Matrix Posted March 13, 2020 Share Posted March 13, 2020 A law firm acting for Spotify has taken down a piece of Windows software that allows users to download and remove DRM from music tracks while skipping ads. XSpotify, which also carries an ad-blocking feature, is described as a tool that "steals" Spotify encryption keys in contravention of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. With more than 271 million users across 79 markets, Spotify is the most popular music streaming service in the world. Its 50 million song library is accessed by 124 million paying subscribers, who gain additional features such as an ad-free experience and the ability to download tracks to their own devices for offline listening. These tracks are encrypted so can’t be used outside the Spotify software, at least by conventional means. One tool that turns this business model on its head is Windows-based application XSpotify. The tool has gained popularity for a number of reasons, not least its ability to remove DRM from the tracks stored in Spotify’s extensive library and permanently download them for keeping on users’ machines. XSpotify has been quietly growing its userbase, offering track downloads from both free Spotify accounts (in 160 kb/s, 32-bit, 44100 Hz .ogg) and premium accounts (in 320 kb/s, 32-bit, 44100 Hz .ogg) while pulling down metadata such as artist, title, and album covers. Considering the above and its ability to block ads, it’s no surprise that Spotify eventually took legal action to tackle the spread of the tool. This week, Washington-based law firm Perkins Coie LLP sent a broad takedown notice to Github, where XSpotify was available for download, citing breaches of the DMCA by the app and its developer. “Copyrighted files on Spotify’s services are protected by encryption. Spotify uses a key to decrypt the copyrighted files so legitimate users can listen to the copyrighted files through the Spotify services. Spotify’s encryption system prevents users from listening to copyrighted works without Spotify’s decryption key,” the notice reads. “XSpotify states that it is a ‘DRM bypass’ that allows users to ‘Download all songs directly from Spotify servers.’ XSpotify’s technology circumvents Spotify’s encryption by stealing the Spotify key and using it in a way Spotify prohibits, namely, enabling users to access encrypted copyrighted content without authorization. “By providing technology that circumvents Spotify’s access controls, XSpotify violates 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(2),” the law firm writes. The section of US law cited by Spotify’s attorneys is clear. Among other things, it states that no person shall offer any technology to the public that is “primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.” In addition to removing the main XSpotify repository, Github was also ordered to delete almost 130 others that carried forks of the popular tool. At the time of writing, every repository reported by Spotify as infringing has been removed. Of course, XSpotify is still available for download from other locations but whether its developer will continue his work after this warning shot is yet to be seen. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted March 13, 2020 Share Posted March 13, 2020 You can grab it by using wayback machine . They broke Deezer drm years ago and Deezer had the devs stuff ban and and they still never fix there drm, the old user scripts that got removed from GreasyFork still work fine also people just forked deezloader and put it in other git sites that don't follow DMCA . Updates are just api changes cracking the DRM is the same . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmyjazz Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 On 3/14/2020 at 12:08 AM, steven36 said: You can grab it by using wayback machine . They broke Deezer drm years ago and Deezer had the devs stuff ban and and they still never fix there drm, the old user scripts that got removed from GreasyFork still work fine also people just forked deezloader and put it in other git sites that don't follow DMCA . Updates are just api changes cracking the DRM is the same . Ahhh the old Whack-a-mole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said: Ahhh the old Whack-a-mole. I tested XSpotify v1.1 all it do is crash if you look at google cache you can see this app did was give people problems with crashing some got it working with a work around with v 1.0 but it not worth testing version 1.0 because it say in the readme Quality and format (free account): 160 kb/s, 32-bit, 44100 Hz .ogg Quality and format (premium account): 320 kb/s, 32-bit, 44100 Hz .ogg I'm not buying Spotify just so i can try and download some 320 KB/s OGG (You could fool around and get banned anyway ) or using 160 kb/s free you may well download songs from YouTube and Vimeo but I can download 320s and Flac all day long for free so im not going to dl from any of these platforms . Spotify fail all they did was kill some buggy app .But the whole repo has been uploaded to archive.org if someone wants to fork it and make it stable at 160 kb/s, it no better than a YouTube downloader Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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