Sharing Your Music? Think Again!
I am sure that a lot of people will take advantage of the new iTunes DRM-Free music downloads, where you have the ability to copy the music to any device without restriction. However, reports have been made that iTunes have a way to catch distributors out!
According to Ken Fisher from ars technica, both your full name and email address is encoded into all DRM-free music downloads.
With great power comes great responsibility, and apparently with DRM-free music comes files embedded with identifying information. Such is the situation with Apple’s new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user’s full name and account e-mail embedded in them, which means that dropping that new DRM-free song on your favorite P2P network could come back to bite you.
The main reason for this move from iTunes appears to be piracy, affecting unsuspecting users who upload their latest downloads to P2P networks or share them around with friends. However, with this data easily being spoofed, how accurate is this information?
If you have any comments to make on this post, please use the comment box below.
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:39 pm
The solution is not exactly difficult if you are against DRM tracking. Nor is this a new process.
1. Convert the m4p to an m4a using an application such as HYMN
2. Convert the m4a to an mp3 using an application such as dbPowerAmp
This is also the only method I found that will allow you to put iTunes purchased tracks onto an iPod when using ephPod instead of iTunes directly.