DVD Jon takes on Apple
The hacker known as DVD Jon is having another go at Apple’s digital rights management (DRM) technology by commercialising code that allows people to play iTunes on any MP3 player.
Apple prevents iTunes customers from playing any songs on any player other than an iPod, but Lech Johansen sees this as an unfair restriction on the digital music market. His company DoubleTwist is planning to licence it’s Apple DRM breaking code to other manufactures of MP3 players so that they can allow their customers to play iTunes files on their devices.
Johansen first released a product to circumnavigate the DRM in 2003, and several updates have been released for free on the web since then, but users have found it difficult to load the code onto their machines.
Johansen became known as DVD Jon after he introduced a code-breaking program to open up the DRM in DVD films, to allow him to play films on his Linux computer. The film industry took action against him, but a Norwegian court threw out the case.
Monday 30 Oct 2006 | Paul | Music
