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"DVD Jon" Reverse Engineers FairPlay
breun writes to bring us up to date on the doings of Jon Lech Johansen, known as "DVD Jon" after he cracked CSS encryption at the age of 15. As reported by GigaOM's Liz Gannes, Johansen has now reverse-engineered Apple's FairPlay DRM — but not to crack it. Instead Johansen's company, DoubleTwist Ventures, wants to license the tech to media companies shut out by Apple from playing their content on the iPod. And, soon, on the iTV. Johansen could end up selling a lot of hardware for Apple.
For anybody who doesn't know who Dmitry Sklyarov is (I know i didn't). Click on his name for a nice Wikipedia article.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Apple doesn't make a boatload of money on the hardware (why else are they able to effectively price-match other MP3 players), but a huge amount from Itunes.
You have that completely backwards. Apple's profit margin on the iPod is huge compared to what they're making on iTunes downloads...
DVD Jon, didn't break the FairPlay, he emulates it with his software. So he's not in violation of DMCA I think. Just like the Samba project reverse-engineered the SMB protocol, they did the same. So he's going to talk to Steve in January and has at least one (1) customer (Microsoft? haha)
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Close: they know what the restrictions are right now. They don't know what the restrictions will be tomorrow or next year. Apple has, in fact, issued updates to iTunes to tighten the restrictions on music that had already been purchased, and they may very well do so again in the future.
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Has anyone verified that? My understanding was that the whole "PlayForSure/Zune" thing was speculated on because MS didn't happen to mention WMV is a list of other supported file formats, but that WMV was the default anyway so didn't need to be explicitely mentioned so the speculation that Zune wouldn't support it was probably not true
n terview-j-allard-microsoft-corporate-vice-presi/
Nope.
Stunningly, Zune will not play PlaysForSure content. Ironic, huh?
More here:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004910.php
And direct from Microsoft itself:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/the-engadget-i
Conversely, Apple has actually been making their DRM more lenient: you can now two-way sync any iPod with any iTunes libraries on computers that are authorized on the same iTunes account (and you can have up to five computers and an unlimited number of iPods, which is how it's always been). Previously, you could have an iPod associated with only one music library; now you can easily keep all libraries in sync across multiple computers and multiple iPods.
Does nobody remember the landmark Sony vs. Connectix case? A company can reverse engineer proprietary software and implement software that replicates functionality learned from said reverse engineering in their own devices in order to create compatibility between devices.
All of those changes and restrictions are made possible only because of DRM. So it does actually have everything to do with DRM. Then there's the point that, regardless of what Apple has done so far, it is entirely possible and legal for them to add restrictions at any time on media that you have already purchased. So the GP post was correct that while you may know what the restrictions are now, you have no way of knowing what they'll be tomorrow.
Wrong. None of those changes had anything to do with DRM. They applied to the behavior of the software in general, regardless of whether files had DRM or not. These were intrinsic to the behavior and featureset of iTunes, and had nothing to do with, nor were they enabled by, DRM.
And yes, you can argue they could add restrictions. Sure. But the net track record is that the restrictions have become more lenient, not more restrictive. And, to repeat, the examples I cited which the GP might have erroneously believed were related to DRM had NOTHING to do with DRM and applied to non-DRM files as well. The DRM was irrelevant to those changes; they were core functional changes to iTunes. And, to further repeat, with respect to DRM, Apple has become more lenient. So, we can only go on Apple's track record, which has so far been positive and has included negotiating aggressively with content owners for the least restrictive DRM possible.
How on earth did that get rated insightful? His point is moot -- the article says he has done exactly what the parent requests.
Obviously neither the parent nor the mods in question read the article at all.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Umm, he moved to San Fransisco. Which is in the US, last I heard.
Idiot.
Maybe YOU didn't RTFA, here let me quote it for you...
DVD Jon is just providing an altervate means for media compaines to get stuff on the iPod, and is not offering to let other MP3 manufacters the ability to play DRM'd FairPlay songs on an MP3 player other than the iPod.
Sure. You don't get out much, do you? I have a feeling that you *think* you know what this country is like, but you haven't actually experienced it yourself. I hate Bush as much as the next guy, but spouting nonesense doesn't help the cause.
He was making a reference to the CEO of the betting company who was flying from London to Costa Rica and was arrested during a plane-change in Dallas/Fort Worth.
I wish it was nonsense.