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Music Media

MP3.com's Beam-It 208

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what-does-this-mean dept.
Mutok pointed us to MP3.com's new Beat It program. It is of course windows only which means I've never tested it, and functionally it works almost exactly like a collection of Perl scripts Nate and I hacked out a year ago to serve our personal collection of MP3s. Basically, the software checks if you have a CD, and it tracks your collection. Then you use the software to track playlists and play your MP3s. There are a lot of interesting legal problems here, and the potential for abuse is high. But dangit if this isn't the future of music, I'm gonna be cranky. Now can I please have a Linux port?
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MP3.com's Beam-It More

MP3.com's Beam-It

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  • Nice work -- I've been wondering about the verification scheme for several days but didn't have a handy sniffer.

    I'm interested in what scheme mp3.com is using to compare the ripped data to what they have stored. I hope it's not a simple byte-for-byte comparison, because ripping, especially in the presence of dust and scratches, may not produce repeatable results. I'm guessing that they do something clever because, if the comparison were straightforward equality, they wouldn't have to send all that data to the server; they could send a one-way hash of it to the client instead and do the comparison on the client side.

    As to whether the verifier checks different random chunks in each session, consider how much space would be required to store a large amount of unencoded track data on mp3.com's servers, even with standard lossless compression. That suggests that either the queries won't vary much, or that mp3.com has a method to compare sound from the mp3 to the corresponding sound from the CD. I'd be interested to know how such a scheme might work; I assume it would be done in the frequency domain.
  • I thought the same thing....
    But it's not like mp3.com won't win a lawsuit about that :)
    I used to like mp3.com, back when it was a repository of information about mp3s, but not so much anymore now that it just sells stuff.

    ~Chris
  • Why make it that hard ... just create a username and password and pass it out to all 1000 of your friends.

    ... and mp3.com would disable accounts where more than one person tries to use it at once (possibly just for a limited time.)

    Gonna fake the CDs? Not so easy. MP3.com could keep a database of (say) 1000 checksums for each CD, each for sequences of bits on different parts of the CD and of different sizes. When you add a CD, it requests the checksum of one of those those sequences. Unless you know the exact 1000 checksums mp3.com is storing, you'll have to have the entire CD's data available -- which rather defeats the purpose of trying to steal the data.

  • Otto Says:

    "Your honor, this guy stole a song from us and gave it to... errr.. well, 3 people.. costing us a total revenue of.. umm.. $3.95... errr...."

    The word "stole" isn't appropriate in this context unless the person speaking that quote had his physical copy of the song taken away by the defendant. If that's not what you meant then you should say "infringed the copyright on our song" instead of "stole a song from us."

    Diplomat says:

    Be very careful with your comments, or you could lead me to assume you're advocating theft. This discussion could benefit from a slightly higher moral tone. If I broke into your house, bank account or whatever and stole $3.95,

    Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods, so the words "theft" and "stole" are inappropriate for use when referring to copying or copyright infringement. If I stole Otto's $3.95, he wouldn't have it anymore. I'd have it instead - meaning that I've deprived Otto of his $3.95. Otto would have to get a new $3.95 or beat me up and take his $3.95 back. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book Otto owns a copy of - or a make an MP3 of a song he owns a copy of, he can still read that book and listen to that song. He has no reason to buy a new book or CD - or to come beat me up. Using the words like "theft" and "stole" is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement.

    I'm sure you'd be incensed! Just think about it.

    I sure would -- but that's because you violated the privacy of my home and deprived me of property that was rightfully mine. That's stealing. Photocopying pages from a book I own or a book Otto owns is not stealing. Depending on the circumstances, it's not even copyright infringement.

    So let's get things straight here. If you mean copying, say copying. If you mean copyright infringement, say copyright infringement. Reserve words like like steal, theft, and stole to for discribing situations where theft has actually occured. By avoiding emotionally loaded language, you'll help promote more rational discussion.

  • It looks like it does a challenge/response with an md5 hash. As far as I can tell, it doesn't hash the random data from the track, it asks the client to send it outright. And I've seen it request up to 203 seconds from a random offset...

    I think the challenge-response is used for logging in. Sending 203 seconds of audio data outright would consume 35,809,200 bytes of bandwith and take around 20 minutes on a 28.8 modem, so I doubt it uses such a method to determine what CD is in your drive.

    As for the method I described, it would offer pretty good security, but I don't think they're doing that either because it would involve keeping a lot of uncompressed CD data live in their datacenter.

  • I found an online cd store that claimed to sell almost every cd pressed in the US or 150,000 CDs. Let's say there's around 200,000.

    200,000 x 60m x 60s/m x 128kb/s x 1B/8bs = 11,400,000,000 bytes.

    :)
    -Paul
  • | In otherwords, to whatever degree, this is one
    | more internet invasion of my privacy should I
    | take advantage of it.

    *Invasion*? Not as such - that collection of data on you is basically the price of using their service. It becomes an invasion if they don't *tell* you that it's the price of their service (sorta like the flap over Real Jukebox).

    Whether it's a price you're willing to pay is, of course, up to you.
  • I would pay for a service like this if they gave me some things that the CD didn't.

    Nobody's asking you to pay. The service is free. They are just trading information on your listening & purchasing habits for a little disk space and a moderate amount of bandwidth.

  • Surely thats an mp3 client problem. I dont see why an MP3 player can't decode the start of the next track as the last one finishes and join the audio together seamlessly. It certainly doesnt need a new standard... Try submitting this to Xmms as a future enhancement.

    It bugs me too, Pink Floyd isnt the same when it hiccups between tracks...

    Baz
  • Well, I was just thinking how the RIAA is actually helping MP3.com make the service popular. I wouldn't have known about it without this lawsuit and Slashdot post. :)

    --

  • Beam It was put together for my.mp3.com which is a straight rip off of myplay.com [myplay.com].

    Of course myplay have had linux support from Day one.
  • Rubbish ....

    try pointing lynx at the URL's genrated

    lynx -dump -source URL > file.mp3

    Any linux hacker knows how to do that
  • True true, and you have to guarnatee yourself a 128kbit connection wherever you go...

    Perhaps if some technological crisis hits storage and suddenly nobody could make any bigger hard disks. Then if... at the same time a technological breakthrough gave every device in the world a high bandwidth internet connection....

    then *maybe* there mioght be a big future in this.

    More likely - mp3.com want to use this as the distribution medium for their artists. Instead of buying the mp3's, instead you buy the rights to stream the mp3's from their server. The notion of owning music takes a step further back.

  • Therefore there must be something to it ;-)
    Anyone who had anything to do with 'The Clash' must be worth listening to.

    Joe Strummer's current stuff is available at emusic.com.....
  • So... with a bit of hacking it would be possible to upload the hamsterdance song instead of the actual mp3. Lots of scope for nasty minded individuals to ruin the service.

    e.g. get CD, get first 8kbytes (usually pretty quiet I'd imagine). Tell their servers you've got an labum by .... The Who... then upload the hamsterdance song instead as the mp3.

    repeat.

    then the next person to upload will get the Hamsterdance instead of My Generation.

    could be fun
  • your points
    1) Myplay lets you choose the bitrate you encode at to suit your connection - in fact you're not even limited to mp3 files - almost any format is supported. Also - you don't need the special windows only client. (Although I would say that myplay should get their arse in gear and produce an encoding client)
    So... myplay does require you to upload your mp3's but the Beam-It client doesn't let you get at your own mp3s, they get uploaded to the server and then you have to trick the mp3.com servers to download to you so that you can get a copy.
    2) Yup there's a limit, maybe I should point out that when I first found myplay that mp3.com were offering an I-drive account to its users - offering a vast 50Megabytes of storage for mp3.com users. I'm sure myplay will respond by offering more space
    Incidently my cd collection works out at about 300+ cd's - about 18GB in mp3's.
    3) True, but this only works for mp3.com partners.
    Myplay's version appears to be more online - buy stuff from emusic and you get a copy automatically added to myplay.

    Not a carbon copy - but I'm shocked at how much mp3.com seem to have copied.

    Thankfully 'look and feel' lawsuits don't usually go very far.
  • I actually have some code for producing long, seamless mp3's..

    I just make one big one and then use a frame splitter to break it up -

    then just do something like

    cat file*.mp3 | mpg123 -v -
  • Myplay have a 'public playlists' section

    If you think your music collection is cool you can make a playlist publically available. It's still gotta conform to DMCA rules - but anyone can listen.

    Hey maybe I just like this feature because I've got to #2....
  • I don't care what the rest of you trolls think, I think it's pretty kewl. I don't know about any software that you can download to serve your own collection, but it does play all the music that artists have allowed mp3.com to distribute. So if you're into no-name & a couple known bands, this could be the thing for you.
  • The big deal is now I do not have to lug my cd collection back and forth to work. I beam the collection up from home, then when I'm at work and feel like listening to any particular song(s) I may fancy at that time, I can. This is a good thing.
  • The biggest difference is that my.mp3.com doesn't actually rip YOUR CD for you and upload it. They have an archive that they let you access if you prove you already own it. Pretty powerful if you ask me. I already emailed them and offered to port it to Linux for them.
  • Yeah, I saw somebody else mentioned this and submitted an 'Ask Slashdot' myself asking how the music industry might react to these 'waiting-to-be-abused' online libraries.
  • I thought exactly the same thing you did, that I wouldn't be able to find any of my music on it. While there are a few CDs I had that it didn't find, it surprised me with a few - such as Beck's One Foot in the Grave, and Grateful Dead - Mars Hotel.. overall i'm real pleased with the selection.
  • The main problem I have with mp3s (in fact, the only thing stopping me mp3ing my entire album collection) is that the annoying gaps you get between tracks which makes it sound awful if you happen to be listening to a concept album where there isn't necessarily a break of music between songs. Of course, you could turn the album into one BIG mp3 but then you can't choose which track you want from it (ie, mpeg files need a TOC!). Does anyone know if there's any plans to fix this in mp4?
  • I'm still not so very sure if this is going to be the future of music. Even though I can download every piece of music I might ever want from the internet I keep on coming back to my (on-line or not) music store to buy my favorite music in hardcopy, complete with a nice booklet maybe for once not a diamond box and a few pictures of my (at that moment) favorite artist.
    I want to be able to hold that box, look at it while listening to the music on my home stereo for the first time. I'd be hard pressed to find an attractive software equivalent for that.
    Now I suppose there are a lot of people out there that don't need that physical representation of their music but I do and a lot of my friends agree with me.

    In point of fact, I'd venture to state that the majority of the population doesn't agree with you. At least, the majority of the college students with some bandwidth.. :-)

    Personally, I don't buy CD's much anymore. Haven't bought a CD in.. oh.. 2 years? 3? I'm not sure.. I've been playing with MP3's since it was brand new, and I switched wholly to it nearly instantly...

    I was DJing parties at my fraternity with MP3's 2 years ago... One hell of a lot better than CD's. Why? Well, it's not a serious DJ thing, mixing and such, so all I had to do was make a playlist then go drink. :-) That's one nice thing you can do.

    But the point I'm trying to make is that the music is the same either way. Hook a computer to a stereo, boom, essentially no difference (okay, a bit of noticable audio difference on anything lower than 160k mp3's, but most people can't hear it). I can't really recall ever looking at those worthless little booklets more than that first time I got a cd, except to see what track a certain song was on.

    Is it really worth the $15 you pay for the CD to get that little booklet? Does the jewel case mean $15 of value to you? Most people I know use a CD carrier that doesn't hold the jewel case anyway..

    Now, it's one thing to be able to show off your cd collection I admit, but for those of us that aren't interested in "physical" ways to show off our collection, the "virtual" collection is just even better. You might have a whole lot of CD's, but say I have 20 GIG of Mp3's (not really, not yet).. That's almost 2 weeks of solid music. For next to no cost. Admittedly, you can carry a lot of CD's around with you in a much more portatble format, but I can buy a burner and burn any songs I choose to a CD and do the same. For less than a buck a CD.

    All I'm trying to say is that on-line music will continue to exist, but not in the format that you (or the record companies) think. Pay-for-play will not work, nor will buying songs online. I'm uncertain of what will work (hey, if I knew that I'd be making a load of money by doing it!)..


    ---
  • When buying certain stuff I in part do it for a feeling of owning something cool. Downloading a bunch of mp3's doesn't give me that feeling and, as such, lacks in user experience. And that's why I'll keep spending money on lame booklets and easy breakable plastic cases.

    A feeling of ownership? Sorry, I just don't grasp that. I own my computer, I own my car, I own my house.

    I listen to music. It's the same whether I listen to it on a CD I own, a CD I made, or a non-CD that I still own. You can hear it either way, so what's the big deal about having a plastic version of it?

    Maybe it's just me, maybe not.. I'm not anti-material possessions here.. :-) But then I hate to waste my ca$h on something I have no need to waste it on. When I was a poor college student, this made more sense, possibly, but now that I'm a non-poor college graduate, I find that I still don't want to buy a CD. I have no need. Most of the songs on the CD are probably crap, and the one or two good ones I just download on MP3.. Since I probably won't be listening to them after a few weeks, I go through and delete old crap after a while...

    Now don't get me wrong. I'd still buy some CD's.. Box sets of great bands; anything collectable, sure.. Same way I buy DVD's, get the really good movies that you want to own for a long time.. But most CD's aren't like that, just like most movies aren't like that.


    ---
  • How the release of a utility by someone can be News for Nerds: Stuff that matters

    It's not the utility per se that matters here. (I personally couldn't care less about another streaming audio scheme.)
    It's the implications of this utility that are interesting.
  • I would guess that if they don't have your version of the cd, basically you are screwed :-)

    They *must* base their info in number of tracks, duration, offset, etc...

    Which sucks, because many american cd's now include multimedia tracks instead of bonus songs like their foreign counterparts. IF I want to buy a video, I will. IF I buy a cd, I want music (the more tracks the better). Is this to difficult?

    So, either the record execs don't have a clue, or I'm not in their target demographic. Or both :-)

    Abwh
  • why wouldn't you just play it yourself? Saves on download time for people like me who can't get fast internet connection and are stuck on 56k's that work like 28.8's
  • I suppose this makes sense for people who have enough bandwith to listen to streaming mp3s, not enough CPU/disk space to encode their collection themselves, and not enough patience to change cds on their own. Somehow I don't think this is a very large segment of the population.

    This also makes sense for people who have enough bandwidth at work to listen to streaming mp3s but not at home, and who don't own a CD burner to burn CDs of mp3s of their CDs. Especially for freelancers who don't have a machine at work they can call their own and load up with mp3s and other junk as they desire. Somehow I suspect this is not a very small segment of the population. I can also see myself using this when I travel.. when I visit my brother who has a cable modem, or friends at college, all my music is available to me.

    I've only spent about a half hour on 3 separate occaisions 'beam-it-ing' CDs to mp3.com and already I've got 48 hrs worth of music available to me. Sure beats the hell out of encoding mp3s.

    What I want to know is where did they get their mp3s? I imagine that from day one they've been having all their employees bring in every CD they own, or can beg, steal, or borrow, and encoding them all and storing them up for the day they were ready (legally, technically, whatever) to announce this service. Now that is an interesting strategy if you ask me. I'm not familiar with myplay.com but it sure seems that someone at mp3.com has got a bit of vision.

  • my.mp3.com is not Innovative... it's a copy.

    sir, you know not of what you speak. take a closer look, what myplay offers is quite different from my.mp3.com.


    • myplay requires you to upload your own mp3s .. mp3.com validates a CD you stick in, which takes around one moment, then makes mp3s of that CD available to you in both low- and high-bandwidth versions.
    • myplay limits you to 250Mb of storage -- maybe 80 songs, perhaps 4 hours worth of music. my.mp3.com may have a limit but i haven't found it yet. i would estimate that the CDs i have available to me from mp3.com take up approximately 2.5 gig -- for the high-bandwidth versions alone. that's 811 tracks, approx 48 hours worth of music.
    • additionally, my.mp3.com allows you to buy CDs from certain partners and have those CDs available instantly for online streaming, while the physical disc is in transit to your home.

    not quite a carbon copy, if you ask me.

  • actually, there are quite a few differences which i point out in another /. comment [slashdot.org].
  • People aren't acutally thinking about the locations they might be where the want music.

    No, I'm not thinking about it; the places I mentioned are places I am using the service. I'm not worried about my boss, and I work on a Mac -- what does that mean, "no sound card"?

    That last suggestion you had for a place where I might want to listen to music was very insightful -- that's exactly what I'm looking forward to, as soon as the bandwidth is available. I'm excited to be trying out one of the first services of it's kind and getting a feel for things to come. I just don't understand all the naysaying...

  • Re:BeamIT Packets Unencrypted (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    A bit more info (for those who are interested!)

    Basically, Beam-It sends the length of the CD in seconds, then first audio track number (not necessarily 1) and the last audio track. Then the offset for each of those audio tracks. That's it.

    Can you imagine this: "I have this great new album. Try it: 24445,1,9,1454,2334,4435,5676,6341,7323,8583,9318"

    Cool!

    Asif T

  • I fired off a message to MP3.com a few days back asking about BeamIt/InstantListen support for Linux. The fellow who wrote back told me that Linux support is in the works and that the engineers at MP3.com (who all use *nix) really want it.

    He couldn't give me a timetable, but it is coming.

    --

  • Go to my.mp3.com - it'll give you the download list and recommendations on what else to try based on your previous downloads.

    ...j
  • That's what false contact information and JunkBuster [junkbusters.com] is for! Did I mention it also keeps Netscape from ignoring its UI event queue while doing DNS lookups? It's fun for a girl and a boy.

    --
  • but a lot of fun illegaly. Obviously, there is no big demand to get mp3s of cd's you own. But the idea of collectively sharing a pool of cd's amoung some geographically distributed friends is quite tempting and interesting. Illegal of course, but all that's stopping you is a stupid FAQ question that says "Should I give out my password"?
  • The /. blurb doesn't make this clear enough: The purpose of this is not to play the cd that is in your drive; it lets mp3.com build a list of cds you own, and then you can listen to songs from those cds via a shoutcast-like stream. I suppose this makes sense for people who have enough bandwith to listen to streaming mp3s, not enough CPU/disk space to encode their collection themselves, and not enough patience to change cds on their own. Somehow I don't think this is a very large segment of the population.
  • Ah, yes. I hadn't thought about the fact that this allows you to listen to your music from multiple locations. Good point.
  • If you have, say, a few hundred CDs (and I know people who have thousands), and you suddenly feel like hearing a track from one of them, chances are you may not have it on hand. However, if you have said CDs at home, you have a licence to use them, and this provides an alternate means.

    In future, such licence registries could be used for other things. Say, a favourite CD of yours is destroyed; if you have legal proof that you own a licence to play it, you may be able to get a new copy for the cost of the media.

    (Granted, that could be open to abuse, unless CDs are serialised or somesuch. Though the potential is there.)
  • I have no legal basis for this, but it seems like this sort of hits right in the gray area of US copyright law - it's illegal for people to download music they don't own. It's illegal for people to upload music they own for people who don't own it to download. But is it illegal for people who own music to post it so other people who own it can download it again? If so, how far does that right extend. If I own the LP version of a track, can I download the live version? I haven't ever heard any discussion of a case like this before; even RIAAs own propaganda [soundbyting.com] doesn't mention it. Any legal scholars want to take a whack at it?

    --
  • No, it's not a free-market economy. The record industry is an example of laissez-faire capitalism at its worst. 5 huge companies control what's played on the radio, what CDs you find at the store, etc. And it's not just a question of risk. Artists recoup about 5% of their gross CD sales money. Do you really mean to tell me that the other 95% is so called "flop insurance" in case the CD sucks? Get real - even when CDs flop the record companies still turn a profit. That's the way it is my friend, and if you are still buying CDs then you, not me, are supporting the old school regime which robs the musician of the money and motivation to produce more material. If every musician distributed through MP3, I guarantee you you would see more people producing more work of more quality.

    --
  • Wasn't the whole point of mp3's to listen to songs you don't have?

    No. The whole point of MP3 isn't so you can listen to songs you don't have. The whole point of MP3 is to compress music. That's it. Nothing else.
    It seems that the point of this service is so that you can tell the server what CDs' you have, and then you can listen to them from anywhere in the world, without having to carry the CD around with you.
  • Not only that, mp3.com has a _lot_ of bandwidth.
    Inside the m3u is just a plain http:// address. Use wget and get the mp3. Simple as that. Damn, faster than ripping/encoding it.
  • Time isn't an issue. You pop in the CD and hit one button. It takes 2 seconds. -- Done.
  • it just streams them to you rather than letting you ftp them.

    that is technically impossible. if something gets to your PC, then you *can* save it. in the case of an mp3 streamed through http, it's not even hard: just find out the URL and use wget.

  • If they don't have your CD, you are out of luck
    I thought that if they don't have your CD, they go out and buy it. It's a good way to get an extra sale for all the struggling artists you enjoy. Hmmm, actually, that's not a bad idea - I wasn't going to bother (I don't care for streaming media, I have a Rio), but if I can prompt them to shell out for some decent artists it might be worth it...
  • Twenty CDs and a backpack has a higher bandwidth then I have at work...
    Thank you! What is this obsession with streaming MP3s? I have a little red pouch that takes 32 (36?) CDs. I have an ultralight portable, but I could also have one of the latest MP3/CDA "Discman" type things. I can carry nearly 2 weeks solid of music around with this combination, without needing a fast network connection.

    And if you want something even more portable, just buy a little MP3 player. I've got 90 mins of music in my little Rio (and 12 hours of battery life from a AA).

  • entire collection available on line - from anywhere
    "Anywhere" with a computer with fast internet connection, a sound card, appropriate software and a fast enough processor. I'm at work. If I closed my eys, stood up, turned around and threw one of those stress balls I'd have an equal chance of hitting a PC without as sound card as I would of hitting a Laptop. In both cases, streaming MP3s is a tad pointless.

    Meanwhile, the General Manager's son, who is working here for the holidays, has his headphones plugged into the CD drive of a spare PC. He also has a small pouch of CDs to the side of the PC. The PC does not have a sound card.

    I have a portable PC. I've got about 12 hours of music on the hard drive, I use it at work and at home (I'm listening to "Rasputina" as I type). As a coincidence, my network adapter is in the shop, so I'm acutally dialled into my work network using a 28.8k link - try streaming through that.

    Friends of mine use those removable IDE drive trays to shuffle Gigs of data back and forth.

    I've been minimising my demand on the network, such that I'll be moving to a 1Mb/s Wireless Bluetooth link when that becomes available. Streaming MP3s through it is such a waste.

  • entire collection available on line - from anywhere
    "Anywhere" with a computer with fast internet connection, a sound card, appropriate software and a fast enough processor. I'm at work. If I closed my eys, stood up, turned around and threw one of those stress balls I'd have an equal chance of hitting a PC without as sound card as I would of hitting a Laptop. In both cases, streaming MP3s is a tad pointless.

    Meanwhile, the General Manager's son, who is working here for the holidays, has his headphones plugged into the CD drive of a spare PC. He also has a small pouch of CDs to the side of the PC. The PC does not have a sound card.

    I have a portable PC. I've got about 12 hours of music on the hard drive, I use it at work and at home (I'm listening to "Rasputina" as I type). As a coincidence, my network adapter is in the shop, so I'm acutally dialled into my work network using a 28.8k link - try streaming through that.

    Friends of mine use those removable IDE drive trays to shuffle Gigs of data back and forth.

    I've been minimising my demand on the network, such that I'll be moving to a 1Mb/s Wireless Bluetooth link when that becomes available. Streaming MP3s through it is such a waste.

    (Ooo, this could be a duplicate - I hope not, sorry if it is...)

  • I wonder what they do about variants? If I have the Australian distribution of Album X, with "bonus" song Y - But MP3.com have the US distribution of Album X, with "bonus" song Z, does that mean I'm screwed, or do MP3.com just give me access to the near match they have?
  • Haul? That seems a little emotive. Anyway, just leave a few bits of favourite music around the place. MP3s on the computers, old favourites in the stereos, latest stuff in the car. Occasionally you'll be carrying the odd CD around - they aren't that heavy.

    Also, do you have a T1 link to your car?

  • Personally, I don't buy CD's much anymore. Haven't bought a CD in.. oh.. 2 years? 3? I'm not sure.. I've been playing with MP3's since it was brand new, and I switched wholly to it nearly instantly...
    Since I bought my Diamond Rio, I've been buying CDs at two to three times the rate I used to. In the last two months I've bought about 10 CDs. (FYI: Only one was in the top 50 - no change there) MP3s are not just a convenient way to pirate music, they're a convenient way do do _anything_ with music.
    Is it really worth the $15 you pay for the CD to get that little booklet?
    It's not about the booklet (which reminds me, I have one to scan...) it's about supporting artists - at least it is for me. Look up [m-w.com] the word patron.
  • I'm not looking forward to the first time I have to file an insurance claim on $5000 worth of MP3s destroyed in a fire.
    Then you should have an off-site backup.
  • This also makes sense for people who have enough bandwidth at work to listen to streaming mp3s
    A CD in a drive your boss isn't going to worry about. Saturating the company's internet link and blowing out their traffic charges is going to end in a severe talking-to.

    People aren't acutally thinking about the locations they might be where the want music.

    • Home - you have your PC and stereo
    • Work - not really permitted / no sound card / crappy PC / not allowed to install software
    • Friend's place - maybe you want to listen to their stuff, you know, for a change
    • Car - no high speed link
    • Walking down the street...
    Give me some decent examples of multiple locations for which Beam-it is useful...
  • Bitrate is an interesting issue. There are plenty of people that won't listen to 128k/s MP3s. Some have a minimum of 160k/s, others boost it up to 256k/s or 360-something. For many people, the limited audio quality of the stream will be a big turn off, since they can easily rip, encode and transport much higher quality music themselves...
  • That last suggestion you had for a place where I might want to listen to music [walking down the street] was very insightful -- that's exactly what I'm looking forward to, as soon as the bandwidth is available.
    It's either here already, or will never be available, depending on your definition. A radio will give you streaming music with absolute portability, but you don't get much interaction. A portable MP3 player will give you control over content, but you have to store it locally - wireless bandwidth will never be enough such that you can waste it on something so frivolous. If you think the current solid state devices are too limited, there was a hard-drive based system mentioned on /. not long ago. Something like 4.8 Gig of storage. I had a link down the left of my page [geocities.com] - I think it's on the "old stuff" page now... With three and a half days solid of music in a single device, why stream?

    Sometimes sneakernet has a higher bandwidth than ethernet.

  • I'm going to use the Beam-It stuff simply to expose MP3.com's database to the obscure stuff I like. If this means that 90% of the stuff I own is unavailable because my taste is strange, or simply that I live in Australia and our local releases are different, so be it. If it means that they buy one extra copy of each CD from struggling talented artists I've found (eg; Wendy Rule [wendyrule.com]), then Great! Time someone showed "them" that commercial CDs don't start and end with the top 50.
  • Well, the great Beam-It experiment isn't going well. I can stick a CD in, get the "We don't have that" message and feed in it's details - hopefully prompting them to buy one. But I can't actually Beam CDs that they have - the software can't read from my drive. It is an unusual drive, but WinDAC can read from it no problems... Shame.
  • Regardless of whether is only takes two seconds, are you telling me you are going to sit and repeatedly load one CD after another into your drive 100 times? Have fun.

    Okay, maybe you only have 10 CD's. But it's typically for most people have many, many more. But for the sake of the arguement, let's say we are talking about 100 CD's.

    Now, as you are playing CD's, when one finishes, you have to take it out to put another one in. You constantly do this. Perhaps once an hour or so. Anyways, after about 2 weeks, you go through all your CD's. So now what? You start over. Take the last cd out, put the next cd in. take out, put in. take out, put in. take out, put in. take out, put in. take out, put in. This will continue for as long as you choose to listen to music.

    However, if as you put the cd in the first time you take 2 seconds to register it with my.mp3.com, then when you finish those 100 cd's your cd swapping days are over. And you just don't have a need to swap cd's anymore, but you can listen to the cd's anywhere. Home, work, friends house. No more need to make sure that you didn't forget the CD's either. I don't know about you, but whether it's 10 CD's or a 100's CD's, it's the same amount of work to continually swap them. And I think that having the available anywhere is a *real* benefit.

    -Brent
  • why wouldn't you just play it yourself? Saves on download time for people like me who can't get fast internet connection and are stuck on 56k's that work like 28.8's.

    2 computers. 2 stereos. A computer at work. CD Player in the car. Yeah, right. I want to haul my CD's everywhere to listen to them. I'll be lucky if their in the right stereo as it is. No, you set up your my.mp3.com account and then you you are set where computers are concerned. Now I just need to remember not to leave the cd in the car when I want to list to the stereo...

    -Brent
  • Have fun uploading 100 CD's. And creating that playlist. I find I won't be into more than 10 CD's at the same time.

    Actually, if you'd read what this was all about, you'd know that there's no uploading. mp3.com already has all the songs encoded on their server. You just need to show them that you own it.

    -Brent
  • Nope. I disagree.
    Yes.. I want to pay the artists that make the music I enjoy, and I want them to keep making that good music.. definately!
    The problem is, it's not worth $20/album to me to get music. It's not.. and the artist sees pennies of that anyway..
    So.. if the artist gives me a way to pay them directly for the music I listen to, at a fair price, then I will gladly pay, but I will not inconvenience myself in order to do so.

    I care not about labels, or about CDs. Musicians have made money for THOUSANDS of years, and record companies are only a very recent development.. so....
  • Okay. Nothing is wrong with 'storing' it at a remote site. THe problem is.. and this is where the dynamic interpretive nature of law will come in to play, is that mp3.com is not offering to 'store' your music for you.. they already *have* the music, and simply let you listen to it if you can show you already have the cd.
    The problem? Although you personally have the right to make copies of your music, that does not necessarily give mp3.com the right to broadcast/distribute that same music to you.
  • Umm...
    because the radio station must pay royalties every time it plays a song, and mp3.com does not?

    As I've said before, the fact that you personally own a cd, and can make personal copies of it, does not mean that anyone else has the right to distribute that music to you.
  • I couldn't agree more. If this is the future of music, I'm gonna be more than cranky. I'm not saying there is no place for mp3. It's fine for playing music on your laptop (for example), but for serious audio, the quality just isn't there. Plus, as you say, when you buy a CD you get more than the bits on the disc; you also get the lyrics, liner notes, etc. that (to me at least) contribute to the whole musical experience.
  • "...functionally it works almost exactly like a collection of Perl scripts Nate and I hacked out a year..."

    "Now can I please have a Linux port?"

    Why? You have software that works the same. If your concern is for other people, just make your scripts available for them to download. I don't understand the problem.
    ---
    This comment powered by Mozilla!
  • Look-and-feel lawsuits get thrown out too, otherwise they'd be in the shit too... That thing is almost a replica of myplay.com :-\
  • I was fooling with beamit and put about 120 tracks up, and i went to try to play a few of them. I noticed that it had mistakenly identified my Limp Bizkit Significant other CD as Magick Rock - Volume One - Rise 13 (whatever the hell that is).

    This may be a big problem because at least 1 in 10 cds that i look up in cddb have multiple cd listings assigned to the same id. I dont think beam-its gonna be around very long. It is too easy to abuse, because it trusts the client computer. If i found out the id of a particular cd, whats stopping me from burning a cd of crap with the same id and beaming it to their server, then downloading the tracks? Or i might give my friend my username and password so he could beam cds to me, and could access my collection.

    Its convienient while its there, but dont count on being able to use it for long.

  • with the list of cd's that I own? From the terms of service:

    8. By accepting these Terms and Conditions, you expressly consent to certain disclosures of your personally identifiable and other personal information to third parties, and to our use of your information, as enumerated in our then-current privacy policy, which is available at http://www.mp3.com/privacy.html [mp3.com].

    I especially don't like the fact that the privacy policy is mutable to the point that the terms of service even allow for it with the "then-current" phrasing. The entire terms of service are at http://www.mp3.com/my/terms/index.html [mp3.com].

    I'll admit, it's a bit paranoid, but I'll stick with my CD-R's for portable MP3's.

  • My question is, who is liable?

    You borrow a CD from a friend - not illegal, afaik. The software detects it, scans its track info, ships the data to Beam-It and Beam-It registers this as "yours", and now allows you to stream the songs on the CD, even though you don't own it, and even after you've given the CD back to your friend.

    Do you click on a button that says "Yes, I own this CD"? That would at least make you liable. Otherwise, would they be liable for sending you music you don't have rights to?

    Another thing is the spokenword message saying "Too many open streams. Please close some and continue. You should not share your password."

    Why not log in as yourself? Or a dummy login?

  • According to their download page, you can get the software either for Windows or for Macintosh. Seeing as though they've covered both of the major end-user computing platforms, I would hope that eventually they would go ahead and release a Linux port (should users desire one).
  • You can already steal music from the library without this service. Just bring the cd home and either burn a copy of it or rip some mp3s of the tracks on it. This my.mp3.com service adds nothing there. It doesn't even save you the trouble of burning your own mp3s, since it just streams them to you rather than letting you ftp them.
  • ... which has been around for a while...
    (Go check sourceforge.net for Gnome and Java Nap clients)
    ---
  • Have you tried 'Virtual Turntables'? It's an MP3 player that's geared towards DJs. It includes a auto-mixer function that starts the next track 1-3 sec before the last one ends.
    ---
  • Banner-ad targeting doesn't bug me -- Imagine, never having to see a banner ad for Korn or LimpBizkit again! Joy! OTOH, it's been a long-standing principle of mine never to give truthful information on any form unless there's a compelling reason (like you want your package to arrive at the correct address).

    On the third hand, no invasion of privacy is necessary to compile a list of your likes/dislikes -- mp3.com can track the bands you like and the bands you hate without having your correct name/address/email. All they need is a unique identifier, like your login to the site -- you can feed them bogus demographic data (anyone tracking self-reported demographics should be shot before taking those data seriously anyway).

    gomi
  • Even if a technological crisis hit storage, I think it'd be too late. The 40 gig IDE drives are already falling in price to the point where they're worth buying. That'll hold 60 uncompressed CDs and almost 800 compressed to an level that won't change the playback experience for most users.

    I'd be interested to see someone try the streaming of new music. My first instinct were I to buy such a "streaming right" would be to try to find a way to save the stream to my local drive...

    But really, you are right, this is just another instance of corporate types trying to get us to give up control of our local data. NC redux. In that, it has nothing really to do with technology and everything to do with control of data.

    Control your own data!
  • It's not even the first 8k or so; I've seen it request 203 seconds from a random offset within a track.

    The only question remaining is whether it always asks for the same chunk from the CD; if so, this can be put into a database.

    I don't have time to mess with it more today, though. :( But notice in your sniffing all the 331 requests and their responses...
  • Yep. It definitely looks like a challenge/response pair to me.

    Unfortunately I have no real debugging tools here. Someone with softice could do this in a few seconds.

    jon
  • Granted, you are probably listening to NSYNC and Backstreet boys, but generally (i mean REAL music), dont you think that the people who went to the trouble and effort of making music should get paid for it? I'm not claiming to own the CD for ever MP3 i have, but i dont consider myself to *really HAVE* the track unless i have the CD or LP. Besides, half the stuff you download is shitty quality with pops, crackles and squeals. Once again, i must stress this : YOU ARE AN ASS

  • No one seems to be asking what MP3 gets out of this - and I think it must be pretty obvious, they get a huge database of musical preferences and demographic data that they can then assemble, and (probably) flog to other businesses. At the very least expect banner ads for *only* those bands that you like - or ones that others who own the same music as you - will show up.

    In otherwords, to whatever degree, this is one more internet invasion of my privacy should I take advantage of it.

    Of course, it is *so* open to abuse that I don't think it is a viable idea anyways.

  • They only have Windows & Mac versions of the 'upload' software, but you can play the m3u playlists with any MP3 player, whether Linux, Be or OS X, as long as it can cope with the long URLs they use. This is good for me as I can 'beam' the CDs in from home, and play them at work, without taking them in and possibly losing them.

    Note that the URLs for individual tracks expire after an hour, and then they play you a speech message saying "go and make a new playlist". They weren't smart enough to offset the expiration window by the duration of each track, so you can't play an indefinite playlist. They also forgot the 'shuffle' button.
    However this does mean you have an hour to download the MP3s they have of your CD, which (assuming you have a good connection) is significantly faster than ripping them yourself.

    I suspect CmdrTaco's scripts are more like myplay.com [myplay.com], which is a similar legal MP3 repository, but requires you to do your own ripping.
  • Until either MP3.COM releases a Linux/*BSD/etc port for beam-it, or some interprising individual reverse engineers the thing, you cannot add songs to your playlist.

    But this does not mean that you cannot play songs in your playlist under Linux. MP3.com just streams your music to you in the MP3 format. Fire up your favorite browser, make sure you have it set up to load XMMS or other favorite MP3 player and listen away. Unfortunatally you will still have to authenticate your CDs off of a Windows or Mac box; on that note, know if you can run beam-it under wine or VMware?

    I have to agree with CmdrTaco on the fact that the chance of abuse is huge though! Whats stopping people from just reverse enineering the CD codes or borrowing their friends CDs for a few seconds to add it to their available tracks?

  • Alright, I'm gonna be a bit whiny here, but with good reason!! So read on...

    1) I want the ORIGINAL my.MP3.com back!! I want my lists of songs I downloaded from MP3.com!!

    2) Streaming is cool, but the CD playlist thing is... not needed, unless you are a frequent user, which I am not (I have a life off the computer, you know).

    and

    3) Let MP3.com be MORE customizable, Like SlashDot! Wow... That would be cool!!

    The Gray Wolf

  • It's not quite as simple as that.

    The transaction between the client and server includes not only the standard CDDB foo [freedb.org] (number of tracks, total length, byte offsets for the beginning of each track) but also has the first 8k or so of raw data for each track. The only way "piracy" will really work is if someone builds a client that allows a user to rip and store that info in a single file, so that others can use it. I think it basically comes down to a effort vs. return issue, since if you don't have physical access to a given CD, you will have to rely on the generosity of others to get access. That is, somewhere, someone has to stick that CD in a drive and generate the info from it. To get things to a point where it's "beneficial" to a large portion of the internet, it will also attract enough attention to be shut down by law enforcement.

    Personally, I don't think it's worth it. Also, since this service is dependent on mp3.com obtaining the CDs that you want to listen to, the LCD factor is high (Lowest Common Denominator) and people who listen to esoteric/hard to find stuff will be screwed. People who want to listen to the Backstreet Boys should be in heaven. People who want to listen to Laibach, or Pop Will Eat Itself may not be so lucky.

  • If the system was properly designed, it would be very difficult to spoof your possession of a CD without actually having some sort of access to a complete copy of it.

    For example, mp3.com could keep a sizable portion or complete copy of the unencoded track around at their site. Then they could ask you to take a random number of bytes at a random offset, append a random key string they specify, and hash it with a strong hash algorithm. On their end, they would do the same, and you'd be denied access if the results did not match. In this case, you'd need to have the sizable portion of the unencoded track on hand to answer their responses - or act as a man in the middle with a friend actually having the CD.

    The connection wouldn't need to be encrypted as hashes obtained from sniffed connections would be useless because the key string would be specified by the server and change on every attempt.

  • /. (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @04:59AM (#1363036)
    Oh my god, somebody copied Rob's code again! Look - it's over there, somebody copied an idea of his! That page has banner ads on top and links on the left-hand side of the page. THEY COPIED ROB! Oh my god - there's another site - cnn.com copied Rob too - they have STORIES on a page along with IMAGES! Oh no, OH NO! And look - even the politicians have ripped Rob off - they're using OPEN FORUMS and FREE SPEECH!

    Rob, please... this mp3 thing affects absolutely nobody. I could make the claim it's not unlike my own mp3db program and no doubt winamp could say the same. Or xmms for that matter. Or how about the dozens of geeks that were bored and wrote their own perl scripts? This is just noting the obvious.. it has no implications on the majority of readers here...

  • What's so illegal? (Score:3)

    by anthonyclark ( 17109 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:02AM (#1363037)
    AFAIK there is nothing illegal about making a copy of CDs you own. (either here in the UK or in the US)

    So what is so illegal about storing those CD "archives" at a remote site? Nobody would complain or try to sue you if you stored backup tapes offsite, in fact they would applaude you.

    It's the same argument as taping a CD 10 years ago. I may want to tape a CD to listen to in the car, and that is OK. If I then sell or broadcast that tape then I'm breaking the law - I have no problem with that. Fast-forward to today. If I want to listen to music anywhere on my MP3 player then I should be able to.

    There's no legal issue here at all. (only the music industry not trusting it's valued customers)

  • "Beam it" is the correct name (Score:3)

    by Otto ( 17870 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @04:56AM (#1363038) Homepage Journal
    And it seems like a strange program...

    The Beam it software gets some info from the CD, to identify it. Then it sends that info to mp3.com, to match with their database. If they have that CD in their database, you can listen to the songs from the CD online.

    Question: What's the point? If I have the CD, and I have a CD drive, then play the damn thing. As for being portable, CD's are easily portable now.

    The big thing seems to be the sales aspect. If you buy a CD from there, then you can listen to the songs while you're waiting for the cd to arrive via snail mail.

    Still, I think that this type of marketing can only go so far. Is any company actually having big success in this type of venture? (selling music online) I know that everyone said is was the next big thing, but you have to take that with a grain of salt. Given the option of spending 5 minutes to find a song as an MP3, and buying it for $1.00 or so, I'll take the 5 minutes.. Legality doesn't bother the majority of people. I mean, it's not an easily prosecutable offense, now is it?

    "Your honor, this guy stole a song from us and gave it to... errr.. well, 3 people.. costing us a total revenue of.. umm.. $3.95... errr...."


    ---

  • Not just windows (Score:3)

    by / ( 33804 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:26AM (#1363039)
    According to this page [mp3.com], it's also available for the macintosh. I know that doesn't help most linux folk, but c'est la vie.

  • Regarding a cheating client for my.mp3.com (Score:3)

    by jdc@pobox.com ( 65264 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:58AM (#1363040)
    I initially thought this would be easy too; I checked it out a little bit. Look at this (simplified) capture.



    ->20 20 20 20 20 00
    HELO mail=XXXXXXX@earthlink.net vers=0.90 cver=win004 sern=3933243
    0a 20 20 20 20 20
    AUTH meth=md5 pass=7998e0845cc98a85930b51212204d619
    0a 20 20 20 20 20
    MDID time=19739 tkof=150,27502,83547,93115,114317,121907,142117,18 6545,197950
    0a 00 00 00 00 00
    VFCD mdid=508103
    0a 00 00 00 00 00
    20 20 20 20 20 00
    ->RVDT trck=1 sect=18032 nsec=203 rate=22050 chnl=stereo bits=17 size=238728
    ->(238728 bytes of track data)
    0a 20 20 20 20 20
    -350 size=238728
    ---more negotiation snipped---
    -231 mdid=508103

    Okay.

    So near as I can tell, they use a challenge/response scheme for authentication. This is fine, and a little debugging will fill in the details there.

    Looks like the MDID setup call passes track offsets; note the parameters strictly increase. I'm guessing that the time= parameter has something to do with the time the TOC on the disc was burned, but I have yet to try to correlate it to actual time in seconds.

    After the MDID call, we get 232 back; then the real fun starts.

    VFCD kicks off what looks like a pretty solid verificatation process. The server uses 331's to ask for random numbers of seconds from random sector offsets, and the client replies with RVDT's and track data.

    If all the tracks are verified, a 231 is replied from the server with the 'mdid', and the connection hangs up.

    That's as far as I've gotten.

    Looks pretty solid to me thus far. I have yet to try beaming the same disc twice from two different machines; if the verification code always asks for the same #seconds and starting sector, obviously we can build a db, and we're golden.

    Anyone interested in continuing this work, drop me a mail.. (jdc@pobox.com)

  • Re:"Beam it" is the correct name (Score:3)

    by DeadSea ( 69598 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:08AM (#1363041) Homepage Journal
    I would pay for a service like this if they gave me some things that the CD didn't.

    For example, if they embedded synchronized lyrics in each mp3. Or they made sure that each mp3's ID3 tag was filled in completely and correctly.

    I really like having the lyrics scrolling by as I listen to music, and adding them myself works, but its slow, to say the least.

  • Will this really be the future? (Score:3)

    by Chilles ( 79797 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:06AM (#1363042)
    I'm still not so very sure if this is going to be the future of music. Even though I can download every piece of music I might ever want from the internet I keep on coming back to my (on-line or not) music store to buy my favorite music in hardcopy, complete with a nice booklet maybe for once not a diamond box and a few pictures of my (at that moment) favorite artist.
    I want to be able to hold that box, look at it while listening to the music on my home stereo for the first time. I'd be hard pressed to find an attractive software equivalent for that.
    Now I suppose there are a lot of people out there that don't need that physical representation of their music but I do and a lot of my friends agree with me.
    The day that the only way to obtain the newest music of any of my favorite artists is by downloading an MP3 (or something like that) will be a sad day for me indeed.

    My guess is that on-line music will perform a function similar to pay-tv, you subscribe to get a nice selection of music sent to you instead of some lame DJ's selection. Or a live registration of a good concert or a pop-festival.

    Maybe they'll even cut back on the commercials if you pay them a little.

  • Mp3 Anytime - Anywhere for Linux Users (Score:4)

    by szyzyg ( 7313 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:49AM (#1363043)
    Oddly enough I posted this story last week but Slashdot ignored it..... Perhaps because I pointed out that the whole site is an exact carbon copy (check some of the html and layouts) of Myplay.com [myplay.com].

    Myplay have been offering an online storage system like this for free for the last 4 months and they don't force you to use their technology, or limit you to streaming only.

    So - for all you Unix users who don't want to cart a CD selection back and forth here's an online music HOWTO

    (1) Get CD Paraoia [xiph.org] or cdda2wav
    (2) get LAME [sulaco.org]
    ( You can also get GRIP - that's a fancy GUI system that uses GTK - nice and easy)
    (3) Extract your favourte CD audio to .wav files
    (4) encode .wav files to .mp3 files using LAME
    (5) Delete the .wav files

    then....
    (6) Get XMMS [xmms.org]
    (7) Listen to your funky mp3's


    Now for the anytime/anywhere part....
    (8) go to Myplay.com [myplay.com]
    (9) Get an account (they're free)
    (10) upload your chosen tracks
    (11) Listen to them wherever you go


    okokok but there's more

    If you want to show off your music taste you can assemble your favourite tracks into public playlists which anybody can listen to - so it's like creating a radio show. (they use icecast [icecast.org] for this BTW)

    Plus they've also got a few free tracks, both from themselves and from affiliates like emusic.com....


    SO.... my.mp3.com is not Innovative... it's a copy.

    So - why isn't myplay in the related links box?

  • Re:Not another NAPSTER (Score:4)

    by Stavr0 ( 35032 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:10AM (#1363044) Homepage Journal
    it actually checks to see if you own the cd

    I C. How shall I hack thee, let me count the ways
    - Sniff packets, then fudge up a client
    - Repository of track/length sector aka CDDB
    - Fake CDaudio driver that returns above info.
    - Forge packets for upload to MP3.com

    Yet another ill-conceived attempt at enforcing the unenforceable.
    ---

  • What's the difference between this and radio? (Score:4)

    by The Babushka ( 44270 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @06:12AM (#1363045)
    Ok, here's a thought... What's the difference between this and an all-request radio station? Answer: You *own* the CDs already (at least in theory).

    Think about it. If there were a request radio station, and you were the only listener, is there a law preventing them from playing whatever you request? So what's to stop MP3.com from just streaming to you personally *ANY* music you choose to listen to? (Regardless album ownership.) It's theoretically no different than request radio.

    Yeah, we can *record* a media stream, but I can also record songs off the radio. What's the difference? Just because this is more customized? Because it's on the Internet? Big whoop -- every real life radio station tries to do this exactly: play songs I want to hear. It just so happens that online they can do it to perfection through mass customization.

    I don't think MP3.com has gone far enough! I shouldn't need the CD to listen to music - I should be able to listen to ANYTHING they have available.

  • Waste of bandwidth (Score:4)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:52AM (#1363046) Homepage Journal
    This seems like a huge waste of bandwidth to me.

    Twenty CDs and a backpack has a higher bandwidth then I have at work...

    (Or maybe it is just this new 20 gig HD I got here at work. I've been copying CDs to it for a week now. I have almost a hundred here. Why would I want to download each time I listen when I can just save them to the HD? This seems better than wasting company bandwidth each time I get the urge for NIN.)

    Why, oh why is everyone pushing all this connectivity stuff when the thing that is improving the least in most computer systems is the bandwidth? You can get a 27 gig drive for $200 now. That just cries out for new applications, but all these companies can come up with is new ways to send too much information through tiny little holes. I don't want my music to skip just because I'm downloading a new Quake patch.

    New app: cheap motherboard+large hard drive+good sound card->awesome stereo.

  • There *will* be a linux port (Score:4)

    by Thomas A. Anderson ( 114614 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @05:44AM (#1363047) Homepage
    I emailed them the day it came out, and asked them about a linux port. I got an email back from an engineer saying they are working on it as fast as they can. Then I got an email from some suit saying "thanks for the email, blah, blah, blah" that didn't even address my question. A good friend of mine wqorks for mp3.com, and he says that almost everyone there sues linux, and a linux version is definatly coming. Another question, off topic, how come I submitted this story last week and it was rejected? Sure, it's not a great slasjdot story, but now the news is 1 week late making it even less interesting. Just my 2 cents.

  • BeamIT Packets Unencrypted (Score:5)

    by Noke ( 8971 ) on Tuesday January 18, 2000 @04:58AM (#1363048) Homepage
    I did some Packet Snffing of the BeamIT client-to-MP3.com last night and determined that the CD info sent to MP3.com is not encrypted, making it quite easy to proxy-spoof mp3.com into thinking you own CDs that you do not.

    The data on the CD sent seems to go a track-at-a-time and isn't the conventional format that you send CD data to CDDB. Instead, it seems to focus on the sector start and end positions for each track and some additional information.

    Nontheless, I suspect that unless MP3.com reworks their protocol to use encryption, it will jsut be a matter of time before someone fully reverse-engineers the protocoll and "Beams" hundreds of CD's that they do not own. I wonder what the recording industry will think of that?

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