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[sonycowboy]

Note: This is an AP wire article, not a piracy encouragement tool. Just the news. If a mod finds this inappropriate, feel free to lock

:lol :lol :lol


Tue Feb 15, 2005 02:19 PM ET
By Sue Zeidler

LOS ANGELES, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Users have found a way to skirt copy protection on Napster Inc.'s (NAPS.O: Quote, Profile, Research) portable music subscription service just days after its high-profile launch, potentially letting them make CDs with hundreds of thousands of songs for free.

Such users are already providing instructions to other would-be song burners through technology Web sites like BoingBoing. (http://www.boingboing.net)

Napster is currently offering a free trial of its new Napster To Go service, which will enable users for a monthly $15 fee to download as much music as they want and transfer it to a portable device. They can also pay 99 cents for each track they want to burn to a CD.

That "rental" model for digital entertainment, backed by giant software concern Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and others, is getting its most serious mass-market tryout yet with Napster to Go.

But, according to various Web sites, thwarting the intellectual property protections of the service is as easy as a free software patch.

Engadget.com said by installing the digital music program Winamp and then adding a secondary program to Winamp called Output Stacker, users could convert the digitally protected files from one format to another that can then be burned, unencumbered, onto CDs.

"We're not going to advise you to do anything untoward, but apparently if you install Winamp along with the Output Stacker plug-in you can convert those protected WMA files to WAV files and then burn them to CD without paying a penny. Or at least an extra penny," Engadget.com said in an item on its site.

A spokeswoman for Napster said that such endeavors were nothing new and the company was not too concerned.

"The DRM (digital rights management) is intact. Basically, people are just recording off a sound card. This is nothing new and people could do this with any legitimate service if they want to use a sound card," she said.

"This kind of attack has been around for a long time and it's just because of our higher profile that it has sparked such interest," she said.

She said the company had no record of who was doing the illicit recording.

"The bottom line is that people are always going to find a way to get around the system, although we give people a way to enjoy music while respecting artists' rights," she said.

NO MUSIC IS SAFE

The "new" Napster has positioned itself as the chief competitor to Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iTunes service, which dominates the digital download market.

The original Napster was a free-for-all that let millions of users download and share songs for free -- before the music industry forced it into bankruptcy with successful legal challenges.

American Technology Research analyst PJ McNealy said that no matter how protected a music file is, you can capture the output and save it on the hard drive.

"Now, portable subscriptions are a bigger bullseye or goal for people," he said.

Napster unveiled the portable subscription earlier this month, backed by a $30 million ad campaign attacking rival Apple's iTunes service and its ubiquitous iPod digital music player.

Until recently, music subscription services have been somewhat restricted in their ability to transfer songs they provide to portable players, while Apple has sold millions of portable iPods by allowing users to buy songs from iTunes and store them on iPods.

But Napster uses a new digital rights management software from Microsoft called Janus to enable the portable transfers.

 

[Dilbert]

If it can be played, it can be copied. Nothing new here.

 

[Azih]

Yup nothing bizzare about this. I mean really this cannot be prevented by any service. Which is why these kinds of 'you can download but YOU CAN'T BURN!' subscription programs have always confused me.

 

[AstroLad]

At least Napster is realistic about it I suppose (e.g. "we can't do anything!").

 

[ManaByte]

RIAA to ban sound cards. News at 11.

 

[Dujour]

Too tedious for my tastes.

 

[border]

So how hard would it be to set up a batch program that would take all the DRM music files in a directory, record them as WAV and then convert them all back to MP3? HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING :lol

Is there any hit to sound quality if you record through a sound card....or is it essentially a digital-to-digital transfer?

 

[Nerevar]

well, you are getting a perfect digital copy, which technically is the whole reason this mess got started. I wonder what bitrate napster music files are originally encoded at, though?

 

[Azih]

Hell I don't think it's hard at all to create a 'virtual' sound card that's just a driver that dumps whatever comes into it to a WAV file.

 

[Sullichin]

Wait, Napster lets you listen to the entire song before buying? i'm confused - this wouldn't work in iTunes because you can only hear a sample before buying the full thing.

 

[Nerevar]

Wait, Napster lets you listen to the entire song before buying? i'm confused - this wouldn't work in iTunes because you can only hear a sample before buying the full thing.

did you miss the super bowl or something?

*this sarcastic reply becomes void if you're not an American.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

So how hard would it be to set up a batch program that would take all the DRM music files in a directory, record them as WAV and then convert them all back to MP3? HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING :lol

Is there any hit to sound quality if you record through a sound card....or is it essentially a digital-to-digital transfer?

Don't imagine it would be too hard, though I'm not sure how one could keep any ID3 or equivalent information. The sound card transfer part should be great, but taking a lossily encoded file and then lossily encoding it again will always result in lower quality.

Wait, Napster lets you listen to the entire song before buying? i'm confused - this wouldn't work in iTunes because you can only hear a sample before buying the full thing.

$15 to get as much music as you want, but it says they have a free trial offer, too. So for the limited amount of time you'd be able to grab an indefinite amount.

 

[mrklaw]

$15 to get as much music as you want, but it says they have a free trial offer, too. So for the limited amount of time you'd be able to grab an indefinite amount.

yup, just starting my 14 day free trial. Fancied trying out music downloads anyway. Do I have to choose napster to go, or does normal napster allow me unlimited downloads? I'm still paying £10 a month for normal napster which is odd if I still have to buy tracks.

 

[explodet]

So how hard would it be to set up a batch program that would take all the DRM music files in a directory, record them as WAV and then convert them all back to MP3?

I don't know about that first part, but Winamp has ANOTHER plug-in that converts WAV files to MP3s. (I used it to convert extracted PS2 tracks) It kinda sucks as I can't get it to save my settings but it gets the job done.

 

[border]

Yeah, I guess the hitch would be getting all the songs named and organized correctly after being re-encoded. Not a big deal, but probably time consuming.

So is the RIAA going to shit bricks over this or what? They are pretty knowledgable so probably the record companies were already aware of this inevitability when they signed on to Napster.

The funny thing is that DRM-circumvention is actually quicker with iTunes (32X-burn-then-rip), but not as viable since it's $1 per song. $15 per month means that over the course of a month you could get 720 hours of DRM-free music (assuming that you were constantly recording and encoding).....plus whatever is in your backlog waiting to be converted.

Hell I don't think it's hard at all to create a 'virtual' sound card that's just a driver that dumps whatever comes into it to a WAV file.

How would you do that? HYPOTHETICALLY.

I've never had much luck with audio card recorder programs that I used to get audio out of Real or Quicktime files. Oftentimes they would fuck up regular audio playback with the drivers that they installed.

 

[Azih]

How would you do that? HYPOTHETICALLY.

My bad, when I said it wouldn't be hard to do I meant it wouldn't be hard for someone who knew what they were doing :lol. I mean it'd take a really good Windows programmer with in-depth knowledge of how sound cards work to do it.

Edit: I had good luck with one shareware audio recorder program a while back (like 2 years or so). But yeah most of them just screw up your regular playback.

 

[aaaaa0]

Wait, Napster lets you listen to the entire song before buying? i'm confused - this wouldn't work in iTunes because you can only hear a sample before buying the full thing.

Yes that's the whole point of Napster.

There are three plans (isn't choice good?):

Pay $0 per month.

You can only preview a sample of each track before buying the full thing.

You can buy music at 99c a track, just like iTunes. The songs you buy you keep forever, and they are DRM'd just like iTunes -- they can be burned an unlimited number of times, they can be copied to an MP3 player an unlimited number of times, etc.

Pay $9.95 per month.

This plan lets you stream or download (nearly) any full song in their catalog for free to your PC. If you download it, it stays cached on your PC, so you can play it without being connected to the internet. The way it works is that you need a license to play a downloaded track, which expires in 30 days, if you cancel the service.

You still have the option of buying your music for 99c for a track, just like iTunes. The music you buy for 99c a track, you keep even if you cancel the service, and the tracks are DRM'd just like iTunes -- they can be burned an unlimited number of times, they can be copied to an MP3 player an unlimited number of times, etc.

Pay $14.95 per month.

This plan lets you stream or download (nearly) any full song in their catalog for free to your PC, just like the $9.95 plan. BUT it adds the ability to lets you download the songs to any portable MP3 player that supports time-limited DRM. Songs downloaded in this way need to be renewed every 30 days or they expire. This is done by plugging your mp3 player into your PC and synching it (which renews the license).

You still have the option of buying your music for 99c for a track, just like iTunes. The music you buy for 99c a track, you keep even if you cancel the service, and the tracks are DRM'd just like iTunes -- they can be burned an unlimited number of times, they can be copied to an MP3 player an unlimited number of times, etc.

 

[Grimlock]

I never realized Winamp was such a useful little prog.

*eyes his 300g Segate and his NEC-3500A*

*googles "WAV to FLAC"*

 

[ShadowRed]

I told Pheonix about this two weeks ago. He seemed to doubt that it would be possible to break the encryption.

 

[Error Macro]

did you miss the super bowl or something?

*this sarcastic reply becomes void if you're not an American.

No, it still applies. It's the single most watched event in the entire world, for God's sake. Unless, they don't show the same commercials in the other countries? I don't know. You'd think they'd have to.

Anyways... I watched the Super Bowl, and I had no idea about this whole deal. I must have missed that commercial.

 

[shoplifter]

No, it still applies. It's the single most watched event in the entire world, for God's sake. Unless, they don't show the same commercials in the other countries? I don't know. You'd think they'd have to.

Not since the network sells ads, not the NFL.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

Does this kind of news hurt Napster? People love free music

Still it sends a message to the music labels that your music is safer with Apple

 

[Son of Godzilla]

Wow, with this now Napster is only slightly more of a ripoff than emusic was.

 

[DarienA]

Hell I think this month's edition of PC Magazine has a friggin article talking about how to circumvent copy protection on music files... I think there version was pretty primitive if I remember the article... plug the speaker output in to the mic input and convert to analog, but be careful about the volume setting... something like that I just casually glanced at it and thought... geez they're putting that in an article right in the mag? Geez.

 

[Brannon]

Gee I didn't see this coming a mile away.

:lol

 

[Mugen]

Napster you're awesome!! I know your always in our side

 

[Smiles and Cries]

The Chicago Tribune reports that Steve Jobs sent an email to top record industry executives about a recently exposed exploit allowing users to burn copy-protected Napster-To-Go content.

In the email, Jobs reportedly writes "Thought you should know if you haven't heard about this". Napster's CEO reportedly wrote a retort claiming that the exploit was neither new nor a problem only for Napster -- and pointed to a similar exploit for iTunes.

To be fair, these sort of save-unencoded content exploits are common, but Napster-To-Go's unlimited song-allowance does represent more content at risk per individual user/subscriber.

Snitch Snitch! :lol

 

[DarienA]

The Chicago Tribune reports that Steve Jobs sent an email to top record industry executives about a recently exposed exploit allowing users to burn copy-protected Napster-To-Go content.

That... is f'n pitiful.....

 

[mrklaw]

So how hard would it be to set up a batch program that would take all the DRM music files in a directory, record them as WAV and then convert them all back to MP3? HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING :lol

Is there any hit to sound quality if you record through a sound card....or is it essentially a digital-to-digital transfer?

Hypothetically speaking, you'd use something 'like' a LAME plugin for winamp, and configure that. That does, hypothetically, keep all your ID3 tags too.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

That... is f'n pitiful.....

I'm reading the news from the paper may not be true but it could also be just Mac heads trying to protect Steve

I love Macs and all but thats low if true
:lol

 

[Borys]

You know when I was younger I was doing crazy shit things with sound card emulation and recording just to have OSTs from old DOS PC games (adventures, RPGs etc.).

WaveTable music rox!

 

[ShadowRed]

The Chicago Tribune reports that Steve Jobs sent an email to top record industry executives about a recently exposed exploit allowing users to burn copy-protected Napster-To-Go content.

In the email, Jobs reportedly writes "Thought you should know if you haven't heard about this". Napster's CEO reportedly wrote a retort claiming that the exploit was neither new nor a problem only for Napster -- and pointed to a similar exploit for iTunes.

To be fair, these sort of save-unencoded content exploits are common, but Napster-To-Go's unlimited song-allowance does represent more content at risk per individual user/subscriber.

:lol Steve pulled a Kobe on Napster. How fucking pathetic.

 

[Rocket9]

What I wouldnt give to see Britney Spears and the others go on strike. In fact, I think i'll go watch that South Park episode right now again

 

[Juno]

Actually this might be a good topic to ask,

I want a program of some sort that will rip the audio playing to make an mp3 file (from an mpeg file). Any suggestions?

 

[aoi tsuki]

Actually this might be a good topic to ask,

I want a program of some sort that will rip the audio playing to make an mp3 file (from an mpeg file). Any suggestions?

i'm pretty sure that the story posted about this on Engadget used a plugin in Winamp. i've done it years ago, but i can't remember the name of the plugin.

 

[Shogmaster]

That... is f'n pitiful.....

But that's pretty much a Steve move from what I read about him. Mark Stevens a.k.a. Robert Cringley pretty much paints him as a "Sociopath" in "Accidental Empires". :lol

 

[joaomgcd]

Sound card emulation? Isn't this just as easy as playing the file back on one program and recording it with another, or am I missing something here?

 

[mrklaw]

i'm pretty sure that the story posted about this on Engadget used a plugin in Winamp. i've done it years ago, but i can't remember the name of the plugin.

just use the LAME output plugin for winamp. Winamp should play mpeg movies no problem, so it should still output the audio via the plugin.

 

[border]

Can someone post links to the appropriate plugins? I'm having trouble finding the right one(s).

Hypothetically. :lol

 

[cybamerc]

Read article. Look for appropriate keywords. Do a search on Google.

 

[border]

I wouldn't have asked for help if it was that simple =\

The Output Stacker plugin download page at Winamp doesn't exist anymore and most search results point there. Searching "LAME output" turns up too many different plugins.

 

[Juno]

Thanks for the info.

I found this on Winamp's site, is this the plug-in you mean mr.klaw?

 

[mrklaw]

yep, thats the one Juno.

Border, the output stacker is still about - i think someone on boing boing hosted it themselves.

configure output stacker, put output.ds first in the list, then out.Lame. Configure lame and you're done.

 

[paul777]

Only 15 dollars for unlimited downloads? that's awesome.

Is there a way to convert the napster music files to be playable on my iPod?

 

[border]

Oh, just as an update people are now using an old version of a program called Virtuosa to convert the DRM Windows Media files into MP3s. It takes roughly 10-20 seconds to switch over. So essentially all practical limitations have been removed, and you can now grab as much as you like and have albums converted in a few minutes.

This is weird because I thought that the point of DRM was that they wouldn't have to rely on compliance of software makers. If someone can just step in and write a program to convert the files at will....well then what's the point of DRM in the first place?

Is there a way to convert the napster music files to be playable on my iPod?

Uhhh, convert them to MP3 =P

 

[Phoenix]

My bad, when I said it wouldn't be hard to do I meant it wouldn't be hard for someone who knew what they were doing :lol. I mean it'd take a really good Windows programmer with in-depth knowledge of how sound cards work to do it.

Not really.
1) Start DirectSound.
2) Enumerate the sound cards/devices.
3) Capture stream in bytes
4) Write bytes to disk

 

[mrklaw]

Oh, just as an update people are now using an old version of a program called Virtuosa to convert the DRM Windows Media files into MP3s. It takes roughly 10-20 seconds to switch over. So essentially all practical limitations have been removed, and you can now grab as much as you like and have albums converted in a few minutes.

This is weird because I thought that the point of DRM was that they wouldn't have to rely on compliance of software makers. If someone can just step in and write a program to convert the files at will....well then what's the point of DRM in the first place?
Uhhh, convert them to MP3 =P

Doh, just as I've spent 10 days solid with my PC playing things at 1x. Hypothetically.

.oO(I wonder what version of Virtuosa it is)

 

[aoi tsuki]

What format and bitrate are Napster music files in? i can't imagine they'd be high enough quality to encourage to take advantage of the service, especially when there's other, free alternatives outside of P2P program for doing more or less the same thing.

 

[mrklaw]

128k WMA.

 

[aoi tsuki]

128k WMA.

Ugh. If i could just strip the DRM, i could live with the quality. But considering the fact that my earphones (which i use for my PDA and MD) have perceivably better sound output than my PC speakers, i'd be insane to transcode them to another format.

Paying 99 cents to burn or transfer a track to a device is a ripoff, but $15 per month for unlimited downloads is a great price. It just depends on what you intend to do with your music.