Ryan Egan.com

While I enjoy using and purchasing music from iTunes, Apple’s file protection is poorly implemented and inconvenient for the average downloader. This tutorial will outline the steps necessary to remove Apple’s iTunes FairPlay DRM protection from downloaded songs. Please be aware, circumventing FairPlay and decrypting your protected music files is currently illegal under the DMCA. I do not advocate that anyone attempt to do this… This tutorial is provided as a "proof of concept" only.

While there are several options available for cracking FairPlay, this tutorial will focus on using QTFairUse6. It’s small, efficient and will decrypt your music without any degradation in sound quality.

For the first step, you must download and unzip QTFairUse6. The most up-to-date version (v2.5) can be found on the hymn forums, or to download it directly, click here (5.1M). Once downloaded, you will need to extract the files from the .zip archive in a folder of your choosing.

While many people claim that QTFairUse6 v2.5 works with the most current version of iTunes (7.0.2.16), I received numerous errors from QTFairUse6 when I attempted to decrypt my files. An easy way of avoiding this would be to download an older version. I recommend downloading iTunes 7.0.1 which can be found on filehippo.com. Or to download it directly click here (35M). If your version of iTunes is older 7.0.2, you may skip the next few steps.

In order to fully downgrade your version of iTunes, you must completely uninstall your current version and reboot your computer. Uninstalling leaves the iTunes database intact so all your settings will migrate over to the older version. It will also not delete any of your music files, or playlists.

Once your computer has rebooted, launch the installer (you just downloaded) for iTunes 7.0.1. Proceed through the steps to complete the installation.

When setup is complete you can begin using QTFairUse6. Return to the directory you specified when unzipping in step 1 and launch the "QTFairUse6" executable. Use of the console version of QTFairUse6 is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

Although the default set of options in QTFairUse6 are desirable for most people, for the sake of simplicity I would recommend selecting the "Process just these files" option. With this selected, you can choose which files you wish to decrypt by dragging and dropping them from explorer. iTunes protected files are easily identifiable by their .m4p extension

Once successfully added, QTFairUse will update and your list of files to be decrypted will appear in the main window.

In case decrypting should fail or you want to keep your original protected .m4p files, you should specify a folder to be used for backups.

Once you have selected a backup folder, click "Start conversion" and watch the magic happen.

Depending on iTunes, you may need to sign into your iTunes account using your Apple ID and password. This is necessary so that iTunes can authorize your computer to play your files.

If everything goes smoothly, the "success" message should appear in the QTFairUse window indicating that the decryption is complete.

As an added bonus, the newly decrypted files are automatically updated in your iTunes library so that you don’t need to worry about adding them back in. You should be able to open iTunes and play your files as usual without the need to update anything. The decrypted files can now be transported to other computers without iTunes or played on any other .mp3 player which supports the AAC codec.

Today I stumbled upon this interesting article. Apparently the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has asked YouTube to pull all OSCARS related footage from its website. They claim removing the footage will help them to “manage the value of our telecast and brand”.

Sadly, this is a ludicrous argument.

On the contrary, CBS now has the highest ratings in the broadcast industry due to their partnership with YouTube. In combination with good programming, CBS has seen it’s ratings increase by 21% from last year along.

Although, recent negotiations have failed to strike a new deal, CBS’s existing partnership with YouTube allows CBS to publish its own content online. In return, CBS gets a sizeable share of the ad revenue. The success of the existing program has been astounding, CBS and YouTube are both reaping the rewards. CBS is even enjoying a PR boost along with renewed enthusiasm from viewers.

The truth of the matter is that watching something online generates hype and boosts ratings. The AdSense market is booming and everyone especially Google is getting rich.

Perhaps at some point the media industry will grow some balls and embrace emerging technologies instead of shunning away from them. You would think that at some point the media industry would realize that their own stupidity causes nothing but financial nightmares.

As the title would suggest, I have recently fallen victim to some vicious extortion on ebay. Granted… My own stupidity is to blame…

Last night while I was browsing around online, one of my favorite songs made its way to the front of the pack on my shuffled playlist. Despite it being performed by one of my favorite bands, it was a song which I hadn’t heard in quite a while. Instinctively I began to hum along to the tune as I caught up on some overdue Digg reading. Its catchy lyrics and slightly uplifting beat mixed with a touch of melodrama make Naive one of The Kooks most adored singles.

I had first heard of The Kooks while I was studying abroad in England. Although their debut album Inside In/Inside Out was released in January of 2006, they were entirely unknown to me before I had studied abroad. When I arrived in the UK in September of 2006 I was fortunate that the band was still on the UK charts and getting major airplay (see #26). After listening to a few more of their hit singles, I was hooked. Almost overnight The Kooks had become my new favorite band.

Flash forward.

After humming along to Naive for a short while I decided I should check to see if The Kooks would be playing an American tour anytime soon. A quick glance at Ticketmaster revealed that I may have underestimated their American popularity… Not only were The Kooks touring in America, but they were coming to Boston in May. I found this quite surprising considering none of my friends have even heard of them. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Not only were The Kooks coming to Boston on their second American tour (their first was only for two weeks) but they were playing at the Paradise Rock Club! Small venues are always more exciting and have a much more personal feel when compared to their larger rivals. While struggling to contain my excitement, I frantically clicked purchase on Ticketmaster… after all $12 seemed like tiny price to pay to see my favorite band perform during their second tour in the US…

SOLD OUT.

I felt exasperated, disappointed and completely surprised that anyone here had even heard of The Kooks, let alone snatch up all the tickets to their show before I even had a chance of purchasing them. Undeterred, I decided I would try my luck elsewhere. My first though was sold out.com or StubHub. I have a few friends who have had luck with these in the past. After finding nothing, I desperately turned to the last place I could think of… Ebay.

Now don’t get me wrong, Ebay is perfectly respectable and is a fantastic place to purchase just about anything. Except for concert tickets that is. Swallowing my pride in online deal hunting, I committed myself to going to the show no matter what price I had to pay… and pay I did. Heavily. $120 later I got two tickets to go see The Kooks on Sunday, May 13th and honestly, I think it’s money well spent. I don’t usually enjoy being raped financially but I have a feeling the show will be well worth it. I’m just disappointed I didn’t check sooner and grab a few tickets while they were $12. I also feel shamefully stupid for not checking to see if they were touring in the UK when I was there.

Nevertheless, lesson learned.

I had planned on using this post to rambling on about some more website improvements, but I felt it would be put to better use if I took time to comment on an article I found recently…

This article is one of many which have surfaced recently in the media. It is actions like these which have turned the RIAA and the MPAA (in my opinion) into symbols of oppression. Regardless of political stance, the public should not tolerate antics like these anymore. Sadly there are prime examples of just how far money goes in politics.

I am legitimately terrified that the MPAA has enough political prowess and congressional support to meddle with international affairs. I would have hoped that lawmakers would be learning their lessons after their last round of blunders in international affairs. Then again, I’m not completely surprised… Deep pockets will invariably take you far in life.

Nevertheless, I am appalled by the MPAA’s actions in Sweden. They represent a blatant disregard for foreign diplomacy and shouldn’t be legal, let alone tolerated. I can only hope that some people will gain from this. Perhaps the Pirate Party will see stronger support both in Sweden and abroad. Or maybe people will start calling them out on their ridiculous double standard practices.

In the meantime, I will continue to equate the RIAA and the MPAA to hate groups and slander the DCMA until it can be reformed…

It’s ludicrous that it’s illegal for me to transcode a DVD to my iPod, even if it was legally purchased. Some MPAA proponents have even gone so far as to claim that I don’t own any of the DVDs that I legally purchase. Instead, I own the rights to play those DVDs. The difference being that the production studios choose how and where I watch the films including what commercials I am forced to view and which I can skip. Have you ever noticed that you can’t skip previews on some DVDs? - I have and it’s illegal to alter a DVD player’s software to allow for this.

I cry bullshit. If I purchase it, I own it. It’s mine. If I want to break it or fast forward through some previews, then I should be allowed to do so.

Ps. While writing this post, I realized that transcode isn’t a word… Someone needs to slap Merriam and Webster in the face and make them wakeup to the 21st century.

I think my internet tubes must be clogged…

Based on some good advice from a friend, I’ve decided to include an RSS feed link for this site (it’s hiding in the “Meta” section, which will soon be renamed). After all, every good blogger and technology evangelist uses RSS, so it seemed like a good idea. Additionally, Wordpress provides native support for blog feeds so it was simply a matter of creating a hyperlink.

Somewhere into the process I decided it might be interesting to see if I could outdo myself… Following the popular crowd, I decided to switch my RSS feed over to Feedburner. It’s free, easy to setup and quite powerful. The migration was extremely simple with no complications. Feedburner updates and auto formats the feed every 30 mins or so. It also provides visitor tracking and support for linked media objects such as podcasts. Needless to say, it’s quite impressive.

To test the setup, I added my feed into Google Reader. The first test went well and all of my posts were downloaded from my site. I was a little curious to see how quickly Google Reader updated itself so I created a test post on my main page…

Evidentially, Google Reader didn’t like that very much. While Feedburner updated almost instantly, Google Reader failed to pull any site updates. Instead, I was left with the same previous posts I had before I created the test post. After playing around with both services for a while, I still can’t seem to understand the problem. I have yet to test my RSS feed with another reader but I’m hoping it will work.

At this point I’m not sure if it’s a Feedburner error or just Google Reader but either way, I’m not happy. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication but so far, it hasn’t been really simple… Perhaps my internet tubes are becoming clogged… Maybe I should just write a letter to Ted Stevens and praise him for his stance opposing net neutrality?

On second thought, I would prefer not to be seen defending the ignorant.