iPod Cracked, But Does it Matter?

Bennett Haselton writes "The Associated Press is writing that "DVD Jon", known for breaking the copying restrictions on DVDs, plans to market a method for breaking the copy protection on songs purchased from iTunes Music. What's missing from the story is the fact that converting iTunes music into unrestricted formats like MP3 is already trivial. In principle it's impossible to prevent music from being copied anyway, because a user can always play a song through an audio output jack and use another device to record the sound; there are several other methods that work by reducing the same principle to practice. Bottom line: there's no reason yet to get excited about the iTunes-cracking technology (and, indeed, no reason to buy an iPod), when you can already convert songs this way." Bennett's full article on the subject is available below.

According to an Associated Press story, "DVD Jon" Johansen is planning to market a technology for cracking the copy protection on songs purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store.

This technology will probably be much discussed in the press as the release date draws nearer, but it's a case of using a flame thrower to kill a fly. It's already possible to convert Music Store songs to MP3 without even using any functionality outside of iTunes.

Apple doesn't make this easy to find, of course, and in fact tries to make it look impossible -- if you set your preferred import format to MP3, then right-click on a song in your iTunes "Purchased songs" list and click "Convert selection to MP3", you get the error: "[song name] could not be converted because protected files cannot be converted to other formats". But you can easily burn a series of songs to a CD, then select the songs on the CD and import them into MP3 format. (Of course, if you don't like wasting a writable CD each time you convert your songs, then wait until you've purchased a few more songs and convert them all at once.) All of this is based on core iTunes functionality, which won't go away unless Apple decides to stop letting users (a) burn CDs or (b) import CD songs as MP3 files, neither of which is likely.

But suppose Apple does manage to block this path. (The easiest way I can see would be to write a hidden code on each CD burned from protected songs with iTunes, so that iTunes would refuse to re-import that CD into an unprotected format. Users could re-import the songs with another application, but at least they'd have to open two programs!) You can still use a program like Total Recorder that can capture any sound output on the computer and save it to an MP3 file.

And even if it ever becomes possible for the audio playback application to seize control of the operating system in order to stop programs like Total Control from working, you can always connect a portable MP3 recorder to the audio output of your computer.

It's a common misconception that if a copy-protection algorithm gets broken, it must be because the encryption was too weak or the algorithm was flawed. But the Achilles heel of any such copy-protection scheme is that in order for the content to be playable, the playback program has to "break" the encryption every time, in order to play it. If the content is encrypted using a key, the key has to be stored on the user's computer where the playback program can find it. (If you didn't have to store the key along with the encrypted content, you could use encryption algorithms that are believed to be impossible to break with today's computers, by 15-year-old Norwegians or anybody else.) But even though every copy-protection algorithm is breakable in principle, it's usually easier just to capture the content as it's played back, which is what the previous examples do.

Logically, I think the only algorithm that would help to fight music piracy would be one that embeds a unique "fingerprint" or "watermark" in each downloaded copy of a song -- in the audio itself. A good fingerprint would have these properties:

• it should not be noticeable enough to interfere with the user's enjoyment of the song
• it should not be possible to copy the song in a way that destroys the fingerprint, without degrading the song quality and diminishing its value

A good example is the "cap code" dots that appear in certain frames of a movie; these are supposed to be unique to each movie theaters so that pirated movies can be traced to the theater where they were filmed off the screen. This, of course, doesn't make the film traceable to the individual pirate who filmed it, but it makes the movie theater accountable, and incentivizes them to prevent piracy. Unfortunately the "cap code" dots tend to fail the first criteria above -- people do find them annoying, to the point where they're nicknamed "crap code". (It would also be easy to remove them from pirated copies, but few people bother, since the cap code only gets the movie theater in trouble; it doesn't incriminate the individual movie pirate.) We can only hope that any fingerprints embedded in song files are a lot less intrusive.

In the meantime, don't get taken in by the hype around a new way to "crack" the existed restrictions on copy-protected song files. They were never really protected.

Comments

Bullshit! At least the editor(!) might RTFA!

[mstroeck]

He is going to market a way for COMPANIES OTHER THAN APPLE to create copy-protected content that is playable on the iPod. None of the crap you just wrote is in any way relevant to what he is up to.

Re:Bullshit! At least the editor(!) might RTFA!

[zeromorph]

Yeah! The point actually is that he is going to commercialise his hack. And that is something more newsworthy than the fact that you can copy DRMed material through a digital-analog-digital conversion.

And if he (or they i.e. DoubleTwist) is really doing that - what will Apple do to him/them in court?

DoubleTwist seem to be pretty sure about not being sued, but I can't imagine Apple not taking them to court. And thyen will any mp3-player manufacturer buy it before the whole issue is settled?

But you lose quality

[kill-1]

You lose quality if you first convert audio from digital to analog, and then sample it again. But in the age of "CD quality" 128 kBit MP3s and crappy PC speakers, who cares about audio quality anyway...

Re:But you lose quality

[mgabrys_sf]

Audio Hijack from Rogue Amoeba. There - no analog conversion. Was that so hard?

Re:But you lose quality

[pla]

Audio Hijack from Rogue Amoeba. There - no analog conversion. Was that so hard?

The grandparent post has the right idea, but either misspoke or misunderstood the real problem...

Even with "perfect" fidelity analog (or in the case you offer as an alternative, bypassing the analog step completely), playing and recompressing to MP3 will still cause a loss of quality, for two reasons.

First, AAC throws away slightly different "unneeded" parts of the sound than MP3 (or Ogg, or whatever lossy format you want to use) does. This means you have a serial reduction in quality with every generation of transcoding. You can avoid this problem by transcoding to a lossless format ("lossless" at the same sampling rate and number of bits per sample, anyway, since no truly lossless encoding exists, not even in analog)... But doing so gives you a much larger file with the same (lossily compressed) quality as the AAC you started with.

Second - and your suggestion may get around this, if the sound hardware allows it - Resampling an audio stream will virtually never capture the exact same moments in time, with the same exact starting point. Thus, even reencoding with the exact same encoder as the original will still result in the same sort of quality loss you see from transcoding.


Thus, if you consider the convenience of downloading compressed audio as worth the loss of quality compared to buying a CD (for almost the same price new, and actually less if you buy used) and ripping it yourself to something like FLAC - At least keep the original and never, ever transcode it. That means, if you want to really "own" your collection, you have the sole option of directly stripping out the DRM. Any other method will sacrifice quality for the convenience.

Re:DRM sucks, news at 11

[gEvil (beta)]

Trying to make music uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.

Behold the ice cube! : p

Oh Bennett

[gEvil (beta)]

It's clear that Bennett didn't even bother READING the article that he's supposedly using to back up his claims. Nowhere in that article does it talk about DVD Jon (or his company) selling a tool to crack the iTunes encryption. However, what it does talk about is DVD Jon's company selling a tool that will allow other music retailers to encrypt songs that they sell in the format that is used by iTunes and the iPod.

Remember kids, Reading Is Fundamental!

Re:DRM sucks, news at 11

[tomstdenis]

Shut up Bruce.

Besides DRM is more than just copy protection. it's "rights" protection, like I have the "right" to only permit you to view that DVD on Tuesdays between 9pm and 930pm. I have the "right" to stop you from sharing the DVD, i have the "right" to stop you from backing it up or using clips for fair use purposes. I have the "right" make the media only work in select markets and then lock down the number of different players...

Effective, I have the "right" to make you my bitch. Squirm all you want, I'll cry foul and get the Federal government to lock up more kids!

Tom

P.S. note the quotes around "rights"

Re:DRM sucks, news at 11

[eldepeche]

That isn't at all what copyright means. Copyright regulates distribution, not use. If I buy a record, I do not have the right to make bootleg copies of it and hand them out or sell them. If I buy a book, I can't photocopy all the pages and staple them together and hand them out, or type it all into a text file and upload it onto my website. The copyright holder can, and can grant the right to do so. Before you accuse people of not understanding copyright law, you might want to know the definition of copyright.

The concept of fair use is mostly separate from copyright, because it is use and not distribution. If I buy a record and make a tape recording (or a digital one) so that I can listen to it on a portable player, copyright law has nothing to say about it because I'm not distributing it. If I buy a book and type all the content into a text file so I can read it on my laptop, that's fine.

The two areas come into conflict mostly due to the DMCA. Until this law came into force in the US, and its sibling pieces of legislation in other countries, DRM was annoying, as it inhibited place-shifting (fair use), but easily circumvented. The DMCA made it illegal to circumvent copy protection, so that, in theory, a person could be prosecuted for removing DRM in order to use a digital file on a portable player different from the intended one. In practice, it allows manufacturers of printers to sue manufacturers of replacement cartridges.

Anyway, I mostly just wanted to tell you that you don't know what you're talking about. I can't tell if you're joking.

Re:DRM sucks, news at 11

[berashith]

This is how my wife felt, until she tried to watch a DVD that she owned, on a tv she owned, using a laptop that she had purchased the DVD drive in for the purpose of watching movies (this was several years back). When she wanted to use a large screen and not hunch over the laptop, a simple S-video cable out to the tv showed the desktop of the laptop. Unfortunately, all of the content in the dvd playing program came out black. When I explained that this is DRM and its uses, that the maker was more worried about the potential of her making a vhs copy than her ability to watch the movie unless she went out and purchased their "approved" hardware, she changed her mind quickly.

I don't dislike DRM because I like free stuff. I dislike DRM because it artificially limits me. Before an argument about license and legitimate restrictions comes up, remember that I have to pay again if I lose or break my copy. The media companies need to decide that I own something, or that I license something, and give the rights to the consumer that correspond to the situation. They cant limit me based on the situation and change the rules only with the concern of screwing me for every penny.

Re:DRM sucks, news at 11

[Doctor Memory]

But if my DVD goes bad then it's my problem

Yep, just like if you dropped a vinyl album and it broke.

Or if I want to play my DVD on a device that uses a different format, too bad for me.

Yep, just like if you wanted to play your vinyl album on your 8-track player. Or your wax cylinder on your Gramophone. Imagine if the Beatles had been around earlier, how many times would you have had to buy The White Album by now?

Seriously, I don't think the media companies are restricting people's usage any more than they used to, it's just that people want more from their media because the potential is greater. You might as well complain that you can't listen to satellite radio on your car's AM radio even though you purchased a subscription...

Hopefully, once they've figured out their One True DRM, it'll be incorporated into everything, so I'll be able to copy shows from my TiVo onto a DVD so my daughter can watch them in the car. And yeah, I realize that if there wasn't any DRM I could probably do that today, but that's not the point. The industry is fixated on curbing piracy, and I'm not a pirate, so I say the sooner they get something they're comfortable with in place, the sooner I can start lobbying for digital medium independence. Once the DRM BS is settled, we can start agitating for our rights under fair use again, and have a better argument ("Hey, as long as it's protected, I can copy my own DVDs onto my media server and watch them from a hotel in Bangkok, right? I mean, I purchased the right to view them, didn't I?").