Pretty simple to do using Chrome's network inspector as well. I found that Turntable had made it pretty easy to save songs as well, but changed their scheme a while back.
Also, kinda disappointed to realize that Rdio no longer does the auto-renewing free music thing :(
easy, but what's the point? you can already get this content via non-legal means if you want. Any website scraping these urls and offering them for download will just get shut down or blocked. The streams are delivered in a way that makes it sufficiently difficult for normal users to just right click and save as, this is Good Enough. The people who can get around this can already get the music for free elsewhere.
This is pretty cool, but it's like "breaking and entering" a house that has no doors. "Hacking" is a bit of a stretch. I like his self-deprecating humor at the end, I'm sure he recognizes this.
This brings up an interesting question: what incentive does Rdio have to actually protect their data? If the record labels don't know, and 99% of their users don't know, it's probably not even worth their time to protect the mp3 data at all. They can just tell everyone "oh yeah, we're a streaming service, we don't allow downloads," then use some general obfuscation (AKA don't make the download link readily available to non-programmers and music industry execs), put a clause in their license that says you can't store the music you play, and bam, problem never existed in the first place. The most annoying thing for them would probably be the bandwidth usage of people trying to script this and download high volumes of data, but even then only a minor annoyance.
The even larger point is: even if I were an Rdio subscriber (I'm actually a Spotify subscriber), I'd still prefer to use their app and service rather than download the files just so I can "have" them. Their value is in the service, not in the data they stream. The value is not in having music files, but having unlimited access to unlimited music. This is the business model we always wanted from online music, and they're finally getting it right. Music to my ears.
At least, in our case, the record labels (at least two of the majors) are quite strict and we had to go through a whole validation process to prove it wasn't easy to download the songs playing. Not doing this would mean the labels wouldn't send us the songs to stream.
Interesting, thanks for the account. Just another sign that they're still stuck in a traditional possession economy when they're actually trying to sell a free good.
In that case I wonder if Rdio is going to get some flak for this discovery.
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[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 37.9 ms ] threadAlso, kinda disappointed to realize that Rdio no longer does the auto-renewing free music thing :(
Do you really want to do something very cool? Try bandcamp, beatport or soundcloud (pay downloads) ;-) you can do the same thing.
This brings up an interesting question: what incentive does Rdio have to actually protect their data? If the record labels don't know, and 99% of their users don't know, it's probably not even worth their time to protect the mp3 data at all. They can just tell everyone "oh yeah, we're a streaming service, we don't allow downloads," then use some general obfuscation (AKA don't make the download link readily available to non-programmers and music industry execs), put a clause in their license that says you can't store the music you play, and bam, problem never existed in the first place. The most annoying thing for them would probably be the bandwidth usage of people trying to script this and download high volumes of data, but even then only a minor annoyance.
The even larger point is: even if I were an Rdio subscriber (I'm actually a Spotify subscriber), I'd still prefer to use their app and service rather than download the files just so I can "have" them. Their value is in the service, not in the data they stream. The value is not in having music files, but having unlimited access to unlimited music. This is the business model we always wanted from online music, and they're finally getting it right. Music to my ears.
At least, in our case, the record labels (at least two of the majors) are quite strict and we had to go through a whole validation process to prove it wasn't easy to download the songs playing. Not doing this would mean the labels wouldn't send us the songs to stream.
In that case I wonder if Rdio is going to get some flak for this discovery.