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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."
It's fairly easy to play DRM'd iTunes Music Store music on any MP3 player. All you do is burn an audio CD from the DRM'd files and then rip that CD into MP3s. That's it. You might have to rip at higher bitrate to make sure you capture all the original audio information, but it's perfectly doable--and legal.
Frankly, I'm surprised the guy hasn't been ventilated yet.
Last time I checked he wasnt in the US so he doesnt need to follow your laws.