4 ms·
This is the sort of reason I buy my stuff from Amazon / 7digital. The mp3 container format has no provision for DRM so it cannot be abused.
by meaty 14y ago
This is the sort of reason I buy my stuff from Amazon / 7digital. The mp3 container format has no provision for DRM so it cannot be abused.
- Livven 14y agoWell yeah theoretically you're safer but Apple announced that iTunes music would become completely DRM-free back in 2009. And they've kept their promise, up until now that is. I don't think anybody thought they'd sneak it back in. I was really surprised when I found out they did. Hope it's just a glitch they'll fix soon.
- meaty 14y agoYes I was there then - in fact I had a load of DRM'ed tracks from iTunes back when I owned an iPod. Why would you trust Apple not to do it though? They haven't exactly been trustworthy on any front over the years.
- ubernostrum 14y agoTwo odd things: 1. The report is only that the files have the 'm4p' extension. There seems to be no-one confirming that the files actually have DRM, just that they have the extension the old DRM'd files used to have. 2. Reports of people being able to convert to m4a from within iTunes. A DRM system that has a "remove the DRM from this file" option... isn't DRM. Which makes me wonder whether they're just the same normal non-DRM'd files, but being offered up with the wrong extension.
- Livven 14y agoIndeed, see the update. It's just a fle extension mistake.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoThat makes absolutely no sense. Apple wants us to buy music, it's not going to deliberately serve us the worst parts of a song so that we can't judge whether to buy it.
- michaelfeathers 14y agoI wonder whether there is a hidden clause in the EULA. If not, this could be legal trouble.
- rickmb 14y agoJust to be sure I checked Amazon before writing my "pro piracy" rant elsewhere. It's a) not available in my country, and b) between any specific mp3 offering and telling me the usual "fuck of, you're from the wrong country", and no point does Amazon inform me about the nature and quality of the download, other than the mp3 format. Yeah, I can infer the fact that it is non-DRM from the mp3 format, but other than that it's still shadier and less informative than the average piracy side. Not to mention insulting and utterly useless to me and 16 million fellow countrymen in one of the richest Western nations, were, oh surprise, piracy rules.
- meaty 14y agoJust pirate it then. To be honest, I download the track elsewhere always and pay for it if I think it's worth it and delete it if it's not. You can't tell much from a 30 second clip most of the time, especially when the motivation is still to produce albums filled with padding (shit). They need to just release singles and do away with the whole album principle. As for quality - if you want that, you need to buy the damn CD and rip it how you want. Most of the decent quality mp3 rips are rubbish enough to notice if you have a high end setup but for casual/normal users and ears, it's fine.
- Kudos 14y agoThe clips have been 90 seconds for a long time.
- meaty 14y agoUsually the worst 90 second example which is my point.
- entropy_ 14y agoI honestly like the album format. But then, that's because most artists I really like tend to have coherent albums that are best listened to as a whole(eg, Pink Floyd or Dream Theater). I agree that for most music the album format doesn't make sense. But for some, a set of 5 minute singles just doesn't do it for me, I like longer pieces that all tie in together.