“A notorious Norwegian hacker known as DVD Jon is preparing for another run-in with the music industry after he released software that lets iPod owners copy music and videos bought from iTunes and play it on other devices,” Jonathan Richards reports for The Times Online.
“The software breaks the copy protection – known as ‘digital rights management’ or DRM – that is built into all music that is bought from iTunes. Music bought from iTunes can be played only on the iPod,” Richards reports.
“DoubleTwist, DVD Jon’s company, maintains that its service is legal, but lawyers said that Apple would almost certainly seek to shut it down because the law now specifically targeted technologies which attempted to circumvent measures such as DRM,” Richards reports.
“The program gets around Apple’s DRM software by replaying a song in fast-forward and taking a copy of the audio track, using a process similar to that by which a CD is ‘ripped’ – or copied – to a computer,” Richards reports.
“Lawyers today [said] that the law had taken steps to protect Apple’s efforts to control the way its music could be played, and that anyone circumventing measures such as DRM risked being found guilty of copyright infringement,” Richards reports. “‘I would be astonished if doubleTwist doesn’t get a call from Apple,’ Paul Jones, a partner in intellectual property law at the London-based firm Harbottle & Lewis, said.”
More in the full article here.
should be interesting to see this challenged in court… shouldn’t laws be written to make sense and protect the general public, NOT a specific industry?
why? Apple doesn’t care. They’ll get a call from the music labels, and maybe apple if apple gets a call from the music labels too.
Why should Apple care? They’d sell all their music without DRM if the labels weren’t being such anti-iTunes pricks.
it’s UMG and the subscription services that he needs to worry about.
The only surefire solution to stop DVD Jon…. ELIMINATE DRM!!! Then he wouldn’t have anything to do.
Apple(leaning back in chair staring at the ceiling): DVD Jon, please stop. You’re going to make people buy more songs from us and un-DRM them. Pllleeeaaassseee sstt..zzzzzzzzzz!
Now might be the time to check out a short term subscription for a month or two (anyone doing a Free one month music trial subscription?) I could every song in their catalog in 30days and use DoubleTwist to remove the Windows DRM and recode the WMA file into an AAC files. Delete the chaff cancel the subscription and have ten’s of thousands of dollars in digital music for free. Humm, sign me up!!!
Demon…That sounds like way to much work…
My time is worth something…is your time free?
To each their own…
@OldMacFan
I could most likely automate the whole thing in about 3 hours.
Using WebObjects, Applescript and few other tools and tricks.
Nah…won’t happen. The law firm Apple employs for this sorta case uses Windows Vista machines…which are currently in a state of perpetual reboot since they installed Vista SP1
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/20/vista_sp1_prerequisite_update/
I’m rooting for DVD Jon. DRM and the RIAA are equally evil and must be destroyed!!
@cosmos: “shouldn’t laws be written to make sense and protect the general public, NOT a specific industry?”
Cosmos, people who own copyrights on creative or intellectual property ARE part of the general public. An industry may grow up around these individuals, but the laws are created to protect the individual, not an industry.
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@ripper: Apple should care because they most likely have contractual obligations with the record companies to maintain the integrity of their DRM. Do you think it would benefit anyone at this point to have a slew of record companies pull their content from iTunes for breach of contract? I’m not saying they would, but Apple’s inability to fulfill its obligations vis a vis DRM would not help them in the next rounds of negotiations.
sounds like the same old Real Networks + “Harmony” patch of Fairplay-encoded music again. And we all know how that played out. Apple swats away another irritating mosquito with either a cease and desist or by issuing another iTunes software update, breaking the hack.
Should give him a job perhaps?
DRM is not the problem. If you agree to a license, you are bound by it. If you don’t like it, buy from somewhere else, and/or complain. The greatest threat in this area is general copyright law, and the desires of some to make it even more restrictive. In general, people should be free to own and do what they please with what they posses. Further restrictions should be special, mutually-agreed upon arrangements, and not common law.
Hell yes! He can expect a call and a letter from Apple’s legal department.
If he’s lucky, that’s all he will get.
He needs to be using his talents to be working for Apple or some other company instead of this kind of things.
Of course truth be told…this is the sort of thing Jobs and the Woz used to do as well.
Times change, but people don’t.
If Apple gets rid of DRM it will eliminate the need for this software. I have heard this is coming do to the fact that Apple is booking bands for a special NYC event.
Considering that all music from iTunes can be transferred to a non copy protected media with moderate skills…. who cares. Sounds like a lawyer looking for sound bites.
Hold on for a minute… can you hear that sound?
That the sound of Apple’s legal department coming down the hallway!
Enjoy your life while you can… it’s got a EOL tag attached!
This sounds more like a tool to convert AACs into MP3s so you can play them on something other than an iPod. Apple would be interested in trying to stop that wouldn’t they?
Before somebody states the obvious yes I know you can burn your entire iTunes library to 8,000 CDs and then encode them to mp3, this method sounds a little easier though.
Sounds like, except for the double speed part, this isn’t that much different than using a program like WireTap to copy protected music.
So actually this is not a hack at all; it’s just good old Audio Hijack Pro in fast forward: Re-record a song you’re playing. No news, no new possibilities, just a bit less time consuming.