CPS 182s DRM Assignment

2006-03-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

ripTunes 1.0 is here!

ripTunes 1.0 has been completed and is available for download.

ripTunes is the automatic ripping tool that we previously planned to write. Like we promised, ripTunes automates this process by using the iTunes COM interface to automatically play songs one by one from a playlist, while executing other command line tools that take care of the ripping and tagging. Although it simplifies the ripping process, everything is still done in real time :(...

Installation
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Just extract the contents of the binaries zip file to any folder (or build the source code).

Preparing your computer for ripping
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Because ripTunes will record any sound your computer makes, you must make sure nothing else in the background is making sounds. Remember to exit any programs that might make sounds, change the sound scheme to "No Sounds" (in the Sounds section in the Control Panel), and double click on the volume control and mute everything but "Wave".

ripTunes automatically unmutes iTunes and sets the iTunes volume to 100% for you.

How to rip music from iTunes with ripTunes
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1) Make a playlist with the songs you want to deprotect.

2) Run ripTunes

3) Select the playlist you want to rip, the bitrate, and the audio source to record from (usually Wave Out, Stereo Mix, Wave Mix, etc.)

4) Click "Rip"

5) Pick the directory you want the final mp3s to be saved in.

6) A progress indicator will pop up showing the total time and currently completed time. A command line window will pop up showing the progress for the current song being ripped.

7) Leave iTunes alone. Leave your computer alone. Wait a long time.

8) ripTunes will tell you when it's done.

If you need to cancel the ripping process for any reason, all completely ripped songs will be left intact (phew!). If ripTunes is in the middle of ripping a song, and you cancel the rip, the incomplete mp3 file will be deleted.

ripTunes is released under the GPL (ripTunes_LICENSE.TXT)

This program uses the following external programs:

Bleucanard Sound Capture (http://www.bleucanard.co.uk/bin/SoundCapture.zip)
id3 mass tagger (http://home.wanadoo.nl/squell/id3.html), by Marc R. Schoolderman

Bleucanard SoundCapture uses lame_enc.dll (http://lame.jthz.com/), from the LAME project (http://lame.sourceforge.net/) which is distributed under the LGPL

Licensing information for id3 mass tagger and LAME are in id3_COPYING.txt and LAME_COPYING.txt, respectively.

I would like to thank all the people who spent time working on the above mentioned programs.
-- Congyi

2006-03-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

Tech Update

Congyi has written most of the script for our turnkey solution. Here is the status of our program according to him:

It automatically plays and rips whatever iTunes playlist you tell it to and copies over all the tags and stuff. It doesn't distinguish between m4p's, mp3's, encrypted music, videos, etc... It will rip sound from anything that itunes plays heheh. If you only want to rip DRMed files, all you have to do is put them in a playlist in iTunes. Easy. The program seems to work fine but I haven't tested it a whole lot. I will probably add a progress bar/ time remaining indicator and stop after that unless there are major bugs.

2006-03-10T08:39:00.000-08:00

The Technical Side of Things...

Tried burning mp3 cd with protected songs in iTunes... not allowed... iTunes only lets you burn unprotected files as mp3s

Burning as data cd/dvd works with drm'ed files, but the drm is still there.

Burning an audio cd to an image to the hard drive and ripping from that would be faster than real time, but the ONLY virtual CDRW program I could find (I looked hard) was Ztekware's Original CD Emulator. It doesn't work with iTunes... gave error 4310. Others on internet confirming that Orig CD Emulator doesn't work with iTunes.

This sucks because if it did work it would have been easy and fast.

Jhymn and sharpmusique are supposed to stop working permanently when you start using itunes 6 because itunes 6 uses a fixed up protocol and format that jhymn and sharpmusique cant understand. your account is supposed to be flagged so that apple wont let u buy songs if u downgrade back to an older version...

I installed iTunes 6 so I could be sure that I was actually deprotecting a song that jhymn couldn't deprotect already... After buying a new song from itunes 6, jhymn still works for some reason, so does sharpmusique. Maybe it takes awhile for apple to flag your account, but I still thought it was weird.

We will most likely be using the commandline sound capturer + script method that we originally planned on using.

The idea is to write a program to get an iTunes playlist and play the songs in order automatically. When the song starts, the program will run the sound capturer, telling it to record an mp3 of the current wave output until the song ends. The script will use the iTunes COM SDK to get the title, artist etc, which will be added to the mp3 file as an ID3 v2 tag. The script tells itunes to play the next song, and the cycle continues until all the songs have been converted.

I already have experience with the iTunes COM SDK. I will probably program everything in C#.

Bleucanard Sound Capture
(bleucanard.mark1hosting.net/scripts/blueduck.php?Multimedia) is our lucky command line sound capture tool. It captures directly to mp3!

The sound capture tool doesn't have support for artist and album tags, etc., so we will be using the id3lib library to add the tags (http://id3lib.sourceforge.net/).

Drawbacks of this method:

*loss of sound quality due to lossy re-encoding. Using a lossless codec would solve this problem, but most mp3 players don't support lossless audio. Using a higher bitrate mp3 should be fine, though not perfect.

*Ripping a full 10+ gigs of songs would take weeks since everything is done at 1x. Fortunately, most people don't have $2,000+ to spend on iTunes music.

*No other sounds can be played in the background (on the same soundcard at least or they will get recorded too.

-- Congyi

2006-03-10T08:22:00.000-08:00

The Legality of Our Project

We will be going with the "legal" approach using the clause in the DMCA that allows DRM circumvention for academic purposes. However, examples of legitmate research being stymied by the DMCA will be dicussed, including the lawsuits filed by the Secure Digital Music Initiative against a Princeton University research team. These lawsuits never reached the courts (some being settled), however, the legal nature of the threat and the burden that it places on researches is certainly a matter of interest to us in our iTunes research. Whether or not they have a justifiable case, a group with a lot of money can threaten small researchers with the DMCA suits to "shut them up" because of the researchers' fears of being involved in a financially costly legal battle, even if they are in the right. This is a pretty immoral thing to do with laws in my opinion, but it happens all the time, perhaps our ethicist will delve into that issue further. Other cases include Chamberland vs. Skylink and Universal vs. Reimerdes, two of the first uses of the DMCA in court.

As another matter of interest, I will be looking at the ways in which the DMCA violates the standards of copyright use upheld before it was enacted, and at congressional intent in passing the DMCA vs. its actual consequences. In essence, deciding if the DMCA is a "bad law" in a stricter sense than "we all hate it".

-- Katie

2006-03-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

FAIR USE

What is fair use?

Fair use is a part of US copyright law that allows the “legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work” (Wikipedia). Essentially it allows others to use copies of a copyrighted work for commentary, criticism, teaching, news reporting, scholarship, or research. Furthermore the copied work may not be used for profit or any other commercial purpose without consent of the original holder. There are also limits to the amount of the original copy that can be replicated; however this varies by medium. Even if the material is unpublished (but still copyrighted) these rules apply. Parody is also an essential part of fair use. One is allowed to use copyrighted images in a satirical way; however one may not use them in an ordinary way (such as simply reprinting). Another subjective measure of fair use is whether the copy has an effect on the original art, where if the copy harms the copyright holder’s market then it would not be allowed.

There exist several common misunderstandings about fair use which will be addressed.

Although something is copyrighted it can still be used (under fair use).
If a work is not copyrighted then one does not have to follow fair use rules.
Acknowledging a source alone is not considered fair use, more must be done.

Why is our project considered “fair use”?

Our DRM project falls under fair use rules as it is used for scholastic, research, and teaching purposes. This project is an assignment for Duke University’s Computer Science 182 Class – Technical and Social Analysis of Information. Although we may be violating traditional copyright laws if this project was non-academic, since we are doing this as a part of a class project with a purpose it should be considered fair use. The goal of this project is to analyze how effective Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes DRM is (more information about DRMs in our Technical Section). After purchasing copyrighted songs (legally) through iTunes we will try to find a way to override their copy-protections, so that downloaded songs may be accessed by the user without any limitations (such as number of times allowed to burn, copy, etc.).

Who does our project benefit?

Our project is designed to benefit the group by increasing our understanding of DRM systems. As we do not intend to distribute or sell our process to remove iTunes DRM projection, we are not violating any copyright laws by making a profit.

Who does our project hurt?

Since this project is done for a class and we are not distributing our work then it will not hurt anyone. We are legally purchasing the iTunes songs, so the artists/record labels receive money from us. We are not releasing the DRM-free songs so we are not distributing copyrighted songs. We are not making a profit nor infringing any copyrights, therefore no one loses money and no one is hurt.

Is what we are doing ethical?

We believe it is. As this project is done for teaching/scholastic/research purposes, then it is under fair use, and is therefore legal. Because it does not hurt anyone it is not unethical. No party loses out from what we are doing, and furthermore some parties (for example iTunes) may even benefit from finding weaknesses in current DRM systems. The group and the class also benefit from this project learning about DRMs.

-- Symon

2006-03-06T22:58:00.000-08:00

Update:
Katie is beginning to research laws involving DRM and circumvention. She is also going to look at two circumvention programs: myTunes and Hymn, and will decide if they are legal.

Congyi is continuing to explore the technicalities of our turnkey solution. He will decide which program we will use to remove restricions from songs, and will begin planning how he will implement our one-click program.

Symon will explore 'fair-use' and will decide whether our project is ehtical in its academic context. He has provided us with some preliminary screenshots of a user running iTunes along with the program MP3MyMP3 to convert purchased music to MP3 format.

/* It should be noted that Congyi will most likely be using a different program that MP3MyMP3 to crack our music, but we wanted to give users a quick view of what such a process might look like with the following screenshots */

Purchase a song in iTunes

Play that song in iTunes while recording it with MP3MyMP3

Save a copy of the song in MP3 format

Alex has just added this post, and now can go to sleep.

2006-03-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

Our group has made the decision to go with iTunes version of this DRM assignment. Several of us are already familiar with removing the DRM from purchased songs, but we wish to explore this futher. We ultimately plan to create a script that will allow users to remove restricitons on such audio files with one click of the mouse.

We have given each member of the group the following position:

Alex - Blogger Guru

Symon - Ethicist and Ombudsman

Congyi - Technical Liason

Katie - Legal Consultant

Coming soon... A case law relevant to this topic & progress on our turnkey solution.