Cracking iTunes' DRM with JHymn

comforteagle writes "Howard Wen has interviewed 'FutureProof' of the JHymn project, a DRM removal application for iTunes song files laden, or 'crippled' as some say, to prevent filesharing. FutureProof tells us how Apple's DRM works, how to rip it out using JHymn, how they build on the work of 'DVD' Jon Johansen, and how to upgrade to that brand new iShuffle safely."

Comments

You know...

[FireballX301]

At this point, I've decided to get out of the game. No IRC-crawling, no Kazaa, no DRM-breaking.

It's much easier to use the five-finger discount.

Re:You know...

[Zork the Almighty]

But the penalties for real stealing are much less than fake stealing.

Re:You know...

[MikeXpop]

That's because the RIAA gets revenue if you steal it from a store. If you go to your local strawberries and steal the last London Calling, they're going to have to buy more. To the RIAA, it's indistinguishable from a normal sale. The only one who gets screwed in that case is the insurance company.

Remember kids, stealing music helps the artists!

I love this shit

[Lisandro]

I hope stuff like this teaches companies no one wins with DRM. Not themselves, as they're made look incompetent when DRM is cracked ("Protected CDs" rippeable pressing CTRL?), and certainly not their customers.

If it's digital, and the end user can see / hear it, it can be copied. Perfectly. Deal with it, and make it interesting to buy instead of pirating.

Re:Why crack it?

[garcia]

If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD. It seems like a lot of hassle to set up an account, buy the music, download the music, crack the music, then convert the music to get to the same end result.

I wasn't aware you were able to get custom made mix CDs at stores with tracks numbering in the 100s of thousands. Cool.

Obviously iTunes is popular because some people don't like to spend $13+ on an entire album when they only want one song. They want to make their own mixes and still not have DRM on them I guess.

"Sensible DRM" Sensible to Who?

[asv108]

I love reading posts from Apple fanboys who fail to see the problem with a DRM standard that locks playback to portable devices that our produced by the same company that distributes the music. Apple's "sensible" DRM locks playback to software and hardware made by Apple computer. Sure, you can permit playback on multiple iTunes installations, but that does not free your music playback from the products of ONE company.

Now if Apple licensed Fairplay playback to device manufactures and software developers, that might change people's opinion but as it stands now, Apple computer has a monopoly of fairplay enabled music playback. I would suggest that Apple open Fairplay, but as we all know, the concept of DRM is simply PKI turned upside down. Its a game of digital hide and seek or "security by obscurity," so it is simply not possible to open source any software based DRM scheme.

Lets look at this situation from another angle, if Microsoft was the leading online music retailer and used a format that could only be played back on Microsoft hardware and software products, would people be defending them? The hypocrisy and denial of Apple fanboys on /. is so blatant, its not even amusing anymore.

Re:DRM

[anagama]

• Isn't it retarded that we have to crack DRM anyway?

This isn't flamebait - it's true. DRM costs money - removing it generates revenue. Counterintuitive? Case in point:

An iBook came into my household this christmas. I had heard about iTunes for years, but not being on Windows or Mac, had never seen more than a screenshot. So anyway, I try it out and buy an album I once had but lost to a departing girlfriend. It was cool, but I also knew it was DRMed - and indeed, when trying the file on my linux box - no joy. I didn't buy any more music after that. No way would I pay for music I can only listen to on one computer (I want it to work at home (linux/new mac), work (linux), studio (linux)). So I didn't buy any more music - then I heard about Jhymn - installed it, stripped the DRM off my files, txr over to my linux box, and voila - lot's of joy.

That was about a week ago - I've spent over $30 on iTunes in short time since then (it's frighteningly addictive and easy to click "buy" - especially when sleepy late late at night). Without DRM stripping I would have spent a big fat ZERO.

Moral of the story:I only buy from iTunes BECAUSE I'm able to strip the DRM and play the files on my linux boxes ... a fair use I believe because I can only listen to music on one computer at a time.