Stellar Attraction Discussion Forum - Strange announcement: "Please do not attempt to copy, record or 'rip' the music being broadcast..."

m_gol

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Strange announcement: "Please do not attempt to copy, record or 'rip' the music being broadcast..."
26^th Feb, 2009 at 5:19pm

I've been listening to Stellar Attraction recently and once I saw an announcement instead of the name of the song in the "Title" field:
Quote:

Please do not attempt to copy, record or 'rip' the music being broadcast - you will be banned !!

I haven't ripped any music but I felt a bit afraid of what caused this strange title to appear?

There is a second issue - if You consider to ban on people because they rip music, You have to have a way to control it. It seems to me that it's impossible to detect if a person listening to the stream is recording it or not. If it's detectable, it makes me feel a bit afraid of how the privacy issues look in music applications if the streaming organisation can detect what their users are doing?

Nevertheless, I don't believe it's detectable, but I would like to know the origins of this message.

I use Amarok 1.4 under Ubuntu Linux.

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Michał Gołębiowski
student of Mathematics & Computer Science at the Warsaw University in Poland

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ProgMaster

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Re: Strange announcement: "Please do not attempt to copy, record or 'rip' the music being broadcast..."
Reply #1 - 26^th Feb, 2009 at 8:13pm

m_gol wrote on 26^th Feb, 2009 at 5:19pm:

I've been listening to Stellar Attraction recently and once I saw an announcement instead of the name of the song in the "Title" field:
Quote:

Please do not attempt to copy, record, or 'rip' the music being broadcast - you will be banned !!

I haven't ripped any music but I felt a bit afraid of what caused this strange title to appear?

Hi there m_gol and welcome to S.A.,

It's nothing related to you personally. I've been tinkering with PAL (the programming language that comes with SAM) and added a (very occasional) line of text to appear briefly in the 'currently playing track' space in the listener's Media Player. The line that you've noticed here is one of several - others include mentioning the forum, S.A. t-shirts for sale and suggesting making a donation. Wink

I'll re-word this particular line that you've mentioned here as the intention isn't to instil paranoia of any kind - simply to mention that copying ('ripping') the music that's broadcast here at S.A. is a no-no and bringing this to the attention to anyone who's tuned-in.

Incidentally, this subject has been mentioned many times before on the forum.

Quote:

There is a second issue - if You consider to ban on people because they rip music, You have to have a way to control it. It seems to me that it's impossible to detect if a person listening to the stream is recording it or not. If it's detectable, it makes me feel a bit afraid of how the privacy issues look in music applications if the streaming organisation can detect what their users are doing?

Nevertheless, I don't believe it's detectable, but I would like to know the origins of this message.

I use Amarok 1.4 under Ubuntu Linux.

The process behind 'kicking' and banning listeners who attempt to copy ('rip') the music that's being broadcast here at S.A. is actually relatively straight forward. In the same way that whenever anybody visits a website (and I do mean any website that's available on the internet), your PC gives the website server certain (relatively basic) information about itself - what browser you're using, your operating system, your IP address and so on; when you connect to an internet radio station (on the ShoutCast platform at least) your PC tells the ShoutCast server what Media Player you're using, your IP address and the like.

So, if a listener connects to the S.A. ShoutCast server with a 'blacklisted' Media Player (I won't provide a full list here for obvious reasons but let's use 'Streamripper' and 'Radiotracker' as prime examples), when one of the frequent checks are done against the Media Players that are connected at any given time, if a 'blacklisted' Media Player is found to be connected the IP address is automatically disconnected and banned from tuning-in again.

The reason behind doing this should (hopefully) be pretty straight forward too. S.A. is an Internet Radio Station, run by myself taking up a great deal of my free time and personal money. I certainly don't put all of this on for free just so that some stranger can expand their personal MP3 library whilst they're not even at home ... Also, with the ongoing (and frequently changing) situation with the regulatory bodies, it shows a great deal of good faith on my part by stopping people from recording the music being broadcast.

I hope this clarifies but let me know if you have any further questions.

In the meantime, apologies if that particular scrolling message made you a little paranoid - that wasn't the intention !!

D

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m_gol

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Re: Strange announcement: "Please do not attempt to copy, record or 'rip' the music being broadcast..."
Reply #2 - 26^th Feb, 2009 at 11:19pm

Thanks for an answer, now I feel relieved.

I was a bit afraid as I supposed that You can check a music player name and I wasn't sure if Amarok disallows using some 'nasty' tricks to record the data - and as Linux has fairly low usage and banning Amarok wouldn't affect a lot of people (certainly not as many as banning, let's say, Winamp) - I wanted to make sure there is no threat I would be disconnected.

Although I am still quite sure that recording is possible (there are plugins to music players/etc.), I am also quite sure that omitting Your protection would be hard enough to disable most non-technical people from doing it, so I understand the measures.

Anyway, thanks for this great station! I was strongly disappointed by the usual radio stations and their low quality of played music, but when I discovered Yours (as a recommendation from one of my friends), my faith has returned. Long life to S.A. from Poland!

P.S. Sorry for the length of my posts, it's just me that I write too much. Wink

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Regards,
Michał Gołębiowski
student of Mathematics & Computer Science at the Warsaw University in Poland

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huntr_22 Watcher Of The Skies Offline Posts: 943 France Gender:	Re: Strange announcement: "Please do not attempt to copy, record or 'rip' the music being broadcast..." Reply #3 - 26^th Feb, 2009 at 11:30pm Welcome to S.A. m-gol!
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ProgMaster

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Re: Strange announcement: "Please do not attempt to copy, record or 'rip' the music being broadcast..."
Reply #4 - 28^th Feb, 2009 at 5:12pm

m_gol wrote on 26^th Feb, 2009 at 11:19pm:

Thanks for an answer, now I feel relieved.

I was a bit afraid as I supposed that You can check a music player name and I wasn't sure if Amarok disallows using some 'nasty' tricks to record the data - and as Linux has fairly low usage and banning Amarok wouldn't affect a lot of people (certainly not as many as banning, let's say, Winamp) - I wanted to make sure there is no threat I would be disconnected.

Although I am still quite sure that recording is possible (there are plugins to music players/etc.), I am also quite sure that omitting Your protection would be hard enough to disable most non-technical people from doing it, so I understand the measures.

Anyway, thanks for this great station! I was strongly disappointed by the usual radio stations and their low quality of played music, but when I discovered Yours (as a recommendation from one of my friends), my faith has returned. Long life to S.A. from Poland!

P.S. Sorry for the length of my posts, it's just me that I write too much. Wink

No problem Michal. Glad that you're relieved. Wink

Whilst there isn't a 'magic bullet' to stop listeners recording the stream that's broadcast, I like to think that what is being done already is very efficient. Plug-ins and the like are usually detected easily enough and as an example, around 30 - 50 IP addresses are banned daily.

In the meantime, delighted that you're enjoying S.A. Cool

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