Correction
Oct. 19th, 2003 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinContrary to what I said in an earlier comment, iTunes still supports non-iPod MP3 players-- or at least its help files claim so, though I have not yet found any mention of this on current versions of pages on Apple's Web site. I thought I'd read that the support for other players went away at some time in the past, but this seems to be incorrect.
Nothing but the iPod currently supports the (nominally open) AAC format and (proprietary) DRM scheme used by the iTunes Music Store, but that's not an issue unless you want to buy stuff from the Music Store.
Update: It's an interesting question what would be needed to give another player support for Music Store downloads. It might be that all that is needed is AAC support; I remember reading somewhere that the DRM is all inside of iTunes. In that case, third parties could conceivably give a player support for the store. I wonder what Apple would do, given that the store is mostly an enticement to buy iPods. They might actually encourage it, given that in the long run it's beneficial for them if the standard format for paid music downloads becomes something other than Microsoft's.
Oh, yeah, and: There's at least one well-known hack for getting around the restrictions on purchased AACs: burn them to audio CDs and re-rip them as MP3s. That would, of course, also allow playing them on any player you like, as your fair-use rights ought to allow. Apple claims that this will ruin the sound quality, but users report that the damage is no worse than you'd expect, which is to say not much unless you are a hothouse flower audiophile. Whether this paragraph is illegal under the DMCA is left as an exercise for the reader.
Yet another thing I did not know: Multiple sources also report that iTunes' ability to burn MP3 CDs includes the ability to burn them from AAC files, including purchased ones! That is very good, and not something I expected at all. In general, Apple seems to be doing an extremely good job of not letting their digital rights management piss off users. The one exception I remember was the undocumented introduction and rapid revocation of IP-based user streaming over the Internet. A community of iTunes-based streamers sprung up almost immediately. Somebody wrote an app to capture the streamed songs, making the whole thing into a jury-rigged file-sharing system (if not a terribly convenient or logical one), and it quickly became too hot to allow to live. Apple restricted it to streaming within a subnet, and Cory Doctorow wrote a volcanic essay about how Apple was screwing its users over for the Man yet again. But they had never advertised this as a supported feature in the first place.
Nothing but the iPod currently supports the (nominally open) AAC format and (proprietary) DRM scheme used by the iTunes Music Store, but that's not an issue unless you want to buy stuff from the Music Store.
Update: It's an interesting question what would be needed to give another player support for Music Store downloads. It might be that all that is needed is AAC support; I remember reading somewhere that the DRM is all inside of iTunes. In that case, third parties could conceivably give a player support for the store. I wonder what Apple would do, given that the store is mostly an enticement to buy iPods. They might actually encourage it, given that in the long run it's beneficial for them if the standard format for paid music downloads becomes something other than Microsoft's.
Oh, yeah, and: There's at least one well-known hack for getting around the restrictions on purchased AACs: burn them to audio CDs and re-rip them as MP3s. That would, of course, also allow playing them on any player you like, as your fair-use rights ought to allow. Apple claims that this will ruin the sound quality, but users report that the damage is no worse than you'd expect, which is to say not much unless you are a hothouse flower audiophile. Whether this paragraph is illegal under the DMCA is left as an exercise for the reader.
Yet another thing I did not know: Multiple sources also report that iTunes' ability to burn MP3 CDs includes the ability to burn them from AAC files, including purchased ones! That is very good, and not something I expected at all. In general, Apple seems to be doing an extremely good job of not letting their digital rights management piss off users. The one exception I remember was the undocumented introduction and rapid revocation of IP-based user streaming over the Internet. A community of iTunes-based streamers sprung up almost immediately. Somebody wrote an app to capture the streamed songs, making the whole thing into a jury-rigged file-sharing system (if not a terribly convenient or logical one), and it quickly became too hot to allow to live. Apple restricted it to streaming within a subnet, and Cory Doctorow wrote a volcanic essay about how Apple was screwing its users over for the Man yet again. But they had never advertised this as a supported feature in the first place.