UNINNOVATE / Engineering At Its Finest

Yesterday, I reported on the battle between Microsoft and the hacker known as Viodentia:

Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, used by online music stores like Rhapsody.com and Napster.com, was recently cracked by a hacker known as Viodentia. In response, Microsoft released a patch to fix the hole. Viodentia struck back within days with a new version of his application to bypass PlaysForSure DRM that works even with Microsoft’s patch. Microsoft retaliated with a second patch and today filed a lawsuit against Viodentia. Unfortunately, Microsoft has no idea who Viodentia is and had to file the lawsuit against “John Does 1-10″

Microsoft stuck in endless DRM battle with Hacker

The premise of the post was that DRM is impossible to secure, so this back-and-forth battle would continue indefinately. Yesterday’s post ended with a prediction:

But for now, the battle continues without an end in sight. Viodentia has already announced that a new verison of his program will be available within days to work around Microsoft’s latest patch. A response from Microsoft soon after is all but assured.

Microsoft stuck in endless DRM battle with Hacker

Well, less than 24 hours after that post and only 4 days after Microsoft notified it’s partners about it’s last patch, Viodentia struck back. Today, he released FairUseWM 1.3 that once again breaks Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, even with the latest patches applied. Before most of online music services that use this DRM system were even able to distribute Microsoft’s newest patch, the DRM is again broken.
I feel bad for the programmers at Microsoft who are no doubt being forced to work “around the clock” again in an attempt to patch this.

technorati tags:microsoft, playsforsure, fairusewm, viodentia

Most online music stores employ some form of DRM to attempt to prevent customers from making unauthorized copies of music they have purchased. However, DRM systems are impossible to completely secure and are usually cracked within a few months of release.

Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, used by online music stores like Rhapsody.com and Napster.com, was recently cracked by a hacker known as Viodentia. In response, Microsoft released a patch to fix the hole. Viodentia struck back within days with a new version of his application to bypass PlaysForSure DRM that works even with Microsoft’s patch. Microsoft retaliated with a second patch and today filed a lawsuit against Viodentia. Unfortunately, Microsoft has no idea who Viodentia is and had to file the lawsuit against “John Does 1-10″.

According to public statements by Viodentia, he does not live in the United States. Many other countries don’t have laws against bypassing DRM systems, so Viodentia may not have broken any laws in his home country and may not be in danger of prosecution. It is likely that he will be free to continue updating his FairUseWM program to work around Microsoft’s latest patches.

Yesterday, Engadget was able to interview Viodentia. He agrees that Microsoft has no way to completely secure it’s DRM system:

Is it possible for [Microsoft] to repair PlaysForSure without totally starting over?

As soon as I release something, Microsoft can certainly patch around it. I can do the same. I don’t believe that either of us has a nuclear option.

Interview with Viodentia at Engadget

Microsoft claims that it has no choice but to continue to fight this battle. They claim that they will be driven out of business if they can’t protect music their partners sell with DRM. However, there is good evidence to refute this claim. Emusic.com doesn’t use DRM to protect the music it sells, yet it has been far more successful in the marketplace than any store that uses Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM system.
Viodentia seems to agree. In the interview, he suggested that his application might allow online music stores to see that DRM protection is not what makes their services valuable:

I think FairUse4WM is a good thing for the industry — it demonstrates that the entire world doesn’t turn upside down when there’s no effective protection on content. I doubt subscription based services are impacted — programs exploiting the analog hole were already widely spamvertised. The value of a subscription is the continuing access to new titles, which isn’t dependent on the protection. I wonder if any subscription company will publicly admit that FairUse4WM was good for
them.
Interview with Viodentia at Engadget

But for now, the battle continues without an end in sight. Viodentia has already announced that a new verison of his program will be available within days to work around Microsoft’s latest patch. A response from Microsoft soon after is all but assured.

technorati tags:microsoft, playsforsure, fairusewm, viodentia

The Internet Archive is an effort to preserve culture in the digital age. As more and more of our music, writing, and general human knowledge is shared online, it is at risk of disappearing when files are deleted or hard drives fail. In an attempt to preserve history, the Internet Archive is buiding a historical record which is available for free to everyone:

Libraries exist to preserve society’s cultural artifacts and to provide access to them. If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it’s essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world.

The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet (a new medium with major historical significance) and other “born-digital” materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come.

Internet Archive: About IA

While this all sounds very abstract and lofty, the Internet Archive is actually very accessible and practical. For fans of live music, the Internet Archive provides the largest online collection of concert recordings available anywhere. All of the recordings are free to download (in compressed or lossless formats) and are completely legal and DRM-free. Only bands and artists that support free trading of live shows are archived and copyright is respected.

There are many great recordings available, but digging through the nearly 40,000 concerts from over 2,000 bands archived is a daunting task. Here are some starting points:

• Pop fans will probably like Jack Johnson and Gavin DeGraw.
• Fans of indie rock will jump right to bands like Ween, The Decemberists, Spoon, or My Morning Jacket.
• Fans of singer/songwriters will want to check out Ryan Adams and Elliott Smith.
• Rock fans have a lot of choices with bands like Death Cab for Cutie, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, and even Jack Black’s Tenacious D.
• Fans of jam bands rarely have a hard time finding concert recordings online, but there are more here than anywhere else: String Cheese Incident, Keller Williams, O.A.R., Phil Lesh, etc.

This is just the beginning of what the Live Music Archive offers. If you like live music, this is an incomparable resource. You don’t want to miss it.

technorati tags:internet, archive, archive.org, live, music, drm-free

Today, a proof-of-concept emulator was released that allows owners of a PlayStation Portable (or PSP for short) to play games released for the original PlayStation One (PS1):

Yoshihiro has released the first public release of his PSX-P Playstation One emulator for the PSP. This first public release is a good demonstration of what could be in time an excellent Playstation Emulator for the PSP.

PSX-P Beta 1 Released - Playstation Emulator for PSP

Sony, the maker of both the PSP and PS1, does not allow emulators or other so-called homebrew software to run on its systems. Throughout the life of the PSP, Sony has been engaged in a cat-and-mouse game of releasing updates to disable software it hasn’t authorized from running on the PSP. This effort has largely proved fruitless for Sony as creators of homebrew software have always succeeded in overcoming Sony’s attempts to block their software.

Many PSP owners have criticised Sony for expending so much effort to lock them out of the devices that they have purchased. Unlike a desktop computer or laptop, owners of a PSP are not allowed to create their own custom software or modify the PSP system in any way. Any programs not verified by Sony will not run on the device unless a hacker finds a way to break Sony’s software locks. When this happens, Sony will release a new version of the PSP firmware (system software) that patches the vulnerability the hacker discovered. Users are forced to upgrade to the new PSP firmware if they want to play the newest PSP games.

This is a classic example of uninnovation. Even after a user buys a PSP, Sony will not let them write their own software for it. Whenever someone figures out a way to write software for the PSP, Sony has its programmers disable that ability in the next update. In an attempt to demonstrate the comical lengths Sony will go to prevent customers from using something own in they way that they want, below is a list of each PSP update and the hack that followed it.

Sony and its attempts to lock users out of their PSPs:

March 2005

• PSP Released in America. Firmware version is 1.00.
• PSP version 1.50 released by Sony.

May 2005

• A method discovered to run homebrew software on PSP version 1.00.
• PSP version 1.51 released by Sony.

June 2005

• A method discovered to run homebrew software on PSP version 1.50.
• PSP version 1.52 released by Sony.

August 2005

• PSP version 2.00 released by Sony.

September 2005

• A method discovered to run homebrew software on PSP version 2.00.

October 2005

• PSP version 2.01 released by Sony.
• PSP version 2.50 released by Sony.

November 2005

• PSP version 2.60 released by Sony.

December 2005

• A method discovered to run homebrew software on PSP versions up to 2.60.

April 2006

• PSP version 2.70 released by Sony.

June 2006

• PSP version 2.71 released by Sony.

August 2006

• PSP version 2.80 released by Sony.
• A method discovered to run homebrew software on PSP versions up to 2.80.

September 2006

• PSP version 2.81 released by Sony.

Summary:

• Number of PSP versions, including 1.00: 12
• Number of PSP updates that purposely broke homebrew support: 11
• Number of PSP updates solely intended to prevent homebrew: 4 (1.51, 1.52, 2.01, 2.81)
• Longest amount of time the newest firmware prevented homebrew: 4 months

Only PSP owners who have updated to version 2.81 cannot currently patch their PSP to run homebrew software. If the past is any indication, a hack to allow homebrew on 2.81 will follow shortly and Sony will then release a new software update to disable it.

Sony claims that it must continue this endless battle with its users in order to prevent massive piracy of PSP games. However, PSP piracy has continued mostly unfettered while legitimate homebrew development has been frustrated which has created widespread resentment of Sony in that community. Instead of spending nearly endless programmer time locking out users, Sony should focus work on a more positive solution (like Microsoft has done with XNA Game Studio) and encourage legal uses of homebrew software.

technorati tags:sony, psp, playstation, portable, emulator, homebrew

The Philadelphia Orchestra launched a new online music store today.  Based on the nugs.net music platform designed to deliver downloads of concert recordings, the new store offers live performances going as far back as 1961.

Unlike the popular Apple iTunes Store, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s store offers DRM-free downloads in a choice of either MP3 or FLAC format.  The MP3 files are smaller, but the FLAC files offer lossless compression for the best sound quality.  The music store works with all operating systems and most full performances are priced at $5 for MP3 files and a dollar more for FLAC files.  Downloads can be burned to CDs without any limitations and printable CD art is provided:

What do I get?


After completing the purchase process you may download the entire performance or album in the format you’ve chosen. For those who wish to burn the performances to CD, we have created for many of our performances printable PDF files for the CD labels, booklet, and tray liner. The color files are printable on ink-jet and laser printers, and use NEATO templates.

The Philadelphia Orchestra - Online Music Store

One of the most exciting features of the store is that recent performances will be available for download online within hours or days of the original performance:

This service allows fans to buy and download files of soundboard recordings from current Philadelphia Orchestra performances very soon after the performance has happened. These audio recordings are mixed and mastered each night by the Orchestra’s sound engineers.

The Philadelphia Orchestra - Online Music Store

To celebrate the store opening, the Philadelphia Orchestra is offering a free download of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony performed September 24, 2005.  In addition, nugs.net, the technology provider for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s online store, has an online archive of over 200 free concert downloads from bands such as Phish, The Grateful Dead, and Widespread Panic.

technorati tags:philadelphia, orchestra, mp3, flac, phish, gratefuldead, widespreadpanic, itunes

According to an online summary of an interview with Kanzunori Yamauchi appearing in the latest issue of Famitsu magazine, Gran Turismo HD for Sony’s Playstation 3 won’t include any cars to race or tracks to race them on:

Gran Turismo HD: Classic is what adopts the GT:HD playable demo at E3 and meant to showcase the online aspect. A race is done with about 20 cars. Apparently this part starts with no cars or courses. You download a car for 50 - 100 yen (0.43 - 0.85$) and a course for 200 - 500 yen (1.71 - 4.26$). Over 750 cars and 50 tracks are available for purchase. Users can define race events freely and can hold online race events by themselves.

GT HD Premium = GT5 Prologue | GT HD Classic = GT:HD at E3 - Beyond3D Forum

While these details can’t be confirmed until Sony or the developer of Gran Turismo makes an official statement, it appears users will be expected to purchase each car and track separately.  Additional details in the interview summary outline Sony’s plan to create demand for cars by limiting the number of downloads available for particular models or only offering certain models for a limited amount of time.

While this strategy might appear shocking to some, Sony has been working towards this all along.  In an interview in June 2006, the president of Sony Worldwide Studios hinted at this plan:

“Imagine Gran Turismo shipping on a disc with one car and one track. And then you can browse, online, a dynamic circuit of vehicles that’s growing every day because either the car manufacturers are adding new vehicles or we’re adding new vehicles. And you can see a specific-type car that’s being called up and say, “I think I’ll play with that one. Let me download and play it.” Maybe the business model allows you to play it for a day; maybe the business model allows you to own it forever.”

The Overlord: Phil Harrison Talks Sony, PS3 and the Future from 1UP.com

Unfortunately, there is no mention of a plan to allow gamers to resell purchased content if they ever sell their copy of Gran Turismo HD to someone else.  If Sony follows a similar model as Microsoft and ties all downloads to the user account that purchased them, users who resold the game to someone else would be stuck with useless content while the purchaser of the game would have to buy the same content again from Sony.  Without the extra content, there is nothing to do in the game.  In effect, Sony would be dismantling the market for used games by using DRM to lock downloads to individual users and making the games themselves nearly worthless. 

technorati tags:playstation, ps3, gran, turismo, hd

Sprint, in an effort to build hype, sent free LG Fusic phones to several bloggers. Joel Spolsky was one of those selected and he posted a very negative review of the phone. He points out that features are buried in menus and hard to use, MP3 playback is poorly designed, and that the fit and finish of the device leaves a lot to be desired. Other reviews on the net seem to be more favorable, however Joel’s complaints about the confusing interface have been echoed elsewhere.

While the overall quality of the phone is still under debate, Joel’s review highlighted one particularly insideous anti-feature. The phone can only play back MP3s when it has a cell signal, possibly to verify the authenticity of the music:

Put back the battery. Turn on the phone. Go into the MP3 player again. There’s no signal, and, guess what? You can’t get into to the MP3 player unless you can establish a network connection to the Sprint Music Store. Even to play your own MP3s!

OK, so this is an MP3 player that doesn’t really work on the subway and won’t work on a plane, the two places I’m most likely to listen to MP3s. Not very appealing.

Joel on Software

In what appears to be an effort to thwart ring tone piracy, the MP3 player only operates when the phone can talk back to Sprint. Unfortunately, this limits it’s usefulness in places where there is no consistent cell coverage, like subways, rural areas, and planes.

technorati tags:lg, fusic, mp3

Hollywood Records, owned by Disney, is going to sell Jesse McCartney’s new album “Right Where You Want Me” on Yahoo! Music as unprotected MP3 files. This is Yahoo’s second experiment with paid MP3 downloads, following the Yahoo! Music’s release of Jessica Simpson’s latest single as an unprotected MP3.

While Emusic.com, the second largest online music retailer, offers all of it’s music as unprotected MP3 files, they don’t have any music from the major labels. Until now, the major labels have insisted on DRM protection on all online music sales. Emusic has used this as a competitive advantage because it allows them to sell music that plays on Apple’s iPod while most other DRM-protected music isn’t iPod-compatible. Yahoo! Music has taken notice and is hoping to gain the same advantage:

Yahoo! is looking to end Apple’s and Microsoft’s [sic] dominance of the technology behind online music.

In a first for mainstream pop music, Yahoo! will sell Jesse McCartney’s new album “Right Where You Want Me,” from Disney-owned Hollywood Records, in the unprotected MP3 format.

That means consumers will be able to play it on any digital music device, including Apple’s iPod. MP3 files are the only type that will play on an iPod besides those downloaded from iTunes.

Variety.com - Yahoo tests ‘Right’ to MP3 downloads

While Emusic has shown the business potential of selling unprotected MP3s, it’s audience is older and more likely to care about file format. With Jesse McCartney, Yahoo! Music is testing the viability of MP3s with a mainstream teen act. This will act as a test case for future MP3 offerings:

Labels and Netcos will be watching sales of the album, which Yahoo! will promote heavily throughout its network of Web sites to see whether consumers are more interested in buying unprotected MP3 files and whether it has any impact on piracy.

Variety.com - Yahoo tests ‘Right’ to MP3 downloads

Interestingly, Yahoo! Music is the driver behind these experiments, not the label. They understand that DRM doesn’t make business sense and are trying to bring the labels along with them:

Exploring ways the music industry could help move the pay market forward, Dave asks the labels to lighten the DRM requirements. “DRM is not a consumer value proposition, it’s a consumer cost. It creates a nice barrier of entry for the tech companies, rather than something that’s beneficial to labels, artists, or consumers.”

Yahoo! Music Blog » Dave Goldberg to Record Labels: No DRM, Please

The future of major-label MP3 downloads, at least in the near term, may depend on the success of this experiment. It will be interesting to see how the public at large responds to this offer.

technorati tags:mp3, downloads, itunes, emusic, yahoo!, jesse, mccartney, hollywood, records

While most companies are looking for new ways to add DRM to their products or launching increasingly restrictive online media services, a select few are taking a radical approach: giving the people what they want.

Pandora.com is a new online music service.  Users who visit the web page type in a band or song they like and Pandora uses that as a starting point to find more music that the users might enjoy.   The creators of Pandora have spent the last six years creating a detailed catalog of music they call the Music Genome Project.  Using this information, they are able find new songs you might like based on your existing favorites:

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it’s about what each individual song sounds like.

Discover Music through The Music Genome Project by Pandora

This idea might sound like a gimmick, but it works incredibly well.  Just point your browser to pandora.com and type in a song or artist you enjoy.  Pandora will create a “station” for that style of music and within moments you will be listening to music.  Pandora has a huge selection of music to pull from and does quite well at identifying tastes after a few hours of play.  You can create up to 100 different stations to fit your different moods and tastes.  Hook your stereo up to your computer and you are in for hours of musical joy.

Pandora has been getting rave reviews across the web.  It works on pretty much any computer that has a web browser and Flash, is free for unlimited use, and actually pays the artists for the music that is played.  Users around the web are sharing tips and tricks and finding new uses all the time.  Check it out.

technorati tags:pandora, mp3, streaming, music, genome

“There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free
Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office,
nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”

- Andrew Carnegie

Public libraries are a great equalizer in American society. They allow universal access to a wealth of information. Unfortunately, libraries are often limited by inadequate funding. Libaries have looked to technology to provide new means of content delivery that are more cost efficient and have greater reach than loaning physical books. The internet has the potential to make low-cost, widescale access to public library content a possibility, but has yet to fully deliver.

Taking libraries online has been a long and hard battle. Interestingly, the technical problems have largely been solved and several ways to make content available online have been developed. The real difficulty is getting libraries and publishers to agree on which method to use. Publishers are worried that patrons will illegally copy works checked out from the library while libraries are concerned that the severe DRM restrictions requested by publishers will prevent universal access to information.
A company named Overdrive has created a software platform that can be deployed by libraries to make audiobooks available online. Their audiobooks are DRM-protected in Windows Media format. Overdrive has already been adopted by several libraries:

A growing list of public libraries are lending OverDrive Audio Books to their patrons including Cleveland Public Library, San Jose Public Library, Cuyahoga County Public Library, King County Library System, Unabridged, Phoenix Public Library, Michigan Library Consortium, The Ferguson Library, Denver Public Library, and others.

OverDrive, Inc. — OverDrive Audio Books

The problem is that the libraries have found that most of their patrons that listen to digital audiobooks have iPods. Overdrive’s DRM protected files don’t play on Apple’s iPods because Apple’s FairPlay DRM technology isn’t compatibile with Overdrive’s choice of Windows Media DRM technology. This incompatibility has limited the reach of the program:

“It’s a big problem,” Nashua’s Corbett admitted. “But hopefully if there is enough demand, it will push Apple to license the content. . . . Obviously, we’d all love to get the iPod market.”

And deep down, Overdrive agrees – special window on the Web site tells users: “We urge you to contact Apple and request that they open the iPod to other copy-protected formats.”

Nashuatelegraph.com: An edition of The Telegraph

Overdrive’s current solution is to encourage libraries and patrons to buy new flash-based mp3 players that are compatible with it’s DRM format to be used instead of iPods. This is a short-sighted answer to a much bigger problem.

Audible.com is the largest online retailer of audiobooks. Last year, Audible.com launched its Audible Education program which allows students to download study materials, audiobooks, and other educational content online. Through partnerships with universities like Seton Hall, Audible provides some content free to students and other paid content is used as part of the class curriculum:

All of Seton Hall’s more than 1,100 incoming freshman will receive an audio download of former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins reading his work at Peter Norton Symphony Space. Published by Random House Audio, the recording will serve as the keystone to the University’s Progressive Freshman Reading Program.

Seton Hall Adopts Audible’s Technology for Audio Learning Initiative

Audible.com also is the supplier of audiobooks for Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Audible files work on the iPod and several universities have decided to supply thousands of incoming freshman with iPods to be used for education. None of these new iPods will be able to play back books from libraries using Overdrive’s software or similar software.

Wherever you look across the country, there are similar examples. Content providers insist of protecting their content with DRM systems that don’t work while libraries do their best to meet the needs of as many patrons as possible given the current DRM situation. Given the rate that DRM systems are changed or abandoned, many more dollars might be wasted on shorted-sighted programs before a long-term solution is found. Until then, the battle for digital libraries will continue.

technorati tags:ipod, digital, library, overdrive, mp3, audible, drm