'DVD Jon' cracks iTunes

[Wonk]

OSLO, Norway - A young Norwegian who became a global hacker hero by writing and distributing a program to crack DVD security codes appears to have struck again, this time against Apple Computer's iTunes online music service.

(snip)

Last Friday, a new security-cracking program called QTFairUse was posted -- along with the message "So sue me" -- on a website for which Johansen is listed as the registrant, or owner.

The new program circumvents iTunes' anticopying program, MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding, by legally opening and playing a protected music file in QuickTime, but then, essentially, draining the unprotected music data into a new and parallel file.

more...
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61387,00.html

Here's his blog
http://www.nanocrew.net/blog/

and here's the crack (I haven't tried it yet, ymmv)
http://www.nanocrew.net/software/QTFairUse.tar.gz

[gmoney]

1. "Ancient Chinese Secret? My programmer... some hotshot."

He "cracked" the digital rights management (DRM) that's encoded into the AAC file to identify you as the owner of the file, and allow you to only play that file on your authorized computers.

BUT, all he did was make an overly technical (and illegal) program to replace a simple 2-step workaround.

1. Use iTunes to burn the song as an audio CD (creates AIFF file with no DRM)
2. Use iTunes to rip the song to DRM-free AAC or MP3 or whatever.

This workaround might compromise an infinitesimal amount of audio quality, but certainly not enough of a loss to be noticeable to 99.9% of users. So, all this guy did was make it MORE complicated.

Big whoop.

[politicat]

2. Yeah, so? Apple advertises that you can do that... just not blatently to

keep RIAA happy.

Purchase song.

Burn to CD as Audio CD.

Insert CD. Rip. Lather Rinse Repeat.

Mr. Politicat and I do this all the time to share what we buy with each other without using up computer licenses. (He's paranoid about them since he wipes and re-loads - regardless of OS - about as often as I buy him new socks.... quarterly or so....) It's technically fair use, just as a mix tape for personal use is fair use, or photocopying and laminating a book for bath time reading is fair use.

No, we don't sell it. But Apple says you can download, load on iPod, burn to CD.....

And once it's on a CD, you can turn it into .... any format.

He's just making it easy. (And possibly free.)

The market has to change. The paradigm has to shift. The RIAA has to realize they're a cancer on creativity.

Politicat