[alandail]

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I thought part of the controversy was that the artist actually doesn't get much, if any, of the additional revenues (i.e. it is going mostly to the recording studio).
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Intellectual property is a touchy area. On the one hand, we have countries such as China, which have almost no IP laws, but whose economies don't seem to suffer (they are doing just as well, if not better, than most emerging markets). On the other, we have countries like the U.S. and much of the E.U. where everyone claims a patent or copyright on everything. Where's the happy middle? As for Apple, they try to sue other people for using the term podcast (or anything with a pod or i in it), while at the same time announcing the iPhone before they had inked a licensing deal with Cisco. They need to pick a side and stick with it.

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The artist should get the exact same amount that they get when they sell the full song. That is determined by their own contract negotiations with their label. And some artists own their own labels, thus get the full amount. At least that's my understanding - that Apple pays the exact same fee for a ringtone sale that they pay for the sale of a song.
I agree IP is a touchy area. As a software developer it's always been an issue for me as, like music, software is often so easily copied and people are often too quick to justify their own copying of both. By getting into the custom t-shirt business, I've also recently seen the other side of the spectrum, where people abuse trademark law to limit competition by trademarking common words or phrases and then using that trademark to prevent others from making products with those words. I have dozens of common phrases I now can't let people type into what is supposed to be a custom t-shirt (and other products) designer because of this. I can't even let you type the work "Caution" because someone trademarked that word for use on apparel. That just seems absurd to me. The holder of that trademark didn't create anything original, they simply found a way to abuse trademark law.

[Dan Frakes]

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often review and recommend software...from unknown and untrusted sources.

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Why?

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Rob's point was that much of the Mac software out there is from smaller developers, and there's no way to measure the "trustworthiness" of such developers. But I don't think anyone would argue that we should stop reviewing freeware, donationware, and shareware.

[Dan Frakes]

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The whole idea behind all of this is that the artist gets paid for your use of their work. Unless the artist has explicitly waived their rights, you are illegally violating them creating your own ring tones from their songs. Are you trying to argue that the artists shouldn't get paid?

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Wow, talk about a straw man. If you look at all my comments and articles over the years, you'll see that I'm a big supporter of copyright and making sure artists (and software developers) are paid. But I'm also a big supporter of fair use -- and creating a ringtone, for my own phone, out of a music track I've already purchased, clearly falls under fair use.
Consider this issue from a different perspective: Do you believe that if you've purchased a track on CD or through iTunes, you should have to pay again to put a copy of that song on your iPod? Because there's absolutely no difference between putting a song on your iPod and using the same song as a ringtone on your iPhone. (Ironically, in many cases the track is already on the iPhone as a music track.)
The MacJournals article you're referring to focuses on commercial ringtones and Apple's role as a supplier of ringtones. The only reason Apple and iTunes come into the discussion we're having -- the ability of a person to use a song they've already purchased as a ringtone -- is because Apple has restricted the iPhone so that the only way to get ringtones onto it is through iTunes. Doing that brings in all sorts of logistical and legal issues. Unfortunately, you're confusing those issues with the unrelated issue of fair use.
Again, this is one area where the MacJournals article isn't very clear, so I can understand how someone reading it might confuse the issues. However, even in that article, it clearly states:

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Is it "fair use" to create a ringtone from a song you already own the rights to play? Maybe. You're extremely unlikely to get prosecuted for it. In the copyright decision mentioned above, the RIAA explicitly argued that a ringtone is not a "public performance" of a song and does not incur any additional royalties, just as playing your tunes on a boom box or through a car window is not a "public performance." The Registrar of Copyrights concurred.

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[d00d]

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Given that I use my iPhone to surf to sites such as Macworld, CNN, and Apple, I'm not really worried about visiting a malicious website. Am I being blas? Perhaps.

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Rob, I wouldn't use that as a reason as to why you're safe. Many people surf MySpace and most of those believe it to be safe when it's not. Even major websites are subject to their own flaws and the day that one of them allows user generated content (like comments) to put up their own material, that TIFF exploit could hit many iPhone users.

[griffman]

I agree that many users can be hit by the exploit. I even admit it could be me. But (a) I don't visit any "social networking" sites of any sort (I think they're the root of all evil in the galaxy today, but that's a rant for another day /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif ), and (b) I'm still not sure exactly what would happen if someone pwned my phone (and this is a serious question).
So they hack it. They get in. They steal my email, my contacts, my bookmarks, and the other assorted cruft on my machine. What can they do that's really bad? I don't keep social security numbers, credit card numbers, passwords, or bank account numbers on my phone. So they've stolen my list of contacts, a collection of work- and personal emails, and perhaps my music (assuming they could transfer 6gb of data over EDGE; might take about a year...).
Could they potentially install an SMTP server and make my iPhone a bot spam machine? Perhaps, but really, it's not going to be able to send all that rapidly, and I think I'd definitely notice the rapidly draining battery and SMTP process (as I do use 'top' pretty regularly to see what the iPhone is up to).
Am I overlooking some other major issue with my phone being hacked?
thx;
-rob.

[Craig_A]

Well, since you asked: a keylogger that phones home whenever you get an IP address would be about the worst I can think up on short notice. You do have a version of Little Snitch or Ethereal installed on your phone now, right?
I suppose actually modifying the firmware behind your back so that it bricks if you ever do decide to update is a more amusing possibility.
Since they disassembled the memory map for the thing all sorts of fascinating payloads could be injected, couldn't they? Something that attacks sync services and tries to go back up the USB cable to your Mac, perhaps. It's not like there aren't creative ARM and Intel assembly language programmers out there with black hats on. And as you pointed out, the security model is not as strong as the Mac-based version of OS X. Which is why I personally will wait until the system matures further.
This doesn't bear directly on the question of third party software, other than indicating a reason why Apple is being careful about what they allow on it while continuing to develop it. But then you did ask what might come of your phone being hacked. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[Craig_A]

P.S. - Apparently a 13 year old young person has released a jailbreak GUI application for the iPod touch v.1.1.1. Which is confirmed to work.
Written in AppleScript.
I won't be using that one either. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[griffman]

I think (again, for me) something that tried to back-attack the Mac via the USB cable would be the most damaging. I wonder if iTunes is expecting anything coming back other than the sync stuff, and how well protected it is.
Something to think about; thanks.
-rob.

[Craig_A]

Yeah, sure. I'm in a position where I have to worry about other peoples' information security, not just my own. So the level of paranoia has to be ratcheted up a few notches.
I expect that is true of a number of people who express concern about things like this, and why their objections are worth taking seriously.

[edmetric]

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Rob's point was that much of the Mac software out there is from smaller developers, and there's no way to measure the "trustworthiness" of such developers.

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griffman's comments were notable, your comment is spectacular. There is no way to measure trustworthiness?

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But I don't think anyone would argue that we should stop reviewing freeware, donationware, and shareware.

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Who is?
I didn't think Macworld should have released an iPhone unlocking guide. It seems pointless now for me to mention it. This forum is awash with comments about it.

[Dan Frakes]

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Rob's point was that much of the Mac software out there is from smaller developers, and there's no way to measure the "trustworthiness" of such developers.

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griffman's comments were notable, your comment is spectacular. There is no way to measure trustworthiness?

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Rob and I essentially said the same thing: all we can do is test the software to see if it's safe, does what it claims, etc.

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I didn't think Macworld should have released an iPhone unlocking guide. It seems pointless now for me to mention it. This forum is awash with comments about it.

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To be fair, many (most?) of those comments are yours /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[edmetric]

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Rob and I essentially said the same thing...

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Mr. griffman is enormously entertaining with his comments.

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To be fair...

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If you say so.

[Pennywigeon]

One one hand you can follow the advice of MACWORLD and use this guide and take your risks with exploits that do VOID your warranty and violate your EULA to "see what you have been missing." but in doing so you run many risks legal wise and security wise.
OR
You can wait until after February when the SDK releases and then the REAL 3rd party development begins.
http://www.macworld....nesdk/index.php

/golfclap for the Macworld Editors. I epect next month we can have plenty of articles on Serial Number Generators and Hack Applications to turn demos into real working copies.
In the end the "Smart" users will probably ignore your ill gotten advice and wait for the "legitimate" method of installing proven 3rd party applications.

Patience and a Warranty > NES emulator IMO


/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[xtremecc]

It seems the guys over at Planet-iPhones.com have their ducks all lined up in a row. They have one of the most extensive collections of iphone hacks I've seen.