"It used to be that music fans believed cryptic messages about Satan or the death of a band member were hidden within rock albums."
Recently, iTunes released a new version--7.2.0.34, sometimes called iTunes Plus--of their software that enables users to purchase DRM-free music. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Apple is now "embedding customer information within iTunes music" which includes the customer's names and e-mail address. Naturally, this seems like an attempt by the iPod giant to add some type of watermark to music files so the files can be traced.
However, EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann believes that this was not Apple's intent and Mike Goodman, a Yankee Group Research analyst, said that the watermark is "certainly better than digital rights management." Goodman continues to say that "Watermarking does not treat the consumer like a criminal" where it "works on the assumption that a consumer is innocent but provides the industry an opportunity to catch someone that breaks the law" compared to DRM. So...the whole tracking thing?
Source: C|Net News
-- Related: Apple's Jobs calls for DRM-free music
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