Womble used our news submit to tell us that the iPods proprietary iPod-iTunes FairPlay system has supposedly been cracked by Jon Lech Johansen aka DVD Jon. It was Jon who cracked the DVD encryption system when he was just 15, this allowed DVD's to copied and played on any device.
Jon has now claimed he has figured out how the Apple iPod's FairPlay encryption technology works. At the moment, encrypted songs bought from other music services won't work on the iPod and those bought from iTunes wonk work on other players. Well, Jon claims he has figured out how to get songs from competing services to play on the iPod. Jon's company DoubleTwist, hopes to license this technology to other music stores so that they can sell music to people who own iPods. Jon said what drives him is the fact he believes users should be able to listen to the music they have legally bought on any device they own.
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Now Johansen claims he's mastered the inner workings of the iPod and its FairPlay encryption technology, allowing him to remove many of the restrictions Apple places on its users. Today, songs purchased from Apple's iTunes store can't be played on non-iPod devices, and, if you've bought songs from other music stores, the chances are you won't be able to play them on the iPod either since they use a form of copy protection that Apple doesn't support. Johansen's latest company, DoubleTwist, has developed programs to get around these restrictions, and plans to license them to digital music stores that are looking to sell copy-protected songs capable of being played on the iPod. Johansen's driving force is his belief that users have the right to listen to songs they have bought legally on any device they own."Today's reality is that there's this iTunes-iPod ecosystem that excludes everyone else from the market," he told Fortune magazine."I don't like closed systems," he added. |
The way the Jon has bypassed the protection is by emulating Apple's FairPlay system so the iPod thinks is playing an Apple iTunes song. While Apple may not see this as a good thing, many other people will as it means more competition and more diversity. It will also force companies to compete by lowering prices, upping quality and providing a better service.
Jon's company, DoubleTwist, has already signed its first client - but will not name them. It will be interesting to see if anyone else will license this technology as Apple may start suing in the future to those that license this technology. Jon believes his business is operating legally, as he hasn't removed the protection but added protection.
Jon went on to say, that the law protects copyrights, but doesn't say you have to be locked to one system. Whether the courts agree with Jon is not known, because there are very few past previous cases to go by. Apple Australia refused to comment on the story and whether they would be taking legal action or not.
Jon doesn't seem to be too concerned, as the title of his latest blog
is - So sue me.
Source: SMH
