The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

...and that there's why I don't buy lossy, full price digital downloads. I don't have to ask someone's permission to listen to MY Decemberists CDs, or jump through hoops to give a copy to a friend. Plus I never pay full price, seeing as I get everything either used or from the library. There are no limits on my CDs.

I know I'm being a smartass here, but can you tell me I'm wrong? The ONLY benefit to the iTMS is the immediacy of the service. You want something, BAM!, there it is. Well, assuming you've got broadband anyway. But then you're playing by their rules. When you buy those tracks you are explicitly agreeing to their terms and conditions. You are allowing the RIAA to control your behaviour to some small degree. Do you think they'll EVER give that up? All it's going to do is encourage them to try to take even more control over how and where you can listen to your music. Complain all you want, but if you don't stop buying their DRM-encumbered music, your complaints will fall on deaf ears.

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Actually, I doubt that his problem had anything to do with DRM. Damaged library files usually means that the library's file structure has become corrupt. iPhoto throws out similar errors sometimes.

Here is one possible fix:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301895

When the problem is DRM based the error message generally points to authorization issues. BTW - I've had it happen a handful of times and it was always easily corrected.

DRM is not perfect, but it is a necessary component to legal downloads. Live with it. If you don't want to deal with it, do as Penginkun does.

Personally, I can live with the restrictions and audio quality, and I am religious about backing up my data. For me, the beauty is the fact that I no longer have half of my apartment taken up by my ever-growing CD collection.

But, as with everything, YMMV.

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I hate to be a smart ass, but my giant collection of VBR MP3 files never give me problems. I don't even have to walk over to my friend's computer and type in my password to let him listen to my tracks.

If you are ambivilent enough about audio quality to download lossy tracks, you might as well re-encode the DRMed tracks into a format like MP3 so you can use them in any device, anywhere, anytime. Or just buy the CDs in the first place.

Did you honestly think that bending over for Apple and the RIAA was going to end with anything other than pain?

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Whatever Jake's problem is, it isn't as he described. DRM information isn't stored in the iTunes library files, it is embedded into each iTunes song.

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"DRM is not perfect, but it is a necessary component to legal downloads"

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt WRONG! Thanks for playing though.

No DRM is NOT a necessary component for legal downloads. I'm so ******* sick and tired of people saying things like this. Hey Scott while you may very well be too young to remember this, we actually did have music pre-Internet. And gasp, there was *NO* Drm. We were free to cope tape to tape and cd to cd all we wanted. And you know what? Somehow the record companies survived.

Sorry to be personal but its people like you who are leading the way to the DRM-hell that awaits us. Digital Restriction Management isn't needed and isn't wanted. The sooner you stop supporting companies who practice DRM the better. For the love of God please think about what your doing when post things like that. Your doing the work of the RIAA and MPAA. Do you really think their vision of a "every piece of digital media should be Drm'd" is laudable and something that you personally want to help happen?

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Um, I'm 30, but if that makes me young so be it.

Your key phrase was "pre-Internet."

Back in the day you weren't entirely free to copy tape to tape and cd to cd. Yes it was possible and easier to accomplish, but there were restrictions as dicated by copyright law. I guarantee you that if you had set up shop on a street corner giving away dubbed tapes by the thousands you would have been arrested in no time flat. The reason you didn't do it then is because it was prohibitively expensive. It is a different world not that requires different measures.

Copyright law, whether you agree with it or not, prohibits such practices whether the medium is analog or digital.

I don't love DRM, but I can understand why it is in place. It is there to protect the artists. Does the RIAA take advantage of artists? Yes, of course. Do we take advantage of artists when we willy-nilly trade MP3s? Yes, of course.

So tell me. If you were a recording artist and you had just learned that you sold 100 albums - but more than 1,00,000 people downloaded it via p2p - wouldn't you be pissed? Wouldn't you want some controls in place to prevent it from happening again? How would you do this without some form of DRM?

Seriously, come up with a way to do this sans DRM and I will retract my previous post and call you Master.

And, again, like I said in my first post, if you don't want to deal with DRM than buy the CD. Different strokes for different folks.

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I didn't loose access to all of my purchased music permanently just the music that I added since I upgraded iTunes. That was three albums worth of music.

I would like to see from Apple.
1. The ability to rebless and reauthorize tracks online when the system gets corrupted.
2. An automatic backup of the iTunes music library
3. Customer support so when the DRM system breaks the DRM vender will help the customer get what is owed to them. Access to the music that they paid for.

I would have no complaints from iTunes Music Store if there was a way for them to fix the broken DRM on the three albums that I lost access to.

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For those who didn't see it, Jake was successful in his attempt to get those tracks back:

http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives/jake_music_drm_is_about_trust_and_it_does_not_trust_you.php

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Ah! I love to see that. Thanks for the link.

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The solution to all of your iTunes related DRM woes:

http://hymn-project.org

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