The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Legally Downloading Music From The Internet Greg Eden

Despite what the movies and TV would have you believe, the Apple iPod is not the only digital music player in the world. I would never own one. Why? There is nothing technically wrong with them, it is the Apple's use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) that annoys me. If you purchase music from iTunes it has Apple DRM embedded in it. This is fine until you want to buy a new player that is not made by Apple, then bad luck, all of your purchases are now useless. They will only play on an iPod. I am up to my fourth player, and luckily none were iPods.

Folk hero or industry villain Jon Lech Johansen, better known as DVD Jon, has started a company' to address this issue. His software will allow other companies to sell music for the iPod, and iTunes purchased songs to play on other players. With everyone suing everyone else it will be a brave company that uses his software and face possible litigation from Apple.

Music downloaded from other online Music Stores contains other forms of DRM. The most common version of DRM is embedded in Microsoft encoded "wma" files. You must use Windows Media Player to control your player, and your player must support "Play for Sure". At least you have a wider choice of brands and updated players. Some suppliers actually "rent" the songs and if you stop your subscription the songs will actually stop playing.

The only true universally accepted format is unencrypted MP3 files. MP3 will play on all players. No wonder illegal downloading of music is so popular, no mucking about. The songs just play.

But it's illegal.

The Federal Government is promising to legislate to legalize the encoding of your own CDs to your own music player, for personal use. This is a great advance. Buy CDs and encode them to MP3 yourself and tell the industry what you think of the current situation by boycotting their so-called services.

Now if like me you use Linux, then almost the entire music industry would like to lock you out and ignore you. Encoding your own CDs and piracy are almost the only choices. Then you discover that many players will not work with Linux as they require Windows Media Player to function. These players use the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) specification. Of course the Linux crowd have written their own drivers for Creative and Apple players to allow the transfer of your own music to the player, but these drivers cannot work with DRM.

However, there are many players that still operate as "mass storage devices" or MSC4, that is they work like a USB key. Plug them in and they load as a
new drive — no drivers required. Some players can be converted from MTP by re-flashing the player's BIOS to make it an MSC device. Of course, if you do this, many DRM WMA files won't transfer to the player any more. Many manufactures offer alternate firmware for this purpose. My current player is an iRiver H340 (now no longer sold), which is a superb music player, that also supports the Open Source OGG music format, and functions as an MSC device. I have installed the Rockboxs operating system on it to enhance functionality.

Now all is not doom and gloom. The worlds second biggest6 legal music provider (after iTunes) is eMusic'. eMusic is an American based provider of high quality DRM free MP3s. eMusic is happy to provide a service to Australians, and even Linux users can buy music. Some functionality is denied Linux users such as the Internet Explorer Toolbar, but this is of little consequence. I keep nagging for a Firefox extension — eventually we will get one. The music industry will not allow eMusic to have current Top 40 and popular music. However, if you are a 3 Triple R (102.7) style independent/alternate music lover then eMusic is a gold mine. There is also a huge amount of classical, jazz, blues, folk and a surprising number of well known artists (but not current big names) who obviously support the eMusic model. A basic account is $US9.90 (about $13.70) a month for thirty downloads - use them or loose them. This works out at 30c US per track. Visit their Web site and have a look around and see if they have your kind of music.

The success of eMusic, even though denied the most popular music, should tell the industry that the consumer does not want their DRM.

About the Author
Greg Eden is a longtime Melb PC member, Linux user and alternate music lover. grege@melbpc.org.au
 
Reprinted from the December 2006 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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