mp3 vs aac

[Nate Dogg]

Sony BMG Ramps Up CD Copy-Protection Plan
Reuters

Saturday, February 26, 2005; 7:29 AM

By Ed Christman
NEW YORK (Billboard) - It looks like music retailers will soon
be getting their wish: At least one major is getting aggressive with
copy-protected CDs.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment is stepping up the rollout of
what it calls content-enhanced and copy-protected CDs,
according to company executives. It began with the Chieftains'
"Live From Dublin" album, released Feb. 22. Upcoming albums
that will receive the treatment are from Kasabian (March and
Susie Suh (March 29).

Sony BMG expects that by year's end a substantial number of its U.S. releases will employ either Sunncomm's newly enhanced MediaMax or
First4Internet's XCP to address piracy concerns. No matter which technology a CD uses, it will include such extras as photo galleries, enhanced liner notes and links to other features.
"What matters the most to us is the consumer experience," Sony BMG Sales Enterprise co-president Jordan Katz says.
"Both technologies offer playability across all standard players, including CD players, boomboxes, DVD players, PCs, Macs, car stereos, video games and clock radios."

Katz says the company wants to alert the industry that it is implementing the contentprotection technology, because extensive consumer research
indicates widespread customer acceptance of it.

BMG has used MediaMax on a number of titles, including Velvet
Revolver's "Contraband" and Anthony Hamilton's solo album. In
all, it has shipped more than 5.5 million content-enhanced and
protected discs, which have been met with positive consumer
reactions, according to Katz.

After testing XCP on promos, Sony BMG is using it for
commercial releases. Katz notes that XCP and MediaMax are
constantly being improved, and that Sony BMG will test each
upgrade on promos before employing it commercially.
The albums coming out now and in the immediate future will
allow for three copies to be made. "We haven't set on what the
number of copies should be, other than there should be a limited
number; it shouldn't be infinite," Katz says. "Our research shows
that the consumer thinks that's fair. So you are seeing Sony BMG
taking a leadership role in this area, with increasing traction
throughout the year in terms of a number of (our) releases."
Reuters/Billboard

[lipi]

I find it aggravating that a lot of players don't recognize AAC, however-- which is what you have to rip to using itunes.

um, no, that's not true. itunes can rip to mp3, wav, and aiff, too. preferences -> importing.

[Nate Dogg]

Skinning Apple

Source: Pollstar.com

Updated 19:23 PST Tue, Mar 29 2005

DVD Jon is at it again.
Jon Johansen, the Norwegian programmer who as a teen incurred Hollywood's wrath by posting programming code on the Net for copying DVDs, has been applying his abilities to cracking the digital rights management system employed by Apple for songs sold on its iTunes Music Store.
Johansen, along with other programmers, created PyMusique, which pretty much acts like the iTunes software by operating as a portal to the online music store and allowing users to purchase music. However, unlike music purchased through the iTunes interface, tunes bought via the PyMusique software are not copy protected.
This is due to the fact that Fairplay, the digital rights management system employed by Apple, isn't applied to tracks purchased from iTunes until after the songs are downloaded. This is accomplished through the iTunes software. Simply put, if you can access iTunes without using the iTunes software, your purchases will not be copy protected.
This has resulted in kind of a cat-and-mouse game between Apple and Johansen and his companions, with each side upgrading their software in hopes of thwarting the other side. Apple closes a so-called back door and Johansen and friends open another one, only to have Apple slam it shut as soon as it can.
According to CNET, one of the programmers behind PyMusique, a Pennsylvania high school student, claimed that PyMusique was simply intended as a platform for those using Linux-based computers to access iTunes.
If that sounds familiar, it's because Johansen used a similar explanation when Hollywood went after him for his DeCSS program which bypassed the CSS encryption found on most DVDs. Although DeCSS eventually landed Johansen in a Norwegian court, he was ultimately cleared of all charges

[Shanabanana]

Huh...I found the back door months ago:

1. buy song from itunes
2. burn to disc
3. import song from CD to itunes

With CDRs as cheap as they are, why bother with anything else?

[GemZombie]

Huh...I found the back door months ago:

1. buy song from itunes
2. burn to disc
3. import song from CD to itunes

With CDRs as cheap as they are, why bother with anything else?

the original tune encoded for purchase with itunes is already a lossy format. Burning it to disc doesn't lose anything future, but reimporting it to itunes does. So essentially the quality has dimished significantly.

Of course, i'm not at all satisfied with the original encoding as it is. This is primarily why i haven't joined the itunes bandwagon. Not to mention that I can buy an album of 100 songs for $23 on a CD already (Proper boxes).

[AlekseyKosygin]

You could also use a program (like JHymn and there are others) to take the protection off the file and then convert the unprotected aac to mp3, if you do make sure you over compensate with a higher than usual bitrate (I use 192KPS VBR using Itunes), this approach is a hell of a lot easier than burning to cd then ripping/converting and still sounds great...Altho iTunes is NOT cheap, it's still valuable if you need a certain song in a jam, I don't just DJ Swing gigs so I have found that it can be pretty useful if the gig is the next day or I'm in the middle of it without a song I need...