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DVD Jon Creates DRM Killer

Posted by kdawson on from the copy-with-abandon dept.

Firmafest writes to let us know that 'DVD Jon' Lech Johansen's company has released an open beta of DoubleTwist, a desktop application that allows the user to copy media to any device. There's a Facebook app too. The software is available for download at Doubletwistventures.com. Currently only Windows is supported, but a Macintosh version is on the way.

44 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder who will be first.. by jskline · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder who will be first to be contacting these guys and threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

    "You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"...

    --
    All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
    1. Re:I wonder who will be first.. by infonography · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wonder who will be first to be contacting these guys and threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

      "You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"... I would guess it would be Prince.

      Who else?
      --
      Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
    2. Re:I wonder who will be first.. by unlametheweak · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well if we can get everybody here on Slash to keep this little secret to ourselves, I'm sure there won't be any problems with the MPAA, DMCA or any other organizations harassing the company with lawsuits, etc. To quote the eloquent and charismaticSteve Jobs, "Loose lips sink ships".

    3. Re:I wonder who will be first.. by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"...
      From the DMCA:

      Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.

      This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.
      I am not a lawyer, or by no means competent in reading laws. However, from what I can gather, unless the DRM is designed to prevent you from accessing the content (e.g. napster after your subscription expires), then you may circumvent for fair use. It actually does prohibit "making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure", but not owning or being in possession of such goods or services. That means that as long as DVD Jon's actions are legal in whichever country he chooses to stay, he can continue to make and distribute his DRM-circumventing programs, and we can legally download and use them, so long as we don't distribute the programs ourselves (e.g. give it to a friend).
      --
      You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
    4. Re:I wonder who will be first.. by McFadden · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wait, you're crediting a 40's-era propaganda campaign to Steve Jobs?
      It's like mp3 players, smart phones, slim notebooks etc... None of them existed until Apple invented them. I thought everyone knew that.
    5. Re:I wonder who will be first.. by edwardpickman · · Score: 4, Funny

      He knows it's a safe bet suing them since they'd rather settle out of court than admit to having a Prince song on their iPod. That should teach people for bulk downloading without checking what they are downloading. If you've downloaded 30,000 to 50,000 songs then there's a good chance there's a Prince song in the wood pile so you might want to cull them out.

  2. Supported Formants by milsoRgen · · Score: 5, Informative
    Supported Media Formats

    Video: 3gp (used by most cell phones), MPEG4 (.mp4, .m4v), wmv, avi and MPEG2 (.mpg, .mpv, .mpeg) Audio: mp3, aac/m4a, wma, wav Pictures: jpg, gif, png, bmp
    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
  3. But can it... by Thelasko · · Score: 4, Funny

    1)Convert all of my HD DVD movies into Blue Ray movies?

    2)Run on Linux

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  4. Re:Oh really by ditoa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So it is basically doing a software based line-out to line-in (aka loopback) encode? How is this anything special? I have done this for years using nothing but simple audio tools. Or is it doing something more intelligent? (I fail to see how though as it is still lossy -> lossy conversion).

  5. Re:VAC? by boourns · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Virtual Audio Cable isn't free, while DoubleTwist is.

  6. Oh, great... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 5, Funny

    Every time this dude releases a hack I'm not interested in using, I end up being forced to download a new patch from Apple for my iTunes/iPod if I want to buy new music.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  7. Setup Wants an E-Mail Address by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    On a whim, I tried installing this. Once the setup is complete, it wants my e-mail address to create an "account" for me... and it installs a couple of other programs I didn't agree to. Sorry, not interested - deleted.

    1. Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address by d3ac0n · · Score: 5, Informative

      Looks like this is an "Online Only" program. Basically, if you don't have an account to sign into, it doesn't work. It is NOT a standalone application, but a networked application.

      Looks to me like they are trying to create another Kazaa or Napster.

      Too bad. It seemed much nicer when I thought it was a standalone. I have no interest in running yet another networked application just to gain access to what should be a standalone function.

      Excuse me, I have to go uninstall this now.

      --
      Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
    2. Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 5, Funny

      Um, if your sig is accurate, how the hell did you end up replying to an AC?

      --
      You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
    3. Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Um, if your sig is accurate, how the hell did you end up replying to an AC?"

      Um, if your sig is accurate, why did you reply instead of abusing the moderator system?

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  8. Re:Oh really by Romancer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's special because of two things, the history of the name and the goal of the product. DVD Jon is creating a friendly all encompasing media bridge between online media, local collections and portable devices that "your parents could use" according to the article. This means mass adoption if it works and doesn't get legally raped.

    --


    ) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
    ) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
  9. Re:Yes by moderatorrater · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course the whole point is that people can use this to share any kind of media with pretty much anyone It could also be used (and correct me if I'm wrong here, i'm going way out on a limb) for being able to play your music on any device that you want to. Incompatibilities have killed my (legally bought) media before, and that's what I'd use this software for. If I wanted to freely share my any kind of media with anyone else, I'd just download it with limewire or bittorrent.
  10. Re:A utility to copy media to any device by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness). I've tried to use it to copy a CD to my mouse, but it didn't work, even when run as root.
    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  11. in related news by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Funny

    RIAA Creates DVD Jon Killer

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:in related news by Unique2 · · Score: 3, Funny

      DVD Jon? Come with me if you want to live.

      --
      No trees were harmed in the posting of this message. However, a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
    2. Re:in related news by SpydeZ · · Score: 3, Funny

      Except when they sent it back in time, the orders got a bit scrambled and it ended up trying to kill someone named John Connor...

  12. Re:One-trick pony? by compro01 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    how do you figure that? as far as i understand it, this is practically an automated analog hole trick. theoretically, it should be able to bypass pretty much any DRM scheme.

    --
    upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  13. It Required MSdotNET by Soloact · · Score: 3, Informative

    Went to give this a try. Upon starting the installation, the application required MS' dotNET and started to download it. That's when I hit the CANCEL. Don't want that dotNET on my computer at all.

  14. Re:Oh really by compro01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How is this anything special? it's simple, automated, and usable by pretty much anyone.
    --
    upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  15. Just read the license and Priv. statement by wethion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Umm.. after reading them relatively carefully, I don't think I'll be using that software. Basically, you give us your info, we update ourselves on what you're doing, we send it to the Cayman Islands and we promise promise promise never to give it to anyone else unless you agree, we're bought, subpoena'd or otherwise compromised. Somehow... I don't think so. Peace.

    --
    Jon Postel, R.I.P. You are missed.
  16. Stay tuned for DVD Jon's Autobiography... by jpellino · · Score: 3, Funny

    "My Life As A Nail"

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
  17. Re:A utility to copy media to any device by just_another_sean · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness). Yes, DD which, as it's name suggests, makes an exact duplicate of whatever it is copying, including whatever DRM is in the file.

    And while there are a lot of tools for stripping DRM available Jon is saying he wants to bring it to the masses. To quote (paraphrase?) "I want your parents to be able to do it".

    It's not about hacking DRM because it should all be free, it's not about mass distribution of "pirated" (Arhh!) material, it's about making the exercising of fair use rights by consumers as easy as it was with VHS/Cassettes/CDROM (the real CDROM, the one that is allowed to use the logo).
    --
    Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  18. Re:Oh really by MBGMorden · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hate to break it to you, but ANY conversion from AAC is going to be lossy->lossy. There's not way around that because the compression algorithms are different. The best you could hope to achieve would be to convert from DRM'd AAC to non-DRM'd AAC. That's the only way you can avoid the quality loss incurred by a format conversion.

    For a similar example in non-DRM terms: take an image. The less simple it is the quicker this will become obvious, but even on a photograph it will show soon. Save it as JPG. OK, now save it as PNG. Save it as JPG again. Go back and forth like this several times. Open and view the image. Notice that regardless of the fact that there was no-DRM involved and this was a completely legit "no workaround" conversion between formats, it looses information every time.

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  19. Quotable Quotes by milsoRgen · · Score: 4, Informative
    The EULA
    The Privacy Policy
    The Terms of Service

    Quotable Quotes

    Please note that this Privacy Statement is not a binding contract and does not create any legal rights. It is made available to you so that you can make an informed decision about using the doubleTwist website and services after considering the steps doubleTwist takes to protect your private personal information

    doubleTwist" means the SpiceFlow Corporation, a company incorporated under the laws of Cayman Islands, having its registered office at PO Box 309GT, M&C Corporate Services Limited, Ugland House, South Church St, George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, and any SpiceFlow Corporation subsidiaries or affiliated companies.

    You acknowledge and agree that doubleTwist, in its sole discretion, may modify or discontinue or suspend Your ability to use any version of the doubleTwist Software, and/or disable any doubleTwist Software You may already have accessed or installed without any notice to You, for the repair, improvement, and/or upgrade of the underlying technology or for any other justifiable reason...

    We may use Personal Data to: provide services and customer support You request; resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems; enforce our Terms of Service; customize, measure, and improve doubleTwist Software, VoIP Service and Website content and layout; inform You about targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers (unless You opt out)
    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
    1. Re:Quotable Quotes by Ragzouken · · Score: 3, Funny

      SpiceFlow Corporation? I sense plans within plans.

  20. Re:Yes by infonography · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Slips out of a tricky situation with regards to breaking DRM. By using a already owned DRM key it doesn't have to break the protection. This keeps the software maker (you know who) out of any sticking 'breaking their encryption issues'. This makes it fairly immune to DMCA attacks thus reducing it to an automated method of converting files. These already methods already exist and it just makes the task easy.

    --
    Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
  21. Re:Oh really by somersault · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's the digital equivalent of growing seamonkeys!

    --
    which is totally what she said
  22. DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA by SethJohnson · · Score: 4, Funny

    threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

    I'd like to see US law enforced over in Oslo, Norway. Wouldn't that be a hoot.

    Seth

    --
    $5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
    1. Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA by aitikin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Too bad Doubletwist was founded in California in the "USofA" and, as such, is subject to DMCA, regardless of where its programmer's reside.

      --
      "Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
    2. Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not trusted computing, but Vista attempts to plug the analog hole by not alowing high fidelity analog output (at leats of video). Trusted computing could be used to prevent driver-level work-arounds, but that's the direction Microsoft took. Instead they just invalidate all of your DRMed content if they detect a driver not on their whitelist (at least according to the NEtflix story a few weeks back).

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    3. Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA by unlametheweak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Pardon? How does trusted computing plug the analogue hole, and what has 64 bits got to do with it? The 64-bits is just a product of history. Microsoft's plan is to have all there 64-bit operating systems support TCP, and Microsoft plans to phase out all their 32-bit operating systems (much like they did with their 16-bit operating systems) circa 2010. One of the goals of TCP is to in fact "plug" the analogue hole. The idea being that hardware would be harder to crack than software, and the hardware thus helping the OS to police the software and policies set forth within, that designate user rights (such as copying). As lgw points out, the analogue hole is itself not fully plugged ATM (probably only because of compatibility issues with TCP High Def monitors and video cards for example (and those that are not fully compatible yet [we here such marketing phrases as HD-compatible for example]), and the marketing and PR issues that ensue when people cannot adequately use the products they purchased).
    4. Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA by wvmarle · · Score: 3, Informative

      Pardon? How does trusted computing plug the analogue hole, and what has 64 bits got to do with it? One of the goals of TCP is to in fact "plug" the analogue hole. The idea being that hardware would be harder to crack than software, and the hardware thus helping the OS to police the software and policies set forth within, that designate user restrictions (such as copying). There, fixed that for you.
      Remember, DRM stands for Digital Restrictions Management. It doesn't give you any rights, it at most takes away some. DRM just adds restrictions.
  23. They Are After Our Spice! by milsoRgen · · Score: 3, Funny

    Spiceflow... you're right... I was blind, but now I see. It's the goddamned House Horkonnen at it again. Probably in league with House Ordos.

    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
  24. Re:Oh really by somersault · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, if you must know, there are magical anti-DRM pixies inside the code that lovingly polish every bit as it passes through the transcoding process just to get its guard down, then they sprinkle them with magic pixie dust to remove the DRM, and finish the process with a nice close shave and boot polish. It's a trade secret though so don't tell anyone.

    Really though - a DRM remover is a DRM remover, and this just goes to demonstrate that you will *always* be able to break DRM with the analog hole, the whole thing is such a joke.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  25. Oh yeah, well top this by heroine · · Score: 3, Funny

    My startup is a Web-based social network portable media player plug & play standards based open media file swapper with AJAX Google enhancement.

  26. GUI for Sox, Image Magic and ffmpeg by flyingfsck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It sounds like a GUI front-end for Sox, Image Magic and ffmpeg. As such, it should be immensely useful, since running those utilities from a command line is quite a challenge.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  27. Re:What is property? by infonography · · Score: 3, Funny

    Anarchists are so cute! Actually it's Anarchists are so cute when their Angry!

    Of course its just the structure fires that make it look that way.
    --
    Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
  28. Re:DoubleTwist by Muffinmasher · · Score: 3, Funny

    they discovered 105,000 of the 20,000 human genes we have today. Wow, they are good.
    --
    Schrödinger's download is slow.
  29. Re:What is property? by Capsaicin · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anarchists are so cute!

    Q: Why do Anarchists drink Herbal Tea?

    A: Because proper tea is theft.

    --
    Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke