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Apple's iMusic - To Encrypt Or Not To Encypt? |
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 Apple's rumored Music Service (let's call it iMusic for the sake of me not having to type so much!) is stirring up a whole lotta opinionated articles. For those who have nothing better to do, I'll share my opinions on the matter.
If you're Rip Van Winkle and just woke up after 20 or so years, here's a quick recap. Apple is holding a "special event" on April 28th, during which there will be "announcements that will be music to your ears." The general consensus is that Apple will debut iMusic as well as updated iPods (and perhaps an update to iTunes). iMusic may be integrated into the new iPods and iTunes and will allow you to download songs to 99 cents each. Ok, you're all caught up!
Now, what I'm wondering is, will Apple allow you to do whatever you want with the music you buy? Some thoughts that have been floating around the 'Net are that Apple may tie the songs you download to just one Mac and/or one iPod. This is very doable, as the song could be encrypted to only work on certain MAC addresses (the distinct physical address of your computer). Sure, there are workarounds if you wanted to hack this type of thing, but the average user isn't going to want to attempt that.
This form of encryption would give the record companies assurance that their music isn't being stolen, but on the other hand it would limit what we can do with it, and that defeats the whole purpose of iMusic.
So perhaps, in your settings for iMusic, you can specify 5 or 10 different Macs/iPods that your music could be encoded to work on. This would allow your music to work on future Macs you haven't bought yet, however you would have to re-download the music after entering your new computer's MAC address. We get into a hairy situation here, because if you can add/change MAC addresses in your list of "valid" computers, then you could let your friends listen to your music...ILLEGALLY! And you'd be thrown in jail and sodomized. With your friends. And perhaps BY your friends? Or maybe YOU would be the sodomizer. You sicko.
Ok, sorry, I went off on a secant there. Back to point of the article for my big finish...
iMusic is a great idea, but I think it will fail if people aren't allowed to do as they please with the music that is rightfully theirs by way of paying for it. Yes, the music industry has a right to ensure that people don't steal from them, but doings things the way they've been done in the past is not going to work - people would continue to steal from them. iMusic is a step in the right direction, and if consumers are offered an easy way to get music over the Internet at a fair price, people will flock to iMusic in droves. Which in turn means people flocking to buy Macs in droves!
Let's hope for the best on April 28th, as we will most likely see a revolution in the way music is distributed. |
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April 24 2003, 1:11 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| spoot |
4/25/03, 8:37 AM EDT |
If it includes any drm, I won't bite. Plain and simple.
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At first I thought, if I were Superman, a perfect secret identity would be "Clark Kent, Dentist," because you could save money on tooth X-rays. But then I thought, if a patient said, "How's my back tooth?" and you just looked at it with your X-ray vision and said, "Oh it's okay," then the patient would probably say, "Aren't you going to take an X-ray, stupid?" and you'd say, "Ah screw you, get outta here," and then he probably wouldn't even pay his bill.
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