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http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/01/27/apple.fairplay.drm.details/

JHymn interview reveals Apple FairPlay DRM details

updated 01:45 pm EST, Thu January 27, 2005

 

Apple FairPlay DRM details


OSDir.com has posted an interview with the current maintainer of the open-source hymn/jhymn project offers some interesting , which it uses to prevent unauthorized copies of songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store: "hymn is a decryption program based on the work of Jon Lech Johansen , who first reverse-engineered Apple's DRM scheme (called "FairPlay"). The original author of the hymn code, which he released under the GNU General Public License, has never come forward, and prefers to remain anonymous. The current maintainer of hymn goes by the handle 'FutureProof,' [and] developed JHymn, a more user-friendly Java implementation of the original command-line version of hymn. His present goals for the project are to improve the JHymn user interface, and the effectiveness of its removing of the FairPlay DRM."


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  1. zdezyne

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2001

    0
    01/27, 02:54pm | report spam | Reply |

    Burn a CD...

    Removes FairPlay DRM.

  1. Ganesha

    Senior User

    Joined: Jul 2002

    0
    01/27, 02:58pm | report spam | Reply |

    Connect your audio out...

    ...to a tape recorder, removes FairPlay DRM also.

  1. wesukmk

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2004

    0
    01/27, 03:44pm | report spam | Reply |

    Quality

    Burning a CD is fine if that's as far as you want to take it, but if you want to listen to protected music on devices that don't support FairPlay, then you have to recompress it. That means reduced (albeit only slightly) quality.

    Even if you take a 128Kbit AAC file, write a CD, then encode it at 320kbit, you'll end up with lower quality audio than the original 128kbit file.

  1. minimansion

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

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    01/27, 03:57pm | report spam | Reply |

    not a friend.....

    Whoever is doing this is not a friend of Apple. This undermines their position with the labels which is already a delicate balance. This is not good in the long run for the iPod/iTunes platform. Whoever did this is a pirate. Us Apple users finally have a great product that commands a dominant marketshare. This will lead to the demise of that. Not good........

  1. AllenHuffman

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Dec 1999

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    01/27, 04:21pm | report spam | Reply |

    Legal uses.

    Some 'usage rights' seem hard to argue. If you pay for a VHS tape that the VCR can eat, perhaps having a backup of it makes sense. A DVD can get scratched, so playing a backup might also make sense. Backing up a video game ROM cartridge? Not so much sense. A broken thing is a broken thing, but VHS and DVD can easily be rendered useless from 'normal use'.

    If we buy music, are we legally allowed to play it on any format other than what it came on? Can I dub a store bought CD to casette so I can play it in my car tape player, legally? If so, buying an album on iTunes and then changing it to play on a non-iPod seems like the same thing, but the DMCA gets in the way of that.

    Methinks DMCA could be applied to everything we know - games, CDs, DVDs, etc. so, while in the past it was 'legal', getting to the point where we could legally make the copy would be illegal.

    So do we actually have the right to move music we buy to another format? (Ignoring DMCA?)

  1. jimothy

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Sep 2000

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    01/27, 05:32pm | report spam | Reply |

    re: legal uses

    You can backup a FairPlay song easily. More easily than any of the other media you mentioned. You could make a million backups if you wanted to; FairPlay won't prevent you from doing this.

  1. minimansion

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

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    01/27, 06:19pm | report spam | Reply |

    re: Legal Use

    jimothy is exactly correct. FairPlay does not stop you from burning a CD and then doing whatever you wish with the music. It just keeps music that is "bought" from being emailed or file shared without first doing that extra step. Record companies would not be as favorable to the system if people could just take their whole store bought library and just "give" a copy to a friend without this step. This is what is attractive to the record companies because it keeps the system honest just like it would be if you bought the song from the traditional record store. Also, there are no restrictions if you convert your songs into mp3s afterward so I don't really understand why people want to "break" the system. It's almost as if they want to do it just because you aren't supposed to. That's why I say this person is NOT a friend to Apple or any of us that are. If systems like this are constantly broken then there eventually won't be any more companies left like Apple to innovate great programs like iTunes. We will be stuck with Micro$oft and you tell me if you think we are going to like that??? They didn't care about music or even the internet for that matter until they became popular due to another company's efforts first.

  1. ccrider

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Mar 2001

    0
    01/27, 06:33pm | report spam | Reply |

    legal use

    I use jhymn and I don't feel bad about it at all. I feel the restrictions limit my usage. Before hymn I purchased occasionally, now I purchase much more (about 1200 songs and books). I may share my music with my girlfriend but that's about it.

    I bought the music so apple, the record companies, and the artist got paid.

    Leave me alone...

  1. morgan

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Mar 2001

    0
    01/27, 07:00pm | report spam | Reply |

    stuck with apple hardware

    I'm all for DRM in theory. I'm a legal music buyer. But what irritates me is that you're limited to what music hardware you can use. I've got an ipod, but what if i want to experiment with other players? What if i want a screen on my flash-based player? Or what if i wanted one of those roku soundbridge things? I'm SOL since i buy a ton of stuff through iTMS.

  1. LordJohnWhorfin

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2002

    0
    01/27, 07:51pm | report spam | Reply |

    I can't stand DRMs

    But Apple's is fairly lenient as DRMs go. I will really cheer the day WMA/WMV protection gets cracked.

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