Apple To Play Fairer With FairPlay?

NewbieMonster writes "According to tech.co.uk, Apple is about to license its Fairplay DRM to Made for iPod accessory manufacturers. It's reported that Apple will also allow streaming of protected AAC content via USB. Could this signal a move to allowing other music players to access and play ITMS content?" From the article: "The expected announcements could signal a move on Apple's part to take some of the sting out of its Fairplay DRM which has come in for a great deal of criticism over recent months. It may also be a way of keeping Made For iPod makers onside, as the draw of the Microsoft Zune becomes stronger." Anyone noticed the draw of the Microsoft Zune becoming stronger?

Comments

hmm....

[ganjadude]

Anyone noticed the draw of the Microsoft Zune becoming stronger?

.......no

Re:hmm....

[flyingsquid]

Anyone noticed the draw of the Microsoft Zune becoming stronger?

Come to think of it, I *do* notice a distinct sucking sensation coming from the Zune...

again....

[User 956]

According to tech.co.uk, Apple is about to license its Fairplay DRM to Made for iPod accessory manufacturers. It's reported that Apple will also allow streaming of protected AAC content via USB. Could this signal a move to allowing other music players to access and play ITMS content?

Again, reinforcing the point that DRM isn't about preventing piracy, it's about maintaining control over other things. Like competitors in the marketplace.

No

[DreadSpoon]

No, it is not cracked.

The iTMS (iTunes Music Store) was cracked, meaning that people were able to buy DRM-free songs from iTMS using custom software. iTMS 6.0 changed that, and to date, it is not possible to buy unencrypted music from an account registered with iTMS 6.0 or higher. It's possible to run older iTMS versions (for now) and buy music, but some of us had extensive music purchases before we got our heads out of our butts and realized we wanted to play the music on something other than an iPod.

The DRM encryption itself is completely uncracked. IF you can get a hold of your decryption key, there is code to decrypt your music files. Apple has done a rather amazing job of keeping that key secured, though. It's pretty much impossible to pull it off of newer iPods, and I think it's not possible yet to extract it from a box with iTunes 6+.

If I'm wrong about that, let me know... I've got 250+ encrypted songs I'd really like to play on my Linux box with its superior sound setup, instead of on my iBook.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong on several counts. It used to be the trick to removing DRM was finding the keys. There were several ways to do this, including grabbing them from an iPod, or using a program that pretended to be iTunes and having the iTMS send you the keys. There were also programs that let you purchase music and would store it unencrypted. All of these methods ceased functioning with version 6.0. Prior to 7.0, iTunes would allow the creation and use of iTunes 4.9 accounts, but after 7.0 was released, they began requiring at least version 6.0, so there is no way to get the keys to your music.

At this point, if anybody knows how to get the keys for iTunes music, they're not talking. This doesn't mean DRM can't be removed. There is a program written in Python that latches onto iTunes like a debugger, has iTunes play DRMed songs, then grabs AAC frames after they've been decrypted but before they've been decoded. It then prevents iTunes from decoding and playing the audio, so a 5 minute song can be decrypted in less than 30 seconds, and it's a lossless transfer (as opposed to burning and ripping). Unfortunately, this program was written for Windows, and I don't believe anyone ever got it working on a Mac. If you can come up with a Windows box, one of the sibling posts has linked to it.

My interest was the same as yours. I had about $300 invested in my iTunes library, but my media center (and now all my other boxes) runs Linux. I certainly don't want to promote piracy, but I think it's perfectly legitimate to want your music library on a Linux box.

Re:No

[harlows_monkeys]

You may already know about this, but here is how to un-DRM your songs: simply burn them to an audio CD, then re-import them from the CD's. Sure, you theoretically lose sound quality this way, but I cannot tell the difference, and I'll bet if I blindfolded you, you couldn't either.

I'm surprised no one has made an AAC encoder specifically designed for this situation. Consider how lossy audio compression works. The 30000 ft overview would be that you simplify the input by throwing away some of it (hopefully, some of it that is inaudible), resulting in something that can be losslessly compressed.

When you take a lossy compressed song and expand that (e.g., burn to an audio CD), and want to compress that again, you don't need to throw any of it away to get something that will compress well, if you are trying to compress using the same compression system that was originally used. (If you were expanding an AAC file, and then wanted to compress with, say MP3, that would have to have some degradation, because AAC and MP3 would have different ideas of what needs to be thrown away). What this means is that it should be possible to design an AAC encoder that can take advantage of the knowledge that the input is the result of expanding a 128 kbit/second stereo AAC file, and compress back to something that matches that original AAC file.

Re:No

[QuantumG]

please excuse me if I cause anyone offense in saying this, but maybe if Mac users didn't refer to crackers as "scum" and other names, they wouldn't ostracize the platform. I do appreciate that crackers are finally being recognized by others as the freedom fighters I've always considered them to be. It's about time.