Apple Comments On DRM-Free Tags: ‘No Comment’ June 3, 2007
Read more Apple , Digital Audio , MP3 , Music , Online , iPod
Apple has decided to ignore the growing displeasure of certain users of its new DRM-free, iTunes Plus service. I scribbled a bit about this yesterday and while I assumed that Apple would have to comment on why DRM-free music is tagged with a customer’s name, account and email details, I may be disappointed. The company has already declined to comment on the issue to Wired [thanks for the heads-up, Cal].
Instead, it pointed them to a Jupiter Research analyst, Michael Gartenberg, who had been fully briefed on iTunes Plus. He said it could be used for proof of purchase tracking, prevent piracy, or facilitate upgrades through identifying existing tunes that could upgraded.
"In terms of sharing files, you're not legally permitted to do that anyway," he said. "You weren't supposed to that in the first place. You've technically violated the service agreement. Just because you've taken away the locks on the doors doesn't mean you can walk into someone's house and walk away with the TV set."
The privacy set are not amused. Fred von Lohmann, a senior intellectual property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, commented:
“There's absolutely no reason that it had to be embedded, unencrypted and in the clear. Some of the privacy problems, in light of this, is that anyone who steals an iPod that includes purchased iTunes music will now have the name and e-mail address of its rightful owner.”
Expect this to run for sometime and maybe, just maybe, Apple will someday deign to tell us peasants [a.k.a. customers] what’s actually going on. -Martin Lynch
[Wired]
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
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Comments
Given the amount of underground surveillance of all people at all levels by various parties, this is no surprise. Like cctv footage, the question is always the same, who has access to the information and what are their intentions with any information, and what access do we have, as the subject of said information, to it.
If Apple have this infomation embedded then they should be up front with their intentions or remove it
hold on ALL ITMS songs have your account details even the DRM'd ones, just Get Info there it is name account and time of purchase.
What's new then!
What's new is that people don't necessarily like this "infringement", and the fact that the extra 20p is only going as far as removing DRM. Privacy not only from Apple but from others is up for debate, given that presumably it takes no more than an import into iTunes, a Command-I and a look at the summary tab to access the details of the purchaser. While the iTMS username is presumably the only thing it displays, it's worth remembering that AOL accounts can also be used, meaning the third party has only to suffix the purchaser's Apple ID with @aol.co.uk or @aol.com, thereby leaving them prone to hacking, phishing and spamming. It's long-winded, but the potential is there and I think that's what worries people.
And no problem :) Thanks for the mention!