MySpace Music Player Hacked 120
Roy van Rijn writes to tell us about a little program called MySpace MP3 Gopher, with which you can download any song from MySpace as an MP3 even if it is marked to disable downloading. MySpace MP3 Gopher is a Windows program requiring no installation, and for those not on a Windows box the author offers an online version that anyone can run. It is hosted on his home computer so it is bound to get slashdotted rather quickly. All you need to grab a MySpace song is its "friendID," which is in every URL as a parameter. Tech-recipes has step-by-step instructions.
I blame Universal Music (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see it coming... (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Create a trojan with adware.
3. Post a link to a "mirror" with the trojan. Bundling the original program is optional.
4. Sit back and earn 0.25 per install.
Caveat emptor.
It's so obvious (Score:2, Interesting)
I dislike Myspace as much as the next guy, but Universal is just playing dirty [mercurynews.com]. I mean, just days after they threaten to file suit against Youtube and Myspace, a piracy tool written to exploit myspace just happens to appear on the internet.
give me a break. It's pretty clear that a) MySpace and Universal have been in contract negotiations, b) those negotiations have broken down over fee structure, and c) Universal is doing its hardest to set precedent so that if MySpace doesn't come over to their side of the table, they can sue MySpace for as much money as possible.
Re:I blame Universal Music (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at it this way: it's a lot easier to download an album from ThePirateBay, than it is to comb through dozens of Myspace pages trying to cobble together all the songs from the album using this tool.
It's all about the laziest route to information... and this tool "ain't it". That fact, and its timeliness in relation to the Universal Music announcement makes it suspicious.
Re:I blame Universal Music (Score:4, Interesting)
Lol. Good point... (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing I really don't like about this is a lot of musicians and labels have come to depend on MS (say what you like, I work in a web-services company, I know Coldfusion and MySpaces scales poorly) and they might start pulling content. MS is actually the best resource out there right now for finding new work (since mp3.com really, which is shit now). Thats a simple fact. And artists can be very, very sketchy about 'lossing control' of their content. Another fact I have to contend with regularly (I run an internet radio channel/show on the previously mentioned site).
Lets hope they plug the hole quickly before knees start to jerk.
More interesting is the pending MySpace [mtv.com] downloads. Assuming they don't build it out themselves (which the article seems to suggest isn't the case) this could be great for a lot of independant/international artists and even better for the listeners. Because MS encoded files are great for a quick taste but garbage to really listen to.
Anyway, as usual, we'll see how the chips fall. The net is pretty orgainic.
Absolutely... (Score:3, Interesting)
The catch with those great digital download sites for the small artists is you need a LABEL. They don't deal with artists directly. Which was great news for me, I was preparing to launch a 'virtual' label for artists who needed help with that part. But thats on hold now with MySpace's plan. I'll see how it works out.
Anyway, I agree about the great DRM free sites and believe me, I use everyone of them (you left off indie911, check my resources page for some more, foreign, etc). Magnatune I have mixed feeling about because while its a noble effort I don't think it gets enough exposure to actually help. While sites like the previously mentioned 911 (I promise, I have no affiliation) offer roughly %70 per track, which to me would sound a little more tempting (that and they are actively trying to gain more attention, we'll see how far they get).
Anyway, the downloads aren't quite the windfall to a lot of the artists who post their work there. Even if their reasoning isn't perfect (its their music, so its their call) a lot of artists really don't want their music freely available and for a variety of reasons. It'll probably get fixed quickly then they can play cat-n-mouse, who knows.