Buy DRM-free Songs from the iTunes Music Store

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000267036571/' target='_blank'>http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000267036571/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Jon Johansen, aka DVD Jon, aka the secret crush of hackers and DRM-haters everywhere, has struck again. And this time he’s not screwing around, he’s done something that will so seriously provoke Apple and the recording industry that he may have to go into hiding: he’s figured out how to buy DRM-free tracks from the iTunes Music Store."</i><br /><br />Wow! Can't imaging that it will take Apple very long to shut down this loophole (if they have not already).

[Macguy59]

They already have

[Felix Torres]

Johansen seems to have a knack for finding low-hanging fruit... :)
First he cracked CSS thanks to the fine folks at Real Networks who coded one of the official keys in the clear and now he's caught Apple with their architectural pants down.
I was quite surprised to hear that the iTunes store serves unprotected AAC and that Apple relies on the local client to apply the DRM. (No wonder that Real was able to "hack" their way into the Pod!) They quickly tightened up the pipeline and are now blocking non iTunes 4.7 clients but unless they change their whole distribution process, this is but the beginning of a cat-n-mouse game like the one AOL faces on AIM as there are now at least *three* ways to intercept those unprotected AAC files Apple serves.

Gotta wonder when Apple's contract with the studios comes up for review...

[OSUKid7]

They already have
Yep, they have. (http://news.com.com/Apple+disables+iTunes+hack/2100-1027_3-5628616.html?tag=nefd.top)

[Jason Eaton]

Does anyone know how napster and others do theirs? With a common source and a DRM wrapper I think this is not a unique issue to Apple for delivering items and placing some of the work load in a distributed fashion. I wouldn't want to see the computer cluster needed to encode 1 million songs a week server side.

So I have two feelings on this, first being that this is the classic flashlight- cockroach type reporting where the flashlight represents a focus and if you shift it just a bit to the side... you will see that it isn't just under where your looking.

Second, the part that sucks is in their effort to bypass DRM technology they just increased it instead and caused everyone who may not have upgraded their client (because new restrictions on number of computers allowed were added in later patches) are now forced to upgrade to confront this and still purchase music. This sorta applies to the Longhorn discussion earlier... at one point there will be a change where you NEED to accept the company line to continue using.

...

As for music licenses and renewals, I doubt the music industry will cut off 70% of its market. Maybe if no action was taken... but that is already moot.

[Felix Torres]

Does anyone know how napster and others do theirs?

DRM is a function of the data file, not the online vendor, some of which do things more than one way.

Now, I dunno 'bout SONY or REAL, but the PLAYS FOR SURE camp relies on *embedded* DRM. Which is to say that instead of wrapping a generic unprotected music file in DRM encryption, WMA and WMV files include DRM encryption as an intrinsic property of the coding.

In other words, the files that move from server to PC to player are copy-protected from within every step of the way, so spoofing the server (or the player, as Real did) achieves nothing. Because of this, serving DRM'ed files can be done with a simple browser interface (Wal-Mart, MSN Music and Buy.com allow this) instead of a proprietary application.

Some of the basic patents covering embedded DRM belong to MS and some to INTERTRUST and they had a long legal scuffle that they settled the old-fashioned way; cross-licensing.

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS6123830401.html

Given that Sony and Philips bought out Intertrust, you can expect both ATRAC and Open-DRM to rely on Intertrust technology.

Finally, not to get into a debate or anything but 70% of a $300 million dollar a year market is peanuts for the studios; the music industry sold well over $30 billion in a bad year (2003).

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&amp;storyID=2005-03-22T102529Z_01_BEL236420_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-EMBARGOED-MEDIA-MUSIC-SALES.XML

2004 saw a jump in non-digital sales so the music downloads business as a whole still amounts to less than 1% of the market.
Context matters more than hype.