Yesterday, I was reading through our sister site TV Squad and saw this post about Broadcast Flags that prevent PCs from recording shows. Broadcast flags, which are signals sent in a digital TV data stream, indicate whether shows should or should not be recorded by third party equipment such as PVRs. Curious, I shot off an email to Nick Freeman of Elgato to see whether my Mac-based EyeTV would block flagged recordings.

Turns out that my Macintosh is a libertarian. I can continue recording any shows I receive. Phew.

Not only did Nick get right back to me, he put up this handy info page about Elgato's position on broadcast flags: EyeTV doesn't restrict recording. EyeTV (and Elgato's software in general) ignores voluntary DRM, the kind that asks you to shoot yourself in your own foot if you don't mind thankyouverymuch.

I was blissfully ignorant of these flags until yesterday. In a world of product placement and in-screen logos, does it really make sense to keep people away from watching your shows? It's not as though I don't get the concept -- a return to appointment television where people go to the bathroom during commercial breaks instead of fast forwarding -- but it just struck me as so incredibly brain-dead in its execution.

What a pity that Microsoft chose to support this silliness with Media Center. And bravo to Elgato for deciding not to. What kinds of voluntary DRM can you think up? Let us know in the comments. Mine is broadcast-approved earplugs. Stick them in whenever you encounter sounds that might be copyright.

Over at the Guardian there's an interesting article on How Apple is Changing DRM. While there's not a lot that's new here, it does usefully cover what has happened over the last few years with Digital Rights Management and how DRM has basically come to bite the record companies in the, um, keister.

Way back when the iTunes (Music) Store started, the record companies were clamoring for DRM to protect against Napster and other P2P sharing, and Apple obligingly complied with FairPlay. Over time, as the iPod became the portable device of choice, the record companies basically found themselves beholden to Apple, painted into a corner by that self-same DRM. Now they're giving up DRM on services like Amazon MP3 precisely to get access to the iPod without Apple.

The question for the future of DRM is whether subscription models like Rhapsody will take off and whether a hitherto reluctant Apple might embrace the subscription model as a response to the rise of other DRM-free download stores. In any case the article is worth a read for anybody interested in the future of digital media.

[via Digg]

I don't think anybody likes DRM. Customers certainly don't like it: they want to listen to music and watch video where and when they please. I don't think it's that popular with the content providers, either, because it's not a perfect solution. It might cut down on some piracy, but by no means eliminates it entirely.

DRM has come up recently in a few places, and companies have set up camps at two ends of the spectrum. Amazon.com is doing a booming business selling DRM-free music, sometimes for better prices than at the iTunes Store. On the other hand, we have NBC, who may or may not be partnering with Microsoft to create device software that (somehow) determines if a particular music or video file has been stolen.

As much as I'm sure that both Zune users would appreciate having access to NBC's video library, the problem remains of how exactly Microsoft would do that, aside from splashing giant watermarks across everything. My money's on unicorn tears.

How much more investment will there be in DRM before content providers realize it's an inefficient, ineffective way of deterring piracy? Sound off in comments.

Wow. Good thing that DoubleTwist is waiting in the OS X wings for anyone who wants to rip DRM from their iTunes purchases. Apple just issued a C&D off to the ISP hosting the Hymn-inspired Requiem software. DrmBytes, a hymn moderator, posted that hymn-project.org will no longer allow links to DRM-stripping software, writing "We've complied with the C&D and removed all DRM breaking software from the site."

The Hymn Project was established to allow people to use the music they'd purchased on the device of their choice. DrmBytes suggests you avoid purchasing your music from vendors who mandate DRM. You should still be able to use burn-and-rip solutions like MyTunes and DRM Dumpster for now.

Today's Times Online reports that DVD Jon has introduced new software that allows you to break iTunes DRM and play back your iTunes purchases on any device. Apparently this new anti-DRM software works with an unsual analog-hole. It replays songs in fast-forward and copies the audio track. The Times articles says that this tool can convert about two hundred tracks per hour. More info is at the DoubleTwist site.

At the moment the software is Windows only, but an OS X version is promised soon. Cool and possibly illegal stuff.

After Effects 7 users, take note: there have been some interesting and unfortunate developments with the recent release of the QuickTime 7.4 update. Apparently, it disables After Effects 7 and will not permit users to complete rendering videos. There have been some arguments about what is causing this error, with some claiming it is related to DRM issues (let's hope not), while others claim it is nothing more than a preferences bug.

Nevertheless, you can not revert back to a previous version of QuickTime once you have updated. In short: After Effects 7 users, beware! Avoid the QT7.4 update at all costs, unless you want to deal with a major headache.

The thing about DRM is that there are always exceptions to the rules-- while Apple has released lots of DRM-free music, lots of it is still bogged down by DRM, and if you're like me, you disagree that any music you purchase should be limited in the ways that you use it.

Fortunately, as long as you can hear the music you buy, there'll always be a simple way around the DRM, and 5thirtyone has put together this simple writeup explaining how to break iTunes DRM with a tool you've already got on your Mac: iMovie. Essentially, you load the DRM-ed file as a soundtrack in iMovie, export it as an .aiff file back into iTunes, and then convert it in iTunes back to AAC. Simple enough.

This makes you question why DRM is there in the first place. Sure, the record companies might be pushing it on Apple, but if it's this easy and simple to do, exactly what leg are they standing on to justify it in the first place?

Over at infinite Loop, Former TUAW heavyweight David Chartier posts that Apple will soon be paying a $15 per movie wholesale price to the movie studios. David sees this as Apple caving into Hollywood after a tense face-off.

Me? I see this another way. I don't believe the movie sales over at the iTunes store have been all that hugely successful. With competition from Walmart and weak consumer interest, I think Apple is changing its direction. Instead of movie sales, I'm thinking movie rentals. We've seen evidence for this both on the Mac in the iTunes binary (thanks Evan DiBiase) and on the iPhone (thanks Pumpkin).

Rentals could do a lot for Apple's bottom line. It would re-energize the lagging Apple TV as a platform, it would expand the iPhone's reach as a portable media device, especially for travelers, and it would basically give up on iTunes-distributed buy-to-own movies as an unprofitable but fully explored avenue.

So what do you think? Evil MPAA? Weak Apple? Or a new paradigm on the horizon?

The latest news in the NBC/Apple battle? NBC is going to make their own iTunes. With blackjack! And women! In fact, forget the blackjack and the women-- they're calling it "NBC Direct," and a brand new player (not available on Mac for a little while, go figure) will be used to download and play television shows just as soon as they finish airing on television.

Sounds cool, right? What's the catch? The player is NBC only, and heavy DRM in there keeps it from playing anything else at all, including that scary "stolen copyrighted material." If you're going to use their player, you'll have to watch their shows, or else. I'd make a prediction that someone will hack it to play other stuff, but frankly, who cares. If NBC wants to go play in their own (non-Mac pool) let 'em, I say.

They also say that, in the future, they may even offer download-to-own, rental, and subscription business models. If only there was a well-designed, very established and compatible, widespread piece of software out there that let them easily do that right now. Oh well. Good luck, NBC. Say hi to Tina Fey for me, and tell her I'll see her on bittorrent.

[via MacRumors]

I'm doing screenshots today and I snap a photo of the iPhone video application. Notice anything missing? Like the actual video? What kind of paranoia prevents a screenshots application from photographing video on a platform that shouldn't be doing snapshots in the first place because it's not set up for third party interaction?

Thank you Apple.

p.s. I know. I know. It's probably just hardware acceleration.

There are a few companies who, through their products and services, have earned a special place in my heart. Apple is one (obviously), as well as Amazon, New Balance, Nintendo, and Netflix. Netflix, in case you haven't heard of them, makes money via a subscription model. You pay a monthly fee and that gives you access to their monstrous DVD catalog. Pick a DVD and they'll mail it out to you in a nifty envelope that also serves as a the return envelope.

Alright, so now we all know what Netflix is, why the heck am I blogging about it on TUAW? You might recall that Netflix has recently started streaming movies for members via their website. This feature is called 'Watch Now,' and appears on any movie that has been digitized for streaming. Sadly, this very cool feature is only available for PC users. The dev responsible for this feature posted about why Mac users are left out of all the fun.

It basically comes down to the fact that there is no movie studio approved way to wrap these streams in DRM, so the movie studios won't let it happen on the Mac. FairPlay is mentioned, but as we know Apple isn't licensing that. Luckily, the solution might be coming from an unlikely source: Microsoft. Silverlight, Mircosoft's answer to Flash, uses Microsoft's DRM which the studios do approve of. Silverlight is still in beta (for both Macs and PCs) but it does look very promising (and on my Intel Mac it was pretty peppy).

Thanks, Mike.

Our own Erica was one of the first to discover that personal information is encoded in DRM-free iTunes Plus files. If you want to remove that "watermarking," Playlist Magazine has a solution: TUAW favorite audio editor Fission ($32) from Rogue Amoeba "can strip out the identifying information in an iTunes Plus track without changing the file's audio." Basically, you just open the file then resave it as AAC (Original Format, Lossless) and the non-original format identifying information is not saved. Unfortunately, you have to do this for each file individually, but if you don't want your name and Apple ID in the file, this looks like it'll work (though I haven't tried it myself).

Wow. After all that fuss, it turns out that I don't own a single upgradable EMI track. My cost for bringing my library out of the dark ages and into the brave new DRM-free world? Nothing. At least that's nothing until I go out and buy a $1.29 track later this morning so I can play with the data file and see whether it will play back on my, you know, Zune. Curiously enough I do own EMI plus-worthy tracks (for example, David Bowie's "Life on Mars") but I have not been offered an option to upgrade them.

So here's the challenge: Who of you out there in reader land has the biggest collection of upgradable tracks and how much is iTunes asking you to fork over to pay for those upgrades? Let us know in the comments. The winner gets bragging rights ands we will issue him or her a virtual TUAW huzzah (try saying that three times fast.)

Sure, you can now download music from the iTunes store without DRM but that doesn't mean you should just willy nilly start sharing that music with your friends. For one thing, it's illegal. For another, your account information is embedded into that m4a music file. Don't believe me? Try this yourself.

1. Launch Terminal. You'll need to be comfortable at the command line to perform this check.

2. Navigate to one of your iTunes plus downloads. If you have a US iTunes account, you can download the iTunes plus "Ooh La" single of the week.

3. Use the UNIX "strings" command to look at the text in your data and grep to search for your name. e.g.
strings 01\ Ooh\ La.m4a | grep name
Alternatively, open all the strings in TextEdit:
strings 01\ Ooh\ La.m4a | open -f.

Bottom line: DRM-free doesn't mean that Apple suddenly supports piracy.

If you're stuck at work and can't get away to take a peek at the new iTunes 7.2 update, we've put together this handy gallery of screen shots showing you the new 7.2 features. In iTunes 7.2, you'll find a new link to iTunes Plus in the iTunes Quick Links. Select it and iTunes will prompt you to update preferences (whether to use iTunes plus for your albums whenever possible) and your licensing agreement--that's another agreement on top of the one you had to agree to just to install the program.

TUAW's 7.2 gallery is a work in progress. Expect updates throughout the day as the new features come on line.