iRiver issues press release on Windows DRM

[Poppy]

MILPITAS, Calif., Feb. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Highlighting its commitment to
providing customers the greatest selection of music formats and music
compatibility, iRiver, the emerging leader in digital entertainment, today
announced that it is integrating support for Microsoft Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Windows Media Player 9 Series on all iRiver flash-memory digital music players.

This means that iRiver customers will now be able to easily download and
transfer their favorite songs to an iRiver digital music player from over
50 music services and websites supporting Windows Media Audio (WMA) around the world.

As part of this effort, iRiver will offer a free firmware upgrade for
existing flash-memory units so that they too can support Windows Media DRM and Windows Media Player 9 Series available through iRiver's website
(http://www.iRiverAmerica.com).

"iRiver has been a longtime supporter of the quality and size advantages
for WMA in their popular music players," said Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft Corp. "With the added support for Windows Media Player 9 Series and Windows Media DRM, iRiver customers can now access a new world of music choice and enjoy the hottest hits from a broad range of music download services."

"Windows Media DRM has become a leading technology powering many of the new music services, providing our customers with the freedom to choose from popular music download services and take their favorite songs on the go," said Jonathan Sasse, president of iRiver America. "The regular online updates for our award-winning music players provide our customers with a way to keep up with evolving technology and music industries. This release allows all of our customers to select from the music services of their choice."

Models available today that offer this new support include:
-- iFP-120, iFP-140, iFP-180T, iFP-190T, iFP-195T
-- iFP-340, iFP-380T, iFP-390T, iFP-395T
-- iFP-590T, iFP-595T, iFP-599T

Information on how you can upgrade your iRiver products and add support for Windows Media Player 9 Series are now available at
http://www.iRiverAmerica.com/musicservice. For more information on which services are supported, visit: http://www.windowsmedia.com/9series/...ooldevices.asp.

[coreman]

I'll be they are working on this s%#t instead of upgrading the iHP firmware for proper shuffle and all the other needed features.

Not that I don't think this is necessary....but after other problems are fixed please!

[FlameGrilled]

Like or hate it.. all they simply did was back the horse with established for.. in this case, meaning WMA with DRM integration as it is the only rights-managed format that has taken off with content providers.

Very few of the paid-for content providers use non rights-managed formats for the EMD's they supply, and it's always been down to the manufacturers of equipment to either support rights-management in the goods or not - if they support a rights-managed format without fully supporting it, they end up with problems in the public arena.

Yes, i agree that it would be nice to see some long-standing firmware issues resolved - but DRM support is a long-standing issue, so it's fair that it got looked at - even if simply as it makes the products look more suited the first real examples of the EMD market that is lurking around the corner - call what we have seen so far, a trial run.. testing the water if you will

FG

[seadzz]

this is more fodder for the iTune battle........like it or not.

I'm still holding my breath waiting for a stable and repeatable Ying\Yang forecaster....maybe in next firmware update.

sdz

[coreman]

seadzz....missed the 78s in your signature...

[FlameGrilled]

Missed the 78's and 16's in the siggy, dont you mean..?? :P

FG

[Poltergeist]

Wot? no > MD ?

Told ya it was antique, FG! ... MUST be, if sdz ain't got it!

[FlameGrilled]

Thanks for the reminder, Poltergeist.. i knew i'd overlooked that one to mention.....

Damn, that's embarassing, since i'm an ATRAC user...

Maybe i should do a list, similar to sdz's, on the end of my siggy... of the kit and sources i use...

nah, that'd triple the length of the message :P

FG

*smiles - as the results of his ripping test (to ATRAC) come in at an all time ripping record of one disc.. set at.... 150x peak, 65x avg....*

[thenobody]

Who cares?

Who the hell downloads and pays for music off the internet?
Its the most pointless thing i have ever heard off. I bet 99.998% of the people with iRiver stuff (or any brand player) just gets the music off their cds, or friends cds or other ways off the internet.
If you know about iRiver then you know how to get music on the internet without paying, or know that paying is just a scam.

Forget that and start improving the firmware iRiver. And look at your rivals and implement their extra features too.
Snap to it!

[seadzz]

I would agree that the quality of downloaded music would tend to be marginal and might have legal implications. There is a growing trend to migrate users to pay as you go downloads....like it or not.

If that is your cup of tea so be it. If you are quality bent then ripping CD's is the way to go.

There will always be options that some find distasteful while others enjoy....you can not always account for tastes.

sdz

[FlameGrilled]

The quality of a lot of content on commericial CD's, is somewhat questionable.. (at least to an old-school studio/audio guy like myself) let alone that of some of the legit supplied downloads - so it's hardly a point against EMDs.

'paying is a scam' - right, so if we all took the attittude of 'paying is wrong' to everything in life we ordinarily are charged for and bypassed the payment bit .. there would be no trade, no businesses... and you'd certainly not be passing idiotic observations over a channel like this - because trade (and costs, and payments from the buyer) is normal in life.

Most of the points people use to justify the legitamacy of filesharing content they didn't obtain real legit copies of, is simply people justifying the right to do on the basis that someone else does it.. so why is it wrong for everyone else.

Well, in that case - if someone stole or 'borrowed' my property, it's theft - it aint borrowing if permission aint granted.. assuming i had the right to give the permission in the first place.

If i went and downloaded something that i had no actual authorised right to have a copy of (because i didnt pay for it, or otherwise freely obtaining in the proper method), i'm no less guilty than the person who steals or 'borrows' my property without the right to do so.

It's that simple - you can't actually justify freeloading someone else's property without the actual permission to and call it legal or legitamate.

If the whole EMD business was run on the basis of 'free' downloads.. and noone has to pay a penny for their music - you'd have bugger all to 'freeload' from P2P, let alone sites that legitamately provide downloads.

You see, someone has to pay for what they provide.. even if what they provide is their own product of their own creative efforts - as the time in blood, sweat and tears costs you something.

But why i even bother trying to explain this concept.. really escapes me.

FG

[seadzz]

Since musicians and music producers have the right to expect compensation for their efforts you are correct FG that illegal downloading is a crime. However there is a group of people that feel the world is open source and everything is fair game.

If people downloaded what I do for a living and this impacted my take home pay I'd be pissed. I think if people looked at it that way there would be less effort to bypass legit sources.

I would hazzard a guess and say that illegal downloads are confined to a given demographic subset. Once these people have disposable income they will be less inclined to waste time downloading and will opt for the higher quality obtained from the real source material.

sdz

[tristan]

I think you hit the nail on the head sdz re the demographic who are inclined to go "illegal download only" for their music. I'm happy enough to describe myself as definitely NOT in that demographic. Personally, I'd prefer to have original CDs than legal or illegal downloads any day...

1 - I can encode my CD to whatever format I want at whatever quality I want. No DRM.


2 - I like having the CD with the insert, which often contains interesting info re producers, musicians etc.

3 - I like to think that I support the musicians concerned, even if they only receive a very small fraction of the cost of a CD , and encourage them to produce more.

4 - When there are virtually NO physical pressing and distribution costs involved, I simply fail to see why, with most legal online music systems around, it'll cost me MORE to download a complete album by an artist than to buy the bloody CD. A little bit of realism and a bit less greed those concerned might change my opinion in the future.

I'm the kind of bloke who'd rather read an original book than a photocopy/printout/fax.

[FlameGrilled]

Nice to see i'm not alone in this

The subset, sdz points out as maybe being the proportion who support and hence perpetutate the myth that unauthorised filesharing of music is just (ok.. a sad percentage actually say it's legal, blanket fashion).

They, sadly are also becoming both a major influence in how the whole process of EMD's are shaping.. and also tending to become more representative of how the world see's us poor deluded compressed audio users (*removes tongue firmly from cheek*).

Unless a download/fileshare of non PD content is both authorised (i.e the copyright holder permits it) and legal.. (i.e. internationally recognised rights to act as a redistributor, for promo purposes alone) - it aint 'just' in the sense of being in the name of justice. Hence, it makes those few rulings that exist in regional senses, that override the copyright holder's rights, a massive joke that'll probably never survive as credible into the third wave of compressed audio equipment (i.e. when DAP's are literally 'the walkman' replacement, not the relatively expensive MD alternative).

The simple reason that bit of regional justice over corporate reality is a failure of the most ludicrous proportions is this :-

1) 'Justice' is a goal that's only as pure as the intentions to seek it and fall behind it.

2) Such rulings give the limited rights to the individual, and then effectively tell copyright holders that they have no right to enforce copyright compliency over personal duplication.

3) Such rulings are as junk & irrelevent, as much as the structure and evolution of the entity that is 'copyright' has failed to evolve and properly cover it's remit properly since virtually day one the notion of copyright existed from.

The costs :-

Yes, about the only argument against legal commericial EMD services i do subscribe to is that of cost.

This is true, that they are charging a premium for the material considering it's a second-rate edition when the source is commericially mastered CD/physical recordng.

The 'concession to fashion' limitation :-

The premium is also too high, considering that the MI aint taking the whole concept seriously and hence the content variety isn't what it could be and lets not forget the age old BS about only opening the services to specific regions (yep, if u live in the US/Canda.. nothing is sacred, for the rest of us.. we are simply second-rate people who aint worthy of decent access to such services).

Conclusion :-

There isn't any simply isn't any compelling justification to draw anyone to instinctly want to throw away use of 'unauthorised' services, and lump wholely for commericial EMD's.. or mix and match (as is basically necessary due to variety and availability limits) both purchasing physcial and EMD editions as needed to complete the collecton (i.e., you buy one or the other, in any instance).

Of course the FS crazy, anti-commericial, proportion hate people who use commericial EMDs and also those who would pay for EMD's given a fair deal. For whatever reason they took their stance, they'd clearly rather carry on freeloading that try to do the sane thing.. and build a better model that's fair to ALL.

This all falls down to a major creditability issue on the part of users, the MI and the state of the legal system. We are simply victims of the hype, the glamour... - since we are all, for compressed audio (portable) format purposes, really 'Napster' generation users - we simply got too caught up in the fun of it all, and forgot to ask ourselves where it was going and how it was gonna support itself in the long terms.

So, like Napster 1.0, it's a matter of facing the evolve or die scenario - if portable audio and EMD is gonna survive to be the 'compact cassette/walkman' of the digital era in the form we know it so far.

But in the instances of all those compromised we face, yes.. i have to effectively support the concept that it's better to still go out and purchase the goods in a physical form.. and *slaps own wrists* make your unauthorised personal compressed audio copy.

Rememer, we aint got no absolute global right to make personal-use sub-copies/facsimiles from the commericial purchased physical copy. We aint authorised to.. remember..??

We need :-

a) A international recognition of the right, and hence copyright laws defining absolute allowance , to make strictly personal-use copies/facsimilies.. even if it's only on the basis of preventing the inevitable wear and tear to the original.

b) Industry recognition - since justice-derived obtaining of rights, at the cost of forcing the industry to submit to the whims of some half brain-dead judge (who's literally ruling on the basis of the case is taking way too much time, and effort), is not going to make one solitary difference to the situation is it compromises the creatives who make the bloody content for us.

Maybe i'm too irrationally attached to this subject, having been on two of the three sides of the whole entertainment bus. Maybe it has affected my overall picture of things. Whatever the cause. it's made me a target for dungballs and flamethrower-loving 'freedom' bigots that really do hurt.

Maybe i should just not bother talking on this matter - if i say nowt.. i dont end up dragging my friends and this forum into such hell-infested territory?

FG

[Poltergeist]

Reading these posts is fascinating!

I'm amazed by the number of people who rail against file-sharing and what it entails, yet often close by admitting that they are, or have been, guilty of infringing copyright themselves, albeit in only a 'small way', perhaps.

And the subset demographic section of the population that is sneeringly referred to... LOL! What DO you sound like!!!

In the unlikely event that you have never, EVER, broken the law, then I admit that you are entitled to pontificate about others doing it.

If this IS the case and you ARE purity personified, then go ahead, tell others what they should and shouldn't do, some may even heed your teachings.

To quote the book of words of a certain popular unproven belief subset... Let he who is without sin.... etc.

[FlameGrilled]

Well i, for one, never indulged in filesharing of materials i had no authority to be accessing nor sharing.

This goes to the extent that even my audio restoration is authorised & legal, not 'legal' in the common understanding of 'its ok to make a personal copy for self' - on that matter, i had to be sure of being on the right side of UK law - when you have thousands of archived (legit) hours of audio floating around in your home that is necessary in the event of having to reproduce something when a disc you manufacture for a customer goes pear-shaped, you really can't afford to risk that 'knock on the door'.

So i'm certainly not one of the ones who sneers at the FS community, whilst hiding a dark past of unauthorised FSing myself. All my fileshares were stuff that i was asked, by the independent producers/artists i deal with, to make available to the audio community. And i got that permission, in writing.. countersigned.

You'll also notice.. i'm no slouch either when it comes to putting people in their place about the unauthorised recording and copying of radio broadcasts (the next easiest way to get commercial content without FSing). I'm entitled to be, from a straight player point of view.. and also being tied into that industry.

So if i am harsh about FSing of illegal and/or unauthorised acts of passing and obtaining copyright material, the lousy bloody repetitve and junk ignorant reasoning that's so commonly used to justify 'freeloading', it's perfectly justifed - if i need to further outline why in detail.. i'll be simply wasting time on a lost cause - if i aint doing that already trying to educate about such things.

I could even guess that some people have speculated that when i wrote plenty of stuff about those junk FM transmitters people so lovingly drool over - i was probably indulging in some dodgy pirate use of the airwaves in doing so (being UK based). They would be wrong, as i obtained permission and a permit extention to my technical radio licensing to do restricted service testing and that clears me of any such suspicion. The only other way to do it, legally, is to disconnect the antenna from the Tx, and run it into a dummy load - which isn't a valid in-use test.

Sure, during my days with bikes and stuff, i came close to the usual near-misses we all encounter on the road - but a good rider knows when to play safe.. and play the game.. and when to exploit a powerful bike for safety reasons (i.e., being over the speed limit whe overtaking traffic isn't illegal, whilst it is purely an act of overtaking - it dont excuse hi-speed white-lining...for kicks and traffic beating).

Sure enough, the day i do something dodgy.., it's a 99:1 odds on bet i'd turn myself in - i'm incapable with living with a guilty concience..

FG

[Poltergeist]

FG, I referred to breaking the law, period! Not necessarily by file-sharing, there are many other ways to blot ones' copy-book.

It appears that your current strict adherence to legality is engendered mainly by self-interest and consequently, self-preservation (a sensible attitude for one in your position). You would indeed be very foolish to endanger your occupation, or indeed your hard-earned license to TX.

This fact detracts somewhat from the merit of your position in this matter, as you have more to lose and less to gain than many others.

I also find it extremely difficult to believe that you are as snow-white as you seem to profess to be, more so when I take into account your saying that you once owned a large motorbike.

As for you being incapable of living with a guilty conscience, if you are indeed as 'good' as you say you are, then I think it rather unlikely that a guilty conscience would be capable of living with *you*! It probably moved-out a long time ago and you never noticed it go!

[tristan]

Poltergeist, I'm not prepared to speak for everyone here but I can assure you that my personal lack of interest in downloading and sharing legal/illegal music is NOT motivated by any sense of pious legality, nor any sense of moral superiority (everyone breaks the law knowingly or unknowingly at some time).

I can't be bothered because:

1 - I like having original CDs
2 - I like to support artists in the hope that they'll churn out more of the music I like
3 - I'm on a slow dialup and have better things to do online than constantly download megabytes worth of material.
4 - I think major music companies have been ripping consumers blind for years, and are looking to do more of the same with restrictive overpriced and limited legal online downloads.
5 - I'm not keen on loading my box up with spyware laden P2P progs to access non-sanctioned material.

If that makes me a pious hypocrite then c'est la vie

[seadzz]

This can turn into a "religious issue" if we are not careful. I do agree with tristan that there is merit in owing the real-deal for a number of reasons.

Largest is my time has value and to download questionable quality from questionable sources does not sit well with me.

I have purchased some CD's over the years that turned out to not be worth the plastic they were made from. I would support a try before you buy concept but I guess that is what FM radio is for.

sdz

[Poltergeist]

My apologies in advance for the length of this post but I considered that quoting each of you and replying to each comment in turn that took my eye was preferable to answering in general terms and expounding my beliefs, I hope you agree!

SDZ "If people downloaded what I do for a living and this impacted my take home pay I'd be pissed."

On the face of it, that seems a perfectly justifiable attitude... But... Imagine that you were a comparatively low-paid worker and that your work was being sold-on at a highly-inflated price by the directors of the firm that employed you and that it had been for many years, reaping vast profits for the management, of which you saw very little. Imagine that suddenly many of the firms' former customers no longer bought the product because they could obtain it at minimum risk, without paying for it. The gravy-train, ridden for so long by your greedy bosses, has finally come off the rails. Calamity! - But doesn't common-sense tell you that it was only a matter of time? That the exploitation of the customers could only last so long, that it couldn't continue ad-infinitum? Wouldn't a part of you think 'Finally! The mugs have realised that they've been duped for all these years' - Admittedly, it means that you have to seek alternative employment, that's unfortunate, I grant you - but the situation you find yourself in was inevitable, eventually, surely?

'You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time!' Maybe the Industry will come to realise this tru-ism one day, if they haven't already!

SDZ "I would hazzard a guess and say that illegal downloads are confined to a given demographic subset. Once these people have disposable income they will be less inclined to waste time downloading and will opt for the higher quality obtained from the real sour