DVDs Jon, the person behind cracking DVD's CSS expects to have software to allow the iPod work with 3rd party stores available beginning 2007, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Despite various 'Too good to be true' subscription-based unlimited download music services on the market, the main catch is that none of these offer iPod support. This also seems to be the main reason behind the failure of music download services offered through Universities, as while students are free to download as music as the like for free throughout their term at college, the majority of students have an iPod.
Unlike software widely available to strip DRM from downloaded music, Jon's software DoubleTwist is actually a more music industry friendly approach in that it replaces a music service's DRM with FairPlay DRM, that used by the iPod. It also looks like his software will be able to do the reverse to allow iTunes music be played on other manufacturer's MP3 players that use WMA PlaysForSure DRM or some other DRM system, assuming they take on DoubleTwist’s solution. At present, iTunes makes up 88% of the legal music download market and the iPod makes up 75% for the digital music player market.
Unlike RealNetworks method of getting around Apples DRM, which led to Apple attempting to block out Real in software updates, Jon claims that his implementation will be difficult to block, as it applies FairPlay DRM to music in pretty much the same way as applied to iTunes music. While Jon’s solution may require music providers to offer their music in the MP4 format that is compatible with the iPod to avoid conversion, if Jon’s solution works the other way around, it will need to re-encode iTunes music to the WMA format (or what the player supports) for it to be supported by that player.
It is unclear at this time how this system will work with time-limited music, such as that downloaded as part of subscription, unless FairPlay DRM already supports some sort of time limited feature. At this time, Apple does not offer any subscription based download service, in that music from iTunes must be bought by the track or album. If Jon's software turns out successful and the company succeeds in licensing out DoubleTwist to Napster, Yahoo, Rhapsody and other competitors to Apple, this will give iPod owners the freedom to shop around, rather than be locked to iTunes, compact discs and MP3 sources.
