Apple's iTunes DRM Dilemma

An anonymous reader writes "Understanding how Apple's FairPlay DRM works helps to answer a lot of questions: why it hasn't been replaced with an open, interoperable DRM that anyone can use, why Apple isn't broadly licensing FairPlay, and why the company hasn't jumped to add DRM-free content from indie artists to iTunes."

Comments

obvious

[User 956]

Understanding how Apple's FairPlay DRM works helps to answer a lot of questions: why it hasn't been replaced with an open, interoperable DRM that anyone can use, why Apple isn't broadly licensing FairPlay, and why the company hasn't jumped to add DRM-free content from indie artists to iTunes.

Because the DRM locks people into iTunes + ipod, and locks out competition. Why do you think they're keeping it?

Re:obvious

[avalys]

Steve Jobs has publicly stated that the DRM is there only because the record industry demands it, and that if the record industry would allow DRM-free music sales, Apple would remove the DRM from the iTunes Store.

Re:obvious

[limecat4eva]

He spoke out against DRM back when the iTunes Music Store was first introduced. Can't find the exact quote right now (since Google's polluted with detritus about the latest brouhaha), but he basically acknowledged that some of the smartest people on the planet knew that DRM was a futile effort and that the record companies were too shortsighted to give a damn about the end-user experience. Can't let that get in the way of a good anti-Apple rant, though, can we?

Re:obvious

[szark]

It was in 2003, in his Rolling Stone interview.

Because of their technological innocence, I would say. When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content.

...What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.

Re:Cracked?

[BradleyUffner]

QTFairUse works just fine on the newest versions of iTunes (unless there has been a new verison in the last week). It even works perfectly on a 64-bit Vista installation, which was a little shocking because I thought it worked by hooking into memory.

Re:DRM

[DJCacophony]

Oh Jesus Christ, more RoughlyDrafted bullshit.
For those of you who don't already know, RoughlyDrafted is an Apple propaganda blog that abused digg by using multiple accounts to "digg" their own stories and "bury" any stories or comments expressing an opposing viewpoints. And now they're infiltrating Slashdot.

Well, now you know the truth. I am posting this as non-AC because I am willing to risk karma for this public service announcement to be heard.


By the way, if you ever wanted to know why FairPlay isn't interoperable, the short answer is because Apple makes more money that way.

No, no, no

[kbolino]

According to the article,

"Because iTunes happily converts protected AAC songs into standard, unprotected AAIF CD files when burning a CD, there isn't much point for a user trying to attack the system or steal its keys. The main reason for trying to defeat FairPlay is to exploit the system for the benefit of third parties."

I have no idea what AAIF means. Redbook CD Audio is just a set of raw PCM streams.

That aside, my real complaint lies in the statement that "the main reason for trying to defeat FairPlay is ... for the benefit of third parties." This is just false. The CD Audio "happily" produced by iTunes is simply uncompressed AAC audio. That means that all the data that was discarded by the encoder when the file was created is still lost, but the file is back to its original size (a lose-lose scenario, only useful for playing on standard CD players). It's foolish to try to recompress the data--even in AAC format--because new information will be discarded, and the quality will be even less (probably far less) than the original AAC file.

That's where the value of the unencrypted AAC file lies: it can be used just like an MP3 or similar file in any capable player. The file retains the benefit of the much smaller size, and it can be used on other platforms (like Linux) and on compatible players (like newer car/home stereos, many portable media players). The main use is not for the benefit of third parties, but just so I can play music I payed for in a manner of my choosing (a right protected by existing copyright law).

The author of the article may understand DRM, but he doesn't seem to grasp the usefulness of the unencrypted AAC file vs. uncompressed CD audio.

Re:DRM

[DJCacophony]

By the way, I forgot to mention that RoughlyDrafted's digg abuse got their site banned from digg until just recently.

Re:So how do you load unprotected content into iPo

[Anonymous Coward]

anything that uses the GPLed libgpod, such as its parent project, gtkpod.

Well, the thing about fairplay is...

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

When you download a song from iTMS, you download it without any DRM on it at all. It is in fact iTunes that wraps the download with the DRM. The original fairplay cracks were for iTunes, they simply grabbed the song before iTunes could put the DRM on it. If Apple allowed others to develop programs that can purchase from the iTMS, those programs could be written to not have DRM at all, and thus defeating the purpose of the DRM altogether.

Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[forel]

You know, of course, that Apple doesn't "offer up" non-DRMed podcasts - none of the podcasts you can subscribe to through iTunes are hosted on Apple's servers. iTunes simply puts all the feeds in one place and provides a simple interface to automatically download them from the podcast host sites on a regular basis. So the point that Apple could offer indie tracks without DRM just as easily is not valid.

I'd also ask if you read the R'dTFA, since it counters your points well, but... of course, this is Slashdot.

Re:Cracked?

[shmlco]

All QTFairUse does is extract an unprotected audio stream from iTunes. As such, any song extracted has to one purchased by you, and your iTunes player has to be authorized to play it.

In short, it's a far cry from being able to crack the DRM on any iTMS file, from any source.

Since iTunes already lets you make an unprotected CD of the music you bought, the only thing QTFairUse really does is let you save to disk instead of CD.

Wow.

Yeah, they've made a "fool" of Apple's DRM...

Typically Apple

[Peter Bonte]

Its for the user experience, an iPod is something personal and linked to 1 account and 1 user. Linking 1 iPod to many accounts and computers is way to confusing. Duplicate music is a first problem, manage all 5 duplicates or use 1 and apply different users to the file? Apple looks at what 95% of the users will find a reasonable limitation in order to get ease of use and it works out great, the remaining 5 % will have to adopt to it or buy another product.

Re:Cracked?

[imsabbel]

Sorry, i DONT WANT to reencode something to mp3 from a 128 kbit source. (especially between different algoithms. Artefacts have the nasty habbit to get amplified by the different psychoaccustic models).

To crack the DRM, i would expect the program to decrypt the file, without transcoding it.