Back in April 2004, a utility had been made to strip the DRM off of iTunes music. Now someone has rediscovered an old Winamp output plug-in loophole that essentially does the same for both Napster's subscription "all-you-can-eat" music. This particular plug-in pipes the output to a wave file rather than the sound card, which means that any track that is played in Winamp, including Napster's subscription music with this plug-in enabled will result in decoded uncompressed wave files, that can easily be recorded to CD or compressed into another codec.
Currently Napster and other content providers claim this exploit is not harmful to their subscription services or anything new as users could previously record the playback such as with a soundcard loop-back. This approach to converting the music is also a tedious process as it requires users to play the full songs as well as have ample hard drive space for the uncompressed wave files. The main thing that would worry the industry is if someone manages to strip the DRM off the original music files, thus leaving the original content in an unprotected form.
Microsoft
does support blocking this type of ripping with 'Secure Audio Path" protection in Windows Media Audio. This protection requires a compatible sound card to playback this audio as noise is added to the audio before it is sent to the sound card and the card itself removes the noise prior to sending it out to the speakers. This means that anything that grabs the audio before it reaches the sound card (such as Total Recorder) will get distorted audio. However, as this technology is only supported in Windows ME & XP with a suitable sound card, the majority of content providers have avoided using this protection. Microsoft has also begun an investigation into this Winamp plug-in.
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Blogs were buzzing Tuesday about the resurgence of an old technique for recording music on a computer, reapplied to Napster's all-you-can-eat subscription music plan. Using software freely available from America Online's Winamp division, it's possible to turn Napster's copy-protected downloads into unprotected files that can be burned by the hundreds or even thousands freely to CDs. This type of antipiracy evasion has repeatedly dogged digital media services from RealNetworks to Apple Computer over the years. Applied to subscription services offering unlimited access to downloads of more than 1 million songs, the idea may have new resonance, however. For now, Napster and other content providers are saying the "hack" isn't dangerous to their subscription model, even though it can result in the creation of unprotected, fairly high-quality music files. Read the full rather lengthy story here. |
While the music industry may see this as a threat, for Napster this will probably increase its customer base since many consumers will subscribe in an aim to build up a low cost music collection as an alternative to P2P, even though not quite the way the music industry would like. :p
Finally, while Napster may claim that converting each song is a tedious lengthy process, this will not stop someone from building up a 10 hour or so playlist of protected music and let it play overnight. Then again, it would stop anyone from suddenly converting a huge subscription music collection within the last few days of their subscription except for what ever music they can sequentially play in the time they got.
Feel free to discuss about Napster and other online music download services on our Music Downloads, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: C|net News - Music
