3 July 2007 --- Readme, part 1 Note to newbies: NIPPIN is a "command line interface" ("CLI") - a text based app that needs to be run from command prompt. You cannot just double click on the .exe and expect to see a window, much less an "install wizard", appear. If you are an inexperienced computer user and don't understand what this means, you may not be able to use it until you "brush up" a bit on your knowledge about this. Now, with that out of the way, I'll explain briefly what it does. I have just finished the first version of this app, and I'm going to try to keep this "readme" file short so I can concentrate on finishing the details of making it available. The utility recursively parses MP4 files - specifically AAC LC audio files in an MP4 container with the identifying "ftyp" of M4A. An ftyp is a code indicating the intended usage of the file, and the M4A ftyp has been registered by Apple Inc. to indicate that the file is mainly intended for their iTunes Player Software its associated iPod and other related products. Apple has also registered the ftyp codes M4B (audio books), M4V (video) and M4P (DRM protected audio). You can use GSpot to determine what ftyp an MP4 file uses and what it means; I've also compiled a comprehensive list of, including unregistered ones, at http://www.ftyps.com/. For brevity, "AAC LC audio files in an MP4 container with the identifying "ftyp" of M4A" will be simply be referred to as "M4A" files for the remainder of this document. This is doubly convenient, as these files almost always use ".M4A" as the filename extension. M4A files may be purchased from Apple's iTunes store, and there are a multitude of applications which will produce DRM free M4A files as well. It is important to note that while "M4P" implies the existence of DRM content protection, M4A files may or may not be protected. This was true even before the recent advent of iTunes Plus, Apples latest offering. They are very high quality, DRM free, M4A files. These are fantastic quality (256Kbps AAC, probably equivalent to 300+ kbps MP3, and probably indistinguishable by anyone from the original uncompressed material). The lack of DRM protection means you can play these files on hardware other than Apple's own iPods and play them on software other than Apple's own iTunes / QuickTime. You can also play them on as many PC's as you own. All of these advantages come at a mere $.30 extra per song - a fantastic deal, I think. I've already bought more iTunes Plus songs in the last few weeks than the total number previously purchased in the past. But I digress. Despite being DRM-free, the iTunes Plus files still contain a lot of "non-standard" sections ("called atoms" in QuickTime parlance, or "boxes" official ISO MP4 documentation"). Many of these may simply be vestiges of the earlier DRM protected format, even though they are no longer needed. In any event, some of these are know to contain "Personally Identifying Information", including your full name, email address, iTunes user ID, etc. None of this is required to play these tunes, and some privacy advocates are quite uneasy about this - on the flip side, many others find it highly irrelevant, and consider the privacy advocates to be either just plain "nuts", or people who are simply feigning to be a "privacy advocate" but really want to remove the private data so they can illegally share the files without worrying about being identified. Concerning both of those accusations, I don't think anyone has noticed or mentioned something which would seem to very much support the privacy advocates point of view. In a section entitled "PROTECTION OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION", the DMCA itself does not think inclusion of private data should play any part in copyright control, and they reverse their stance by actually allowing "a person to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work" if there is any violation in their four part set of rules regarding use of personal data. Nonetheless, none of this is really relevant - NIPPIN will NOT modify or convert any type of DRM protected files. If a file is marked M4A, it will run in "info mode" regardless, but if it's in "conversion" mode and it sees a "drms" atom, indicating the file is protected, it will not output anything (any such output would be useless anyway). But getting back to iTunes Plus: there are also other unneeded fields with undocumented data that change depending on who downloaded it. Recently, this lead to rumors that the entire advent of iTunes Plus was a conspiracy by RIAA to catch illegal file traders, as well as rumors that Apple was "hiding" things using a very secretive system known as "watermarking". While the NIPPIN app isn't capable of disproving arguments of conspiracy theorists (I don't think anything or anyone is capable of that ;) - it can clearly establish the truth or falsehood of technical issues like the use of watermarking (Answer: it's a FALSE rumor). Anyway, I'll probably re-release NIPPIN in a few days - it's a bit rough around the edges yet - and I'll continue this document with all the cool technical info, because most currently posted info about what atoms do what and which contain personal info are wrong. Anyone who's interested should be able to start playing around with this with no problem. Oh, and BTW - whether you care about privacy or not - the output of this app saves a minimum of 32KB compared to the input file. That's not a lot, but if you add it up - it's like 75 or so songs on a 30GB iPod. To be continued...

iTunes, iTunes Plus, and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple, Inc.

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