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Apple's iTunes Opens Wider -- By Hook or By Hack

August 26, 2004

By DRM Watch Staff

The number of efforts to open up Apple's iTunes and associated FairPlay DRM has increased in recent weeks. CNet has reported on a Stanford University student's ourTunes program, which allows users to browse iTunes libraries on other people's computers and download files, though not to play them if they are encrypted with FairPlay. A couple of weeks ago, Jon Lech Johansen, of DeCSS DVD circumvention fame, announced that he had cracked the encryption key used in Apple's AirPort Express wireless networking protocol for sending audio from a computer to an audio system. The hack enables files from music services other than iTunes to be played through AirPort Express.

In addition, there are rumors that Apple is licensing FairPlay to Macrovision for use in Macrovision's CD copy protection technology, so that files on discs with the forthcoming upgrade to the company's CDS-300 CD copy protection technology (which already supports Microsoft Windows Media DRM) will be transferable to iPods. Neither Apple nor Macrovision have commented on the rumors, which come on the heels of RealNetworks's reproducing the FairPlay encryption for its RealPlayer Music Store, which now sells iPod-compatible tracks for US $0.49 in an attempt to undercut iTunes.

A couple of things are going on here. The various hacks to iTunes are further evidence that no DRM scheme is hackproof, and that the schemes most likely to be hacked are the ones that are most popular. Apple has moved to block some of the various hacks, but overall, there is no evidence that the music industry is pulling licenses of its material from the iTunes service. In other words, the music industry apparently understands that popular DRM schemes are bound to be hackers' preferred targets and that just because someone publishes a hack does not mean that all files around the world are suddenly in the clear. (Although, interestingly enough, we know of no hacks to Microsoft Windows Media DRM -- the DRM scheme with the largest installed base in the world by far -- since Version 7, which now dates back 3 years and 2 major releases.) It is possible to design cryptographic systems so that the damage is minimized if they fail.

On the Macrovision front, assuming that the rumors are true, it is evidence that Apple is gradually bowing to considerable industry pressure not to repeat the mistakes it made in the personal computer world by keeping the Macintosh proprietary. As much as we believe that copy-protected CDs are a Quixotic and cynical idea, their consumer-hostility is somewhat tempered if tracks on them can be played on the world's most popular portable music player. Furthermore, while those who really want to pirate files can do so by copying them on to an iPod and then creating another CD with MP3 files, this is definitely not a scalable infringement process.

Apple's forays into the copy-protected CD and mobile phone market (via its recently-announced deal with Motorola) are cautious first steps. We believe that Apple must open up FairPlay and leverage its early market advantage in order to reduce the risk of being overtaken by the two juggernauts that could render it irrelevant: the Open Mobile Alliance's standards efforts and Microsoft.

http://www.drmwatch.com/drmtech/article.php/3400151