which written docs are not exchanged).
I can believe that many EULAs are invalid under European consumer protection laws, but they're not invalid simply because they don't make you sign a document. (Indeed the point of most consumer protection laws are to protect you even if you do sign that document, since they recognise that the individual consumer isn't in much of a position to dictate terms to megacorp.)