Slashdot Mirror
DVD Jon's DoubleTwist Unlocks the iPod
An anonymous reader writes, "On the 5-year anniversary of the iPod, Fortune Magazine has an article called Unlocking the iPod about Jon Lech Johansen's new venture. Slashdot briefly covered DoubleTwist earlier this month, and those of you who complained that he was not enabling iPod competitors to play FairPlay files will be happy to learn that according to the Fortune article he will also be going after the hardware market." From the article: "As [Johansen] and Farantzos explain DoubleTwist in a conference room they share with several other companies, he points to a sheet of printer paper tacked on the wall that has a typed quote Jobs gave the Wall Street Journal in 2002: 'If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own.' As Johansen sees it, Jobs didn't follow through on this promise, so it's up to him to fix the system... Johansen has written [two] programs...: one that would let other companies sell copy-protected songs that play on the iPod, and another that would let other devices play iTunes songs."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this constitute a blatant violation via reverse-engineering of the Fairplay DRM? I'm not saying I disagree with his actions, I'm just asking the question...
I left my wallet in El Sigundo!
And you didn't back up your purchased music files because...?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
If we held all companies responsible for promises from their CEOs no company would ever stand up to it.
Agreed. And yet, imagine if there was a company which *did* keep promises. Those promises, over time, might actually MEAN something.
You must not have that big of a music library if you don't realize something is very wrong with this. I should not have to pay for hundreds of blank CDs just to be able to transfer my music collection.
"It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
{IANAL and other disclaimers here}
The best thing about DVD Jon's work is that it proves, disturbingly and resoundingly, that the current *AA business model based on DRM is at best faulty, and at worst an attack on fair use and civil liberties. While that sounds a bit over the top, imagine a world where there were no DVD Jon's to show that the big corporations locks can be picked. Imagine a world where the emporer's new clothes were never laughed at?
The point being that this only serves to help illuminate, in the minds of lawmakers, how feeble the current DRM schemes and laws really are, whether the work is ultimately found illegal or not.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
After all, "WE THE PEOPLE" grant "creators" the temporary right to restrict others from copying their work. We in no way, shape, or form grant a permanent right to restrict others from copying works. So, what happens at the end of "the temporary right"? I mean, will iPods suddenly allow us unrestricted use of legally purchased files?
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
If DVD Jon was smart, he'd write software that would unlock FairPlay, allow the user to copy it to another device, and then lock it down again
And what of the copy to another device? How exactly do you dictate what happens to it?
Look. Jon is simply giving people The Tools to do whatever they would wish to do with their purchases. If you do something illegal with the tools, that's your problem. Same could be said of owning a car. Or a gun. Or a freaking two by four for that matter.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Personally, as someone who buys every DVD and CD that I like, music downloads have no interest for me and, as an honest buyer, I find it objectionable that I potentially will have DRM enforced on me even though I do not copy (for anyone else) the media that I own. Therefore DRM is evil and anyone who does their best to crack it or break it is someone I consider a hero.
However, aside from my personal opinions of DRM, there are far too many dumb people out there with far too much money to spend. Those same people buy things because they are "cool" or because lots of other people have them, without looking in greater depth about things like the erosion of their rights as a consumer. Because marketing has also hidden this important fact from them, what DVD Jon is doing helps to bring DRM into the public eye and, at least, goes some way to making sure that they have access to all the facts, good and bad, about DRM. That's why what he is doing is so important.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I'm sure this makes me unpopular, but I'm going to say it anyway. Anyone who buys DRM'd music is either an idiot or ignorant, and it's a shame so few of them have learned their lesson yet. In this case, you're paying for a vague not-a-promise that you can probably listen to the music now and if you're really lucky you'll be able to listen in the future.
If music really needed DRM to be a profitable business, I wouldn't still be able to buy CDs. So the only reason I can buy a CD and turn it into MP3s yet can't buy those MP3s to start with is because some jackass in a skyscraper either doesn't understand his own business or is trying really hard to pretend not to.
That should get some discussion going.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
``The best thing about DVD Jon's work is that it proves, disturbingly and resoundingly, that the current *AA business model based on DRM is at best faulty, and at worst an attack on fair use and civil liberties.''
Or, alternatively, it proves that DRM alone isn't going to stop people from doing illegal things with content, and we need to crack down on tools made to circumvent the DRM to protect the *AA's interests.
And since the government holds the interests of the corporations over civil rights, it's the latter interpretation that gets used, and we get the DMCA, which is then globally enforced, because the USA is currently King of the Hill.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
All of these lamentations about Apple cheating and *AA "suing its customers" -- what is your problem? It is Apple's own device, and it is *AA's customers. If you don't like these companies, then stop using the darn things.
Your commentary is all well and good, but it is not practical. The problems with DRM are problems with the law and problems with the industry. People act in their own interest. That might mean a person wants a particular song from a particular band so they endure DRM to get it. That might mean a band wants to be heard, so they pay money to give away their copyrights and accept DRM restricting their songs from being heard by future generations, in the hopes that the cartel that runs the industry will allow them to reach the mainstream audience.
Sure, educated and enlightened people can boycott the mainstream, but that will not stop the problems DRM and an illegal cartel cause for society. Your argument is analogous to someone in prohibition era Chicago saying, "we all know the violence and corruption caused by booze smuggling organized crime is killing people, so why doesn't everyone just stop drinking?" People want to drink, and they want to listen to popular music and they want to get it instantly, online. Even if that means they download it from a file sharing network or they put up with DRM that prevents future generations from being able to hear the music they will. The solution is not to try to change society, but to change the laws so that they give society what it wants.
I was about to explain the basics of data compression to you. But this is slashdot. You shouldn't be that stupid. Go do an internet search for "lossy compression." Find out what happens when you take the output of one lossy-compressed piece of data, then compress it again with a different lossy-compression algorithm.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The license they keep is the authorisation database, informing them that I am entitled to have and be playing that song. Since this is a quintessential part of the service, yes, it does.
They're not holding my backup. Remember, they're holding the "product" that I license, since I never own it, remember? And this one goes out to all those "copyright infringement is not theft! you don't lose anything by copying! it costs no more, it takes no more space, no-one loses anything!" - they hold the product because that is their service. They're not holding your individual backups for you. This argument is fatuous, at best.