The last 15 minutes of this week’s Engadget podcast features an interview with me ranting about DRM:
Engadget Podcast.24 03.29.2005—Digital video camcorders, readers’ choice for digital cameras; PSP usability quirks; LCD quality levels and defect types; what Apple critics are forgetting in the iTunes/Pymusique battle (C.K. Sample from TUAW joins in); bonus: two videos—an Acterna WinXP embedded Tablet and an Anritsu Sitemaster; plus who is co-hosting starting next week?
Go download it, fast forward to 15 minutes in to hear me begin, then take a drink every time I stumble or say “um.” It’s the new drinking game craze that’s sweeping the nation!
After it’s all done, go read the comments and marvel at how much people hate me. It’s great!
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
C.K. you umm… rock!
Hi there. On the show you talked about the iTMS DRM issue, preventing you from authorizing a purchase of yours on your wife’s Mac. It’s worthwhile to remind you that her Mac can have multiple authorizations — one to play the file you purchased on your account, and one to play the music she purchased on her account. Yes, this will take up one of your five allowed authorizations, but at least the system works without any necessary “lossy” conversions.
Sure, one could circumvent DRM by burning to CD and re-ripping. And of course Hymn (and jHymn) are viable alternatives for stripping DRM losslessly.
But in your case, circumventing DRM isn’t even necessary. Your diatribe seemed to imply that authorizing your wife’s Mac with your iTMS account would somehow “disable” her iTMS authorization… it does not.
Hi, Josh,
Weird. Last time we tried it, it disabled the authorization of all of her songs. I’ll give it a shot again and see what happens and report back here.
Also, even if this is resolved, it doesn’t change the fact that having to authorize the computer at all is still an annoyance and an unnecessary inconvenience.
“Also, even if this is resolved, it doesn’t change the fact that having to authorize the computer at all is still an annoyance and an unnecessary inconvenience.”
Indeed – I’ll agree with you there. Sadly, I see it as a necessary inconvenience. Of all the DRM schemes, Apple’s does seem to be the most liberal. And without it, who’s to say the record labels would have allowed us to get this far?
Let us know if you’re able to have those multiple authorizations… I know I can, here on my Macs…