"DVD Jon" Reverse Engineers FairPlay 299
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.
*sniff*.. *sniff*. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh that's right.. a lawsuit.
Hold on to your hats boys and girls, its going to get fun.
And watch.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Apple will snarl and bite yet another hand. Anyone that thinks Apple is consumer friendly is an idiot.
Re:Real already did this (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Apple isn't utterly retarded like Microsoft, doing things like making "PlaysForSure" content NOT work on their own devices, and doing other ridiculous and confusing things with DRM. Apple's DRM is unobtrusive enough to most customers that most customers DON'T CARE, and will NEVER "get screwed" by it. Period.
Note I said "most". And ultimately, that's all that counts.
Also, DRM isn't necessarily intrinsically evil. I know there's a lot of belief here that copyright law is hopelessly corrupted, content owners are greedy bastards, the laws surrounding DRM are horrid, and I could go on and on. And all of that may be true. But as long as there is some level of legal protection for someone who generates content and/or their agents, or their agent's agents, or trade groups that represent them, etc., there is nothing intrinsically wrong with using some level of technological means to protect that content from misappropriation under the current body of legal frameworks that cover such use. Everyone who buys content from, e.g., iTunes, knows exactly what the restrictions are. No one is forcing them to buy it.
DRM will never die. Shitty, overly restrictive DRM that pisses off massive amounts of customers will die. But "DRM" in general won't.
Re:Selling for Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why do I... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, you were the one who made yourself look like a tool when you posted what you did...these issues couldn't possibly be more unrelated, and just as Apple did nothing to Real (because it can't), nothing will happen to DVD Jon. Sorry to disappoint.
Wrong way to approach this... (Score:2, Insightful)
Talk to me when DVD Job offers other MP3 player manufactures that ability to use a FairPlay DRM'd song on there own MP3 player. That is the lock in I would like to eliminate (and apple wants to keep).
Worse (Score:5, Insightful)
He is so getting sued & this time his home country's laws will not protect him.
TFA does make an interesting point: he isn't stripping DRM, he's adding it... but isn't that exactly what Apple is licensing?
May be non-news... (Score:4, Insightful)
The iPod can play non-DRM'd media formats, in mp3, non-FairPlay AAC, etc...
If content from other music stores can't play on the iPod, it's not Apple's fault. It's their own fault, most probably because of the RIAA, for clinging to their own proprietary DRM.
On the other hand, it is Apple's(and the RIAA's) fault that iTMS content cannot play on other devices, and this is why we really need a way to strip FairPlay DRM.
It looks like this technology just benefits the record companies, who want to force all their music licensees into developing proprietary DRM technologies that make every single media device mutually incompatible with every other one.
Sigh.
Luckily, this is old news - Johansen had already circumvented the FairPlay encryption algorithm. He just wanted to develop something which was marketable to other music stores who want to compete with iTMS and who have the RIAA's proverbial gun to their heads. This seems like good news for everyone but the people who are buying the music, and (as I see it) the people who create it, who are tethered to an unfair distribution model.
Re:And watch.... (Score:1, Insightful)
You mean by selling FairPlay 2.0 to say MS, and then having MS implement it on the Zune, so that existing iPod users can switch to the Zune without losing their songs?
Re:*sniff*.. *sniff*. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:May be non-news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, yes it IS Apple's fault in a way, because they refuse to license FairPlay to anyone. Hence why DVD Jon has/wants to do so.
Re:Suuuure (Score:4, Insightful)
Not just public key crypto, but crypto itself.
Cryptography is concerned with making it so that Alice can send a message to Bob, without Charlie being able to read it even if he intercepts the message en route.
DRM is concerned with the same thing, except Bob and Charlie are actually the same person.
In crypto, both the sender and intended recipient are assumed to be trusted (or more precisely does not try to deal with the case where they are not). In DRM, the intended recipient is assumed to be untrustworthy. DRM pretends to be an extension/application of crypto, but it fundamentally breaks the most basic assumptions of cryptography.
It does sound fun. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Real already did this (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Now finish the job (Score:2, Insightful)
The next step would be to reverse engineer the iPod, so that you can play iTMS tracks on your Zune or iRiver or whatever other device is out there.
As long as the DRM on these other players works just as well as the iPod, the only thing that changes is that the single-vendor lock-in that Apple has worked so hard to create gets shattered. This is good for the consumer, and may perhaps be what finally moves DRM from the "evil" category over to "annoyance" in the mind of consumers, thus increasing the market size.
Only an idiot would voluntarily lock themselves in to a single vendor (Apple, Zune Marketplace) if they had the choice. PlaysForSure was Microsoft's shot at creating an open marketplace for players along with an open market for media players, which, if DRM must exist, is the best market situation from the consumer perspective: you get to pick the best music store (or several of them) and the best player (or several of them). Music and players are interchangeable commodities.
I still don't like the fact that downloaded music is licensed in stead of purchased (as with a CD), but if all DRM were made interoperable (as France recently tried to do), the difference would be tolerable.
I still plan on purchasing CDs for the foreseeable future, but this developement is definitely welcome.
iTMS gives the iPod legitimacy. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Apple really was interested in running an online music venture and making their money there -- as in, really having that be their core business -- they would have tried to license out FairPlay as widely as possible and make it a de facto standard. (Which it already practically is, without licensing; given that the iPod is the de facto standard MP3 player.)
However, since the iTMS is really only there to grant legitimacy to the iPod as a device (does anyone remember how the music industry was screaming bloody murder about iPods being "piracy machines" back before the music store existed?), it makes no sense for them to share this "excuse" with anyone else's MP3 players. They benefit more from a consumer who buys an iPod than they do from a consumer who buys a few iTMS songs -- you'd have to buy a LOT of music to give Apple the same amount of profit that they get from a single iPod, and most people don't buy that much.
I think you'll see Apple go after this in the courts if it can, or just start a vicious cycle of "upgrades" and "enhancements" to the format if it can't.
Re:Real already did this (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in the old days, the only way to get music was to have musicians in house. The only way to have a play was to have players in house. The performers had control of the content.
Thanks to recording and physical media became distributable without the original producers. Tough break for the musicians and players. The performers lost control of the content, the distributers gained it. Do you really think the distributers gave a shit about the performers?
Now, thanks to electronic media, the music is distributable without even the distributers. Tough break for the distributers. They lost control of the content. Do you really think the public cares about the distributers?
Your business model is obsolete. Grow up and find a new one instead of lobbying for laws to prop it up with.
All people are doing is cutting out the middleman - evil or not, technology has passed them on and they don't like it one bit that the shoe is now on the other foot.
Re:Worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Do these people not get it? In the U.S., the government doesn't fuck around--they WILL kick your door down, take your computers, and drag you off to jail if they suspect you're up to something (or some company or other government agency tells them you are). Hell, they'll drag you out of the airport if you even LAND here. And they don't give a shit about it causing an international incident, either (really, how much lower could the U.S. sink in international opinion than it already has).
-Eric
Re:This will not stand in court (Score:2, Insightful)
You seem to think that "cracking" something of this sort doesn't involve reverse engineering it. In fact, all of the "cracking" that I can recall DVD-Jon doing (CSS, FairPlay) has been the result of him reverse engineering available implementations.
Re:Real already did this (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice try though.
Re:*sniff*.. *sniff*. (Score:4, Insightful)
Golly. It's almost like neither political party has our best interests at heart. Who'd a thunk it?
Re:iTMS gives the iPod legitimacy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I disagree - they didn't license out to protect the market as it was growing, if they had attempted to license early it could easily have meant the death of their format. Licensing out to the likes of Microsoft and their hardware partners would leave them forced to play along with multiple implementations of their DRM, possibly even dealing with outright sabotage (see Java in MS Windows) to undermine their position. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. By building a strong monolithic market first, they're in a perfect position to open up licensing and make a killing, and no-one can challenge their position at this point as the one who sets the standards.
In fact there's going to be far more money in online media when it takes off than there will ever be in gadgets - once people don't bother buying physical media the market will be huge; owning the most widely licensed DRM will be very profitable. For now though the money is in the gadgets.
Re:Real already did this (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it is the iTunes software that has the behavior irrespective of whether the file has DRM.
However it is the DRM that prevents you from bypassing the iTunes software and its behavior by using some other software that does not have the same limitations.
Thus while the behavior is part of the software, it is the DRM that restricts you to using that particular software, and thus turns a behavior into a restriction. Thus any changes in iTunes behavior in the future is made into a future restriction by DRM and DRM alone.
I have a hard time believing you don't actually understand this.
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.
Right, as I say in another post, they have found a very nice compromise. Who knows if this is temporary or not, and the whole point is that because of DRM -- and only because of DRM -- we are subsequent to any future changes thay make whether they are nice or not.
DMCA Jiu-Jitsu (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL. However:
DVDJon and his company are not just circumventing DRM. They are eviscerating meta-DRM:
On one hand, they are circumventing FairPlay's copyright protection technology. Seems like a clear-cut violation of the DMCA, doesn't it?
However, as long as they don't publicize their circumvention method, but instead make it available under NDA to legitimate customers, they are providing an avenue for Apple's legitimate competitors to enter the iTMS market. Competition has been explicitly protected [wikipedia.org] w.r.t. the DMCA.
DVDJon &co. are "crossing the streams" and make DRM itself the subject of competition. DMCA may make circumventing copyright protection illegal, but the 6th Circuit said that you can't use the DMCA to stifle competition. So, can you use the DMCA to stifle DRM competition?
If the court says that DVDJon can't [enable someone to] make a legitimate iPod clone, the DMCA is set up for a major anti-competitive argument, complete with precedent, all the way to the SCOTUS.
If, one way or another, competition (legitimate, not free "competition" from unauthorized downloads) is upheld over this meta-DRM that DVDJon is attacking, then any DRM moves closer to commodity status. That reduces the incentive for tech companies to invest in DRM - a Very Good Thing by itself. But it also opens holes to, hypothetically speaking, the MPAA members' wet dream of having your HD-DVD/Bluray player ask the mothership for permission before it plays the next episode of The Sopranos.
All in all, very well played.
What People Need to Understand (Score:3, Insightful)
What is not clear is how the reverse engineered FairPlay will be marketed. If it is marketed to the online music retailers so they can offer iPod compatibility, then Apple probably doesn't really care enough to take action. If it is marketed to the portable music player hardware manufacturers, then Apple will definitely care because the iPod sale is its bread and butter.
The first scenario makes a lot more overall financial sense because the iPod dominates the market as an end user device. The reason that other portable players have been crushed in the market is not because there is a lack of online music retailers who sell content that is compatible with those devices. It is actually the opposite - there are tons more online music retailers who sell content for non-iPod devices. The reason is that the device of choice is the iPod, and the only online music retailer who sells content from the major music publishers that can be licensed for the iPod is iTMS. If the other online music retailers could also license DRM'd music from the major music publishers for the iPod, then the only threat is to the revenue stream of iTMS - not the iPod.