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Microsoft Media Player shreds your rights

Being the music nuts that we are, a very appropriate article for us all...

Read em and weep...

quote:

Microsoft Media Player shreds your rights Comment: No more backups, or Tivo By Charlie Demerjian: Thursday 21 September 2006, 10:08 THINK DRM WAS bad already? Think I was joking when I said the plan was to start with barely tolerable incursions on your rights, then turn the thumbscrews? Welcome to Windows Media Player 11, and the rights get chipped away a lot more. Get used to the feeling, if you buy DRM infected media, you will only have this happen with increasing rapidity. One of the problems with WiMP11 is licensing and backing it up. If you buy media with DRM infections, you can't move the files from PC to PC, or at least you can't and have them play on the new box. If you want the grand privilege of moving that content, you need to get the approval of the content mafia, sign your life away, and use the tools they give you. If you want to do it in other ways, you are either a lawbreaker or following the advice of J Allard. Wait, same thing. So, in WiMP10, you just backed up your licenses, and stored them in a safe place. Buying DRM infections gets you a bunch of bits and a promise not to sue, but really nothing more. The content mafia will do anything in its power, from buying government to rootkitting you in order to protect those bits, and backing them up leaves a minor loophole while affording the user a whole lot of protection. Guess which one wins, minor loophole or major consumer rights? Yes, WiMP11 will no longer allow you the privilege of backing up your licenses, they are tied to a single device, and if you lose it, you are really SOL. Remember that feeling I mentioned earlier? This is nothing less than a civil rights coup, and most people are dumb enough to let it happen. Read the links, the entire page is scary as hell, but the licensing part takes the cake. "Windows Media Player 11 does not permit you to back up your media usage rights (previously known as licenses)", Wow, new terminology, old idea, you are a wallet with legs waiting to be raped. "The store might limit the number of times that you can restore your rights or limit the number of computers on which can use the songs or videos that you obtain from them. Some stores do not permit you to restore media usage rights at all." Translation, not our problem, and get bent, we got your cash. But it gets worse. If you rip your own CDs, WiMP11 will take your rights away too. If the 'Copy protect music' option is turned on, well, I can't top their 1984 wording. "If the file is a song you ripped from a CD with the Copy protect music option turned on, you might be able to restore your usage rights by playing the file. You will be prompted to connect to a Microsoft Web page that explains how to restore your rights a limited number of times." This says to me it will keep track of your ripping externally, and remove your rights whether or not you ask it to. Can you think of a reason you would need to connect to MS for permission to play the songs you ripped from you own CDs? How long do you think it will be before a service pack, masquerading as a 'critical security patch' takes away the optional part of the 'copy protection'? Now do you understand why they have been testing the waters on WiMP phoning home? Think their firewall will stop it even if you ask? Then when you go down on the page a bit, it goes on to show that it guts Tivo capabilities. After three days, it kills your recordings for you, how thoughtful of them. Going away for a week? Tough, your rights are inconvenient to their profits, so they have to go. "Recorded TV shows that are protected with media usage rights, such as some TV content recorded on premium channels, will not play back after 3 days when Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 for Windows XP is installed on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. No known workaround to resolve this issue exists at this time." Workaround my *ss, this is wholesale rights removal by design. What WiMP11 represents is one of the biggest thefts of your rights that I can think of. MS planned this, pushed the various pieces slowly, and this is the first big hammer to drop. Your rights, the promises they made, and anything else that gets in the way of the content mafia making yet more money gets thrown out. Why? Greed. Your rights? History. You were dumb enough to let it happen, don't say I didn't warn you. �

>>Source<<

illegal hacks ftmfw

Who the fuck uses Windows Media Player anyway? It has been a tremendous piece of shit since about version 6.

Don't use WMP?

quote:

Originally posted by VERTiG0 Who the fuck uses Windows Media Player anyway? It has been a tremendous piece of shit since about version 6.

Not for MP3s. But its still my fucking favourite player for watching videos.

With DivX codecs installed, it'll play most allm WMP-compatible vids (I have few .movs, and I avoid those damn real player formatt ones like the plauge!)

As a backup, I use VLC, which litterally plays ANY and ALL video formatts I think

(not a massive fan of its interface though, still like WMP best for watching/playing vids, as I already said).

For mp3s, I'd not be CAUGHT DEAD using WMP.

quote:

Originally posted by Jem_hadar As a backup, I use VLC, which litterally plays ANY and ALL video formatts I think

sure does, its loaded with every codec you'll ever need...

as for me, ive stopped using WMP since a few years ago already, its a huge ugly interface...and winamp + FFD Show kicks its ass anyday...i use winamp for evrything on my PC...as for my mac...i use (unfortuneately) iTunes...mini player mode kills it...and quicktime of course for vids...at first xvids were shite...but after i found the appropriate codec all's well surprisingly, it took very well to Xvid codec and videos after that install...

long live Windows Media Player classic ..

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detai...XP/1045531002/1

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Originally posted by MikeyN its a huge ugly interface....

Well, I just use the "Corporate" skin mode.

I LOVE IT. Simple, gets the job done. Looks good (IMO). and has all the controls right there that I want on directly on the interface.

The Corporate skin is why I use and love WMP.

I agree all the other ones are pretty fucking ghey and ugly.

I use WMP and not Winamp. I think I like it more. Its file locations are relative, so if I move a file it'll find it quick. Also, its rating system > Winamp's, and I use that a lot. Lastly, it just looks better.

Does it really matter what you play your music from?

quote:

Originally posted by Frenchie Does it really matter what you play your music from?

so true.

I reassign all my multimedia files to the real classic media player on my PCs >>> mplayer2.exe, everyone has it on their computers. It plays the media file, with no fancy graphics, playlists or tools. It's simple, and doesn't broadcast your information like the new media players does for some file types. mplayer2 does upgrade its codecs, and when it doesn't, I run the new media player to download the codec, then revert back to mplayer2.

Also uses a hell of a lot less memory and resources.

bahaha

good

when people were warning of this shit awhile ago people were saying "well if you dont do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about!" (not specifically here on TA)

Proud user of WinAmp Pro (with the low resource classic skin).

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