How to Rip Off Napster-to-Go (And Janus)

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://blog.kordix.com/marv/archives/000400.html' target='_blank'>http://blog.kordix.com/marv/archives/000400.html</a><br /><br /></div>We reported on Napster's excellent Napster-to-go service a couple of weeks ago. It brought together the music from Napster and combined it with Microsoft's Janus service to give you the ability to download an unlimited amount of music (albeit limited to a few select players for now) for a low fee of $15 per month. The only "catch" is the you are only downloading the music to your device, and can't misuse it or profit from it, for example, burn it to CD and sell it. The service as well as the concept rocks and I like the concept behind Janus a lot, just waiting for a service to support my iRiver.<br /><br />Anyways, someone has discovered a loophole in this service and instructions have already been released on how you can exploit the service to get around the above mentioned catch. I'm not going to advise you to do anything, 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. So it looks like MS never bothered properly DRMing the stuff. If someone cracks iTunes, it only gives them access to music they bought. So is Janus destined to fail even before it has taken off?

[phillypocket]

Aside from the fact that it happens entirely inside the computer, isnt this the equivilent of recording the line out? You still have to play the entire song. And since we have to be able to hear it, I don't see any way of preventing this type of theft. It's like recording off the radio. You would need the equivilent of macrovision in all of the possible recording equipment to defeat this.

I'm sure they took this into account when they developed this but hoped that the service would be cheap enough, and valued enough that most people would pay the fee instead of stealing the music.

If would be a shame it the potential was blown before the possibilities were explored but hey, that's what the script-babies think the internet is for so...

[Macguy59]

Ok I'm confused. Can you burn a CD with the music you download from Napster's subscription service? If so can this then be ripped down or can this CD only be played on the drive it was created on?

[sub_tex]

If so can this then be ripped down or can this CD only be played on the drive it was created on?

The fact that a question like that can even exist is what scares the crap out of me with DRM!

A CD that can only play in the drive it was created on??

:2gunfire:

[phillypocket]

The fact that a question like that can even exist is what scares the crap out of me with DRM!

A CD that can only play in the drive it was created on??

:2gunfire:

Why are people even asking this?!?

You are not buying music. You are buying access to a library. You are buying the right to listen to whatever is in their library while your paying. Think of it as cable on demand (which would actually make me buy cable if it was real). For a mothly fee you get to pick what you want to see. When you stop paying, you stop seeing. Why is this such a hard concept to grasp. I realise we aren't use to accessing music in this way, but thats mostly because technicaly it was problematic before. The closest thing available was renting music at the library, which was much less convenient and much (, much) more limited.

Why people insist on turning this into some wierd referendum on drm is beyond me.
....
Actually it just occured to me. This is satalite radio on demand. Instead of selecting just the genre, you can pick the song to. And just like satalite radio, when you stop paying their subscitpion fee, you stop hearing the music. However in napster's case you didnt' have to purchase a proprietary reciever, and you can switch to another service.

O.T. --- is there any chance of getting a spell checker in here?

[Macguy59]

Why are people even asking this?!?



Did you bother to read the originating post? My questions were based upon this snippet from it . . .

"The only "catch" is the you are only downloading the music to your device, and can't misuse it or profit from it, for example, burn it to CD and sell it."

[Jason Eaton]

As already mentioned, the equivalent of Line Out recording. In truth old school knowledge beats out new DRM all the time.

If you can see it, and you can hear it, you can capture it. As soon as something turns into an analog form that the human body can understand no form of DRM will work. Question really becomes how many hurdles are you willing to cross to get it?

So the only effective way of DRM is through distribution management. On, off, released, not released, have or have not. There is the only one gate that can truely and effectively be controlled.

Just a note... you can do the same with DVDs and the data on the way to the monitor/screen. But that is a bad thing.

To finish this off DRM is merely a replacement for moral judgement, the true solution is in the wetware.

[phillypocket]

Did you bother to read the originating post? My questions were based upon this snippet from it . . .

"The only "catch" is the you are only downloading the music to your device, and can't misuse it or profit from it, for example, burn it to CD and sell it."

Why yes, I did bother, thanks for asking. :wink:

I also read sub_tex's post, who I was responding to, who invoked the drm argument. And as for your question, which I didn't respond to, because I don't have a definite answer, I doubt it, as thats not the point of the service. I suspect any player that has the ability to legally use a license file to decrypt the music file will also block you from burning a cd using that player. Unless of course the licence explicitly allows you to do so.

[phillypocket]

To finish this off DRM is merely a replacement for moral judgement, the true solution is in the wetware.

Sadly looking at the glee and venom in the 70 or so comments of the originating article, DRM is still necessary

[tchart]

I agree that if you pay for a subscription service then when the subscription ends then you shouldnt be entitled to keep the music.

However WMA DRM is very restrictive.

I buy tracks from an onlne provider in my country (not the USA) and the "device copy count" for each track is set to 3. This effectively means I can only copy the track to my device 3 times. My device only has 1gb of space so I often delete tracks and replace with new ones. So if I delete the song off my device 3 times I can no longer copy it to my device.

Now, if Ive physically paid for each track (ie no subscription for unlimited tracks) am I not entitled to copy it to my device as many times as I want? I would have thought that would have been a pretty basic need.

[Felix Torres]

I agree that if you pay for a subscription service then when the subscription ends then you shouldnt be entitled to keep the music.

However WMA DRM is very restrictive.

I buy tracks from an onlne provider in my country (not the USA) and the "device copy count" for each track is set to 3. This effectively means I can only copy the track to my device 3 times. My device only has 1gb of space so I often delete tracks and replace with new ones. So if I delete the song off my device 3 times I can no longer copy it to my device.

Now, if Ive physically paid for each track (ie no subscription for unlimited tracks) am I not entitled to copy it to my device as many times as I want? I would have thought that would have been a pretty basic need.\

Uh, that is *not* WMA DRM you're complaining about; its your provider.

WM DRM is a toolkit; it can be as liberal or as restrictive as the provider chooses. And it is optional, to boot.

WM DRM allows monitoring and managing access to data files.
That's it.
The policies that it is used to implement are up to the provider.
Its not Microsoft's fault that your provider limits you to three devices.
Now, if you were buying from MSN Music and complaining about *their* restrictions, you could rip MS to your heart's content...

MS gets waaay too much credit and blame for other companies' decisions.
They put up with it because it makes them appear more power than they really are.

[phillypocket]

MS gets waaay too much credit and blame for other companies' decisions.
They put up with it because it makes them appear more power than they really are.

Not to get too far off topic, but I think they "put up with it" because they have no choice. What are they going to do take out an ad saying "Don't blame us, we just make the tools"? Customers won't believe them (look how many times this particular example has been explained on this site), and it would only piss off their partners.

Its just part of the bane of a 90%+ market share boon.

[Suhit Gupta]

O.T. --- is there any chance of getting a spell checker in here?
Sorry. We haven't even looked into it AFAIK. However, you can use IESpell (if you are using IE) for spell correction. There are spell chekers for Mozilla/Firefox too.

Suhit

[Janak Parekh]

Aside from the fact that it happens entirely inside the computer, isnt this the equivilent of recording the line out?
But with much less hassle. You only need to run one program, and you don't need to hook up the analog outputs, which keeps the music quality high. I suspect Microsoft wasn't envisioning it to be this easy. We'll see if it gets easier or not. (Update: Napster has posted a note on their frontpage (upper-right-hand corner), saying this is basically the line-out trick. I still don't think it's quite that. ;))

Incidentally, if line-out becomes the only possibility, it's only a matter of time (IMHO) before the RIAA and computer vendors partner up and make DRM USB speakers, so that the DRM encryption is end-to-end and the only way to record it would be to either hack the drivers on the machine (which is against the DMCA) or to use high-quality microphones in front of the speakers (which is a huge hassle).

Uh, that is *not* WMA DRM you're complaining about; its your provider. WM DRM is a toolkit; it can be as liberal or as restrictive as the provider chooses. And it is optional, to boot.
That's the exact problem I have with it -- it allows too much flexibility. One nice thing about iTunes/Fairplay is that it's extremely uniform, and there's no questions about it. Now, could Microsoft do the same thing, since they don't have a one-vendor platform? Possibly not, but it bothers me that WMA not only enables different policies for different vendors, but even different policies for the same vendor (e.g., BuyMusic).

--janak

[sub_tex]

Why are people even asking this?!?

You are not buying music. You are buying access to a library.

Your response has nothing to do with my comment. I undertsand how Napster's service works.

My point was the idea of someone asking if CD X would be able to play in such and such a drive is a scary notion, and one that only is here because of DRM.

My comment has NOTHING to do with the Napster service, and everything to do with DRM.

Relax a little.

I'm not complaining about not being able to burn CDs from N2Go. I don't use any of those services to begin with.

Sheesh. . .