New Dj program for Mac “Djay 2″
Although the feature set is not going to give the majors a run for their money, Djay 2 does contain one offering that is really making me scratch my head. It supports playback of music purchased from Itunes aka DRM protected files. W-W-W-What!? Do you know how hard it is to get the algorithms to play DRM protected files from the apple store? Impossible- thats how hard. Which is precisely why no-one else supports them. So I downloaded the demo to confirm and sure enough, you can sort of mix, pitch bend and otherwise dj with DRM files fresh off the Itunes music store. How can a tiny software company called “algoriddim” (do they also make reggae rave starter kits?) manage to pull this off but Traktor and Serato Scratch cant?
December 29th, 2007 at 1:27 am Quote
It’s all risk-return. The big boys have the most to lose by using ganked open-source code from a snidey ripper in their engines, whereas a startup has nothing to lose and might just make a name and sell some product before getting crushed by legal fees and disappearing.
You just decode the DRM audio into a buffer, after which it’s all just audio streams and the usual tricks apply…
December 29th, 2007 at 6:41 am Quote
Apple keeps changing their DRM to avoid this. Some time ago, Real Networks came with a library available to develop software that could play their DRM’ed files, I can’t remember its name.
However, it’s part of Apple’s contracts to the studios to keep protecting their files. On the public open letter Steve Jobs denoted that this is the most boring part of DRM.
Soon this will end. I think that the best is not to develop tools to play DRMed files, this supports DRM in some distorted way. Best is to not drop any cent on DRMed content.
December 29th, 2007 at 8:31 am Quote
I just like that name “algoriddim” — makes me think of Al Gore rapping.
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:14 am Quote
that is freaken hilarious tobamai.
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 am Quote
Down with DRM!!!!! Did you guys know 2 of the founders of djtechtools started CRFTP (communist remixes for the people)? 4 years ago. We were some of the first out spoken opponents to DRM and created a bunch of faux communist posters to “further the cause”. The site is still up although very out dated at crftp.com
January 4th, 2008 at 12:24 am Quote
Did you see that the folks at Image Line dropped an beta version of Deckadance for the Mac? I couldn’t find the link to download it yesterday, but I kinda liked its first public release back a months ago. They have my sympathy! :)
January 4th, 2008 at 3:36 am Quote
damn them! they were supposed to send me that! I guess that want to make sure its finished before I expose all the weaknesses here ;-) Way to be on top of things Dudu!
January 4th, 2008 at 9:16 am Quote
“Virtual dj” can use file dmr protected ;-)
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:52 am Quote
These 2 guys:
http://www.megaseg.com/about.html
http://www.dj1800.com/benefits.php
have been playing back DRM protected iTunes files for years (although I would consider their software only at a hobbyist level). Nevertheless, I know for a fact they are registered Apple developers, so there must be a LEGAL way that Apple is allowing this.
Could it be that all it takes is a small royalty fee for every software copy sold? And that the big boys on the block are just too greedy? Hiding behind the “its Apple, we can’t do anything about it!” excuse?
But you are right, hopefully all this DRM nonsense is going to go away in my lifetime.
AG
January 30th, 2009 at 1:10 am Quote
January 30th, 2009 at 1:11 am Quote