Make:

I read about this on boingboing and on techdirt. At first I was angry at apple for including personal info (such as email address) into the files, then I read some interesting comments on techdirt that apple has always done this, and that actually it's a good non-invasive way to prevent people from "sharing" music via p2p. I have to agree. Curious of other maker's thoughts on this...
(yes, I know the id's can be stripped easily).

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How is it a good way to prevent p2p, when they dont tell you that they do this?

Chances are, the majority of people run a p2p app which automatically scans + shares their music files. It is unlikely they will ever even hear of this story.

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right. its not a good way to prevent sharing, but its a good way to catch those who have...

screw apple.

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Years I've been saying I don't trust Apple (or Microsoft...basically any company that cozys up to the music recording industry). And now I have proof, thank you very much.

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What's interesting is that the free single of the week is being released as DRM-free. But yes, the account holder name has been encoded in "protected" mp4 files before.

white:~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/U2/Under a Blood Red Sky paul$ strings 05\ Sunday\ Bloody\ Sunday\ \(Live\ 1983\).m4p | grep name
namePaul Beard
name
name

Will it prevent file-sharing? I doubt it. Will it make file-sharers easy to track down? Maybe.

As far as iTunes 7.2 preventing you from creating anonymous mp3s from iTunes Plus files, that seems not to be true, unless I am missing something.

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So it was always there, but before you could not see it because it was "encrypted" with your personal DRM key.

Now DRM free files have it in the clear.

Should not it be easy to wipe the info out?

Why would you pay $1.29 per track in the first place?

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I give it a week before someone releases a tool to strip this info.

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