"DVD Jon" Reverse Engineers FairPlay

breun writes to bring us up to date on the doings of Jon Lech Johansen, known as "DVD Jon" after he cracked CSS encryption at the age of 15. As reported by GigaOM's Liz Gannes, Johansen has now reverse-engineered Apple's FairPlay DRM — but not to crack it. Instead Johansen's company, DoubleTwist Ventures, wants to license the tech to media companies shut out by Apple from playing their content on the iPod. And, soon, on the iTV. Johansen could end up selling a lot of hardware for Apple.

Re:Why do I...

[CastrTroy]

For anybody who doesn't know who Dmitry Sklyarov [wikipedia.org] is (I know i didn't). Click on his name for a nice Wikipedia article.

Re:Ton o Bricks time...

[ALpaca2500]

Apple doesn't make a boatload of money on the hardware (why else are they able to effectively price-match other MP3 players), but a huge amount from Itunes.

You have that completely backwards. Apple's profit margin on the iPod is huge compared to what they're making on iTunes downloads...

For those that didn't RTFM

[guruevi]

DVD Jon, didn't break the FairPlay, he emulates it with his software. So he's not in violation of DMCA I think. Just like the Samba project reverse-engineered the SMB protocol, they did the same. So he's going to talk to Steve in January and has at least one (1) customer (Microsoft? haha)

Re:Real already did this

[Mr2001]

Everyone who buys content from, e.g., iTunes, knows exactly what the restrictions are. No one is forcing them to buy it.

Close: they know what the restrictions are right now. They don't know what the restrictions will be tomorrow or next year. Apple has, in fact, issued updates to iTunes to tighten the restrictions on music that had already been purchased, and they may very well do so again in the future.

Re:Real already did this

[daveschroeder]

Has anyone verified that? My understanding was that the whole "PlayForSure/Zune" thing was speculated on because MS didn't happen to mention WMV is a list of other supported file formats, but that WMV was the default anyway so didn't need to be explicitely mentioned so the speculation that Zune wouldn't support it was probably not true

Nope.

Stunningly, Zune will not play PlaysForSure content. Ironic, huh?

More here:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004910.php [eff.org]

And direct from Microsoft itself:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/14/the-engadget-in terview-j-allard-microsoft-corporate-vice-presi/ [engadget.com]

Conversely, Apple has actually been making their DRM more lenient: you can now two-way sync any iPod with any iTunes libraries on computers that are authorized on the same iTunes account (and you can have up to five computers and an unlimited number of iPods, which is how it's always been). Previously, you could have an iPod associated with only one music library; now you can easily keep all libraries in sync across multiple computers and multiple iPods.

Re:*sniff*.. *sniff*.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does nobody remember the landmark Sony vs. Connectix case? A company can reverse engineer proprietary software and implement software that replicates functionality learned from said reverse engineering in their own devices in order to create compatibility between devices.

Re:Real already did this

[daveschroeder]

All of those changes and restrictions are made possible only because of DRM. So it does actually have everything to do with DRM. Then there's the point that, regardless of what Apple has done so far, it is entirely possible and legal for them to add restrictions at any time on media that you have already purchased. So the GP post was correct that while you may know what the restrictions are now, you have no way of knowing what they'll be tomorrow.

Wrong. None of those changes had anything to do with DRM. They applied to the behavior of the software in general, regardless of whether files had DRM or not. These were intrinsic to the behavior and featureset of iTunes, and had nothing to do with, nor were they enabled by, DRM.

And yes, you can argue they could add restrictions. Sure. But the net track record is that the restrictions have become more lenient, not more restrictive. And, to repeat, the examples I cited which the GP might have erroneously believed were related to DRM had NOTHING to do with DRM and applied to non-DRM files as well. The DRM was irrelevant to those changes; they were core functional changes to iTunes. And, to further repeat, with respect to DRM, Apple has become more lenient. So, we can only go on Apple's track record, which has so far been positive and has included negotiating aggressively with content owners for the least restrictive DRM possible.

Re:Wrong way to approach this...

[MikeBabcock]

How on earth did that get rated insightful? His point is moot -- the article says he has done exactly what the parent requests.

Obviously neither the parent nor the mods in question read the article at all.

Re:*sniff*.. *sniff*.

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, he moved to San Fransisco. Which is in the US, last I heard.

Idiot.

Re:Wrong way to approach this...

[sadler121]

the article says he has done exactly what the parent requests.

Maybe YOU didn't RTFA, here let me quote it for you...

DRM-buster DVD Jon has a new target in his sights, and it's a big piece of fruit. He has reverse-engineered Apple's Fairplay and is starting to license it to companies who want their media to play on Apple's devices. Instead of breaking the DRM (something he's already done), Jon has replicated it, and wants to license the technology to companies that want their content (music, movies, whatever) to play on Apple devices. This may not be good news for iTunes the store, but it could make the iPod even more popular.

DVD Jon is just providing an altervate means for media compaines to get stuff on the iPod, and is not offering to let other MP3 manufacters the ability to play DRM'd FairPlay songs on an MP3 player other than the iPod.

Re:Worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. You don't get out much, do you? I have a feeling that you *think* you know what this country is like, but you haven't actually experienced it yourself. I hate Bush as much as the next guy, but spouting nonesense doesn't help the cause.

He was making a reference to the CEO of the betting company who was flying from London to Costa Rica and was arrested during a plane-change in Dallas/Fort Worth.

I wish it was nonsense.