Download 25 million songs legally (?)

philo said:

All the tracks contain DRM encoding so they can track everything.....hmmmmmmmm

Media companies are doing a little information gathering, nothing new though as Google knows everything you do on the internet.

This video from a journal I read, tells the story.

MoneyAccumulator.com Blog Archive Big Brother Is Watching You - View Video Now!

Quite smart on the part of the media companies, from this type of information they will know how to better market to people.

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new_trader said:

You sound like a typical conspiracy theorist. DRM is Digital Rights Management, it has nothing to do with tracking or information gathering.

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firewalker99 said:

Excuse me? DRM has everything to do with tracking or information gathering and that has nothing to do with being paranoid.

Even the EU has confirmed this. Just one of the many articles about this:
EU investigates DRM privacy threat - ZDNet UK

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for example, when a music track is purchased online, the purchaser has to enter their account information and unique identifier. That information -- identity and musical taste -- is then used in some cases for targeting marketing information.

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One such example of where data has been collected and then used to track individuals, the report says, is that of file-swappers. Music pirates have found their identities shared with record industry watchdogs as a result of information gathered by their ISPs.

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new_trader said:

Hence the reason for DRM. To catch idiots who illegally share music.

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firewalker99 said:

If you really believe that's the only reason they use DRM, I'm sorry to say but you're pretty naive...

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new_trader said:

Che? How else can they use DRM on a song that I have purchased? Please explain FW.

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firewalker99 said:

Try thinking of DRM in terms of digital restrictions management and I'm sure you can come up with some ideas. If not, there's always Google...

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new_trader said:

Google will just provide 1000's of links to opinions of ill-informed idiots who can't think for themselves.

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new_trader said:

I want you to explain it seeing you think I am naive. Tell me exactly how a digitally encoded DRM algorithm can track what I am doing. I buy a song and save it on my computer. I then move that song to my MP3 player. How does this information get back to the vendor or anyone else?

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firewalker99 said:

Try Wikipedia then, or search through some tech sites.



It doesn't. If that's all you'll ever do with it. But what happens if you lose your MP3 player?

Ofcourse there are people who don't mind having their names attached to stuff. I'm just not one of them.

Let me give you another example where you leave traces without noticing it: if you install (for those who use M$ software) Word it will automatically save your credentials (the name you used to install the program or Windows with), date, editing time, etc. to any document you created. If you archive that document or distribute it later by any means people can still trace it back to you. If you're okay with that, than that's fine. I realize this isn't an example of DRM, but it's still a privacy issue in general.

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new_trader said:

Your humble apology is accepted.

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firewalker99 said:

You must have misinterpreted my comment, it wasn't an apology. The second part of my reply was a mere illustration of another privacy issue, the first sentence is still an example of a case where you might be leaving footprints where you rather had not...

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new_trader said:

I think you are confusing tracing with tracking. DRM is no different to digital watermarking. As I said before, it is a copyright protection mechanism. If you own a car, it is most likely registered to you. For some reason you feel uncomfortable with the idea that something can be traced back to you. I can't see a problem if you don't do anything illegal with it. Would you prefer it if there was absolutely no way you could prove you were the legal owner of your house or car? I don't understand why you should be any more concerned about digitally embedding proof of ownership into intellectual or intangible products.

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firewalker99 said:

There's a difference between me proving that I am the owner of my house or car and other people tracing it back to me. For example, I would definitely have issues if everybody could trace anybody's number plate down to the owner. Currently, only the police have the jurisdiction to do so. But what if anybody would be able to do so? Or for example, your social security number? What if, by accident, I noticed a glimpse of your number by whatever reason and were able to download a complete file of yours?

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