Itunes Cracked and Dj Busted
Two noteworthy dj stories popped up on the BBC radar today. In the first, English drum and bass dj Grooverider was arrested on his way to a gig in Dubai. Apparently carrying any marijuana into the the United Arab Emirates qualifies as smuggling drugs and will result in a 4 year mandatory sentence. Note to self, international djing is not all champagne and limo rides to clubs overflowing with models. It also includes, among many other things, the following risks:
1) getting charged 1.4 million Euros for playing “pirated” mp3s.
2) having the Brazilian police switch off the lights, pull a world famous dj out of the dj booth and put another one in his place because the club did not pay taxes on his dj fee.
3) getting 4 years in a middle eastern prison for carrying a joint.
In the 2nd story a San Francisco company called DoubleTwist has claimed their free software can easily crack Itunes DRM and transfer songs to anything including Facebook, PSP, and Sony Devices. That’s good news because the Itunes music store is a great place to find new tunes. Sadly they admit the process of “liberating your iTunes® music purchases” results in a “small quality loss” to the already lossy 128kp AAC files aimed at consumer buyers. The program is also only for windows, which seems a strange platform choice for such a product. None-the-less, score one for the anti-DRM crowd.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:17 am Quote
careful where you get your tunez fellas
the five-o is on this case fa real….
February 20th, 2008 at 6:01 am Quote
Note to self…….. NO TRAVELING EVEN TO THE UAE, BARHAIN OR ANY OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:46 am Quote
LOL…that dj is idiot…i have no other comment for him.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:35 pm Quote
So, I’m Brazil?ian and know nothign about this history, bu would like to know some details, even becous I couldn’t understend exactaly what hapen
February 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm Quote
If there is a “small quality loss” that just means that the software is probably just capturing the audio stream and transcoding it. That isn’t the same thing as stripping out the DRM and kind of a crappy solution.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:09 pm Quote
On the brazil story- that one was never made public as far as I know. The only reason I was aware of it was because I was djing in the club next door one week later and my hosts told me what had happened. It went down in a big club city close to Florianopolis.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:24 pm Quote
As Mr DJ Elvis said, I’m Brazilian too and I’m sure you made a mistake, Mr. Golden. In Brazil as in US, if you don’t have your visa work, you can’t work. Both countries charged a fee. If someone calls the police, they will never change the dj, they close the club for a good time. Is a huge responsibility write something that is not true, you should check the information and/or link for your source before said something like that.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:43 pm Quote
Hey Ricardo,
I did not mean to bad mouth Brazil by including them in that list but that is a situation that absolutely happened.
I have toured brazil 4 consecutive years with and without a work visa and have learned a lot about the process and dealing with the police. Eu falo portguguese e estou quasi carioca tambem ;-)
yes, you can easily work in Brazil without a work visa and without the clubs paying the required 40% tax on your earnings. Many, Many international djs do this every year. Recently however the Police started to catch on and when a very big star tried to perform a highly publicized gig without paying for the work visa, the police came in and put and end to it. Sure, the club might have gotten shut down but as we both know, with the right money you can make anything happen.
I could cite my sources and/or even tell you who the dj was but that was not the point of the post. It was just another funny story about crazy things happening on international tours.
February 20th, 2008 at 6:54 pm Quote
Cool Brazil controversy around Dj Tech Tools, sorry duds, do not want to make more controversy around it, but we should let ipocrisia out of that, in Brazil the corruption is outrageous and the poor fiscalization make you completaly mad wen you are picked to pay something and know that no one else did it, by example we can said about the music rights, in my state we have only 2 guys to fiscalizate all the state and the tax is 15% over the money you make in the door, crazy but everyone loves Brasil (and our girls).
By the way I’m 250Km from Florian?polis and be there every month, Ean your portuguese surprise me, but you need to know how to make a real caipirinha, to be a carioca, let us know when you will be in Brazil again and I will find you to check out
February 20th, 2008 at 7:06 pm Quote
I was curious about the 1.4m Euros fine, but then I remembered it’s an old story, if you want more info: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050216/1656245_F.shtml
I always wondered how they could tell without a warrant or such… then again, it’s Italy, I’m not familiar with their habeas corpus.
And did you hear about that guy who got arrested in Dubai for a GRAIN OF POT on his shoe?
Link
February 20th, 2008 at 7:18 pm Quote
just 2 days ago I was on a plane with this guy telling me how i should go dj in dubai. After reading whiskers article above which contains the following story:
“One man has even been jailed for possession of three poppy seeds left over from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow Airport.”
I’m thinking holly $h!&, F%&K that!
February 20th, 2008 at 7:42 pm Quote
also you can get busted in Dubai for having any illegal substance in you blood or urine.
this includes your “normal” illegal drugs & things like cough syrup w/codine & melitonin
to get a work permit you must have an aids test.
i’m even reading “Drinking or possession of alcohol without a Ministry of Interior liquor permit is illegal and could result in arrest and/or fines and imprisonment”
February 20th, 2008 at 9:16 pm Quote
i wouldnt call him a complete idiot…apparently he forgot a zoot in his pocket. easier mistake to make than you’d think. punishments way too heavyhanded.
and who got charged ?1.4 million for handling mp3s?
February 21st, 2008 at 1:49 pm Quote
Welcome To Israel !
Here The Freedom Is Open For Everyone !
Dont Bring Enything We Get You What You Want…
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm Quote
Welcome showbiz guys! Markets protection by local authorities, DJ?s, drug dealers and others? Fuck It! Keep it cool, you have to be big boys and girls! ?Get rich or die trying??
February 24th, 2008 at 2:06 am Quote
http://www.petitiononline.com/gr00v3/
August 1st, 2008 at 7:40 pm Quote
Looks like we should all be cautious about even just taking our equipment out of the states. The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) have just disclosed their policies on someone bringing in “any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form”, which by their definition a lot of equipment I use would fall under.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/content/article/2008/08/01/laptops.html?hpid=topnews
Basically it says for any reason if they feel like it, they can take your equipment and hold it indefinitely.
December 10th, 2009 at 11:17 am Quote
Grooverider was arrested 24 November 2007 in Dubai after flying in for a nightclub gig with 2.16g of cannabis and a pornographic DVD in his luggage.
Grooverider had been employed on a freelance basis and has not been paid by BBC Radio 1 since November.[4] Four years is the minimum sentence for drug trafficking in the United Arab Emirates. “I must have forgotten the spliff,” he said in an interview. “It was a small amount. Back home I would not even get prosecuted.”
On February 19, 2008, Grooverider was sentenced to four years imprisonment.
He was pardoned and released on Wednesday 3 September 2008, during the holy month of Ramadan that traditionally sees the pardoning of select prisoners in UAE. [5] In an interview with BBC, Grooverider described his experience as “appalling” and described the conditions in which he was placed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooverider