Hacker Claims To Have Cracked iTunes Code
A Norwegian hacker known for cracking the copy-protection technology in DVDs claims to have unlocked the playback restrictions of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod and iTunes music products and plans to license his code to others.
The move by Jon Lech Johansen, also known as "DVD Jon," could pit the 22-year-old against Apple's lawyers, experts say, but if successful could free users from some restrictions Apple and its rivals place on digital music.
Today, songs purchased from Apple's online iTunes Music Store cannot be played on portable devices made by other companies. Songs purchased from many other online music stores also will not work on iPods because they similarly use a form of copy-protection that Apple doesn't support.
"A lot of consumers want the ability to play their music on any device and copy protection gets in their way," says CBSNews.com technology consultant Larry Magid. "Right now there is a tower of babble between songs bought on iTunes and all digital music players other than those from Apple and it would be great if that were possible without having to resort to hacking away at Apple's copy protection."
Johansen said he has developed a way to get around those restrictions by creating code that mimics Apple's copy-protection system. But unlike his previous work, which he usually posts for free, the Norway native plans to capitalize on his efforts through his Redwood Shores, California-based DoubleTwist Ventures, said the company's only other employee, managing director Monique Farantzos.
An unnamed client will soon use the technology so its copy-protected content will be playable on iPods, she said, declining to give any specifics.
"There's a certain amount of trouble that Apple can give us, but not enough to stop this," Farantzos said Tuesday. "We believe we're on good legal ground, and our attorneys have given us the green light on this."
Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said the company was declining to comment.
"There have been programs for cracking the code that prevents sharing the music on a protected iPod with other players or computers around for a long time," says CBS News Correspondent Jim Chenevey.
iPods are also "mated" to specific computers, so that if one of the devices is plugged into a different machine, the music on it is erased.
The iPod has become "the poster child" for the 21st century, and it reveals a lot about a person, Newsweek Senior Editor Steven Levy said earlier this week on CBS News' The Early Show, as the device was celebrating its fifth anniversary.
"It's a device that solved a problem just at the right time where it could change our lives and it did it so well," Levy said. "It's a breakthrough consumer electronic product and it had ripples throughout our culture. It was the right company (Apple) and the right technology and the right environment."
The biggest gripe Levy hears is that the songs you buy on iTunes can't be played on software systems other than the iPod.
A few others, including RealNetworks Inc.'s RealPlayer Music Store, have also tried to circumvent Apple's copy-protection technology, called FairPlay, but have not gained much traction.
Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney at the privacy-advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation said Johansen is treading carefully this time, consulting with lawyers, but is not necessarily cleared from a legal fight over copy-protection laws.
"There is a lot of untested legal ground surrounding reverse engineering," he said.
Johansen became a hero to hackers at age 15, when he posted software called DeCSS to unlock the Content Scrambling System, or CSS, the film industry used on DVD movies to prevent illegal copying. The act made Johansen, who was then living in Norway, a folk hero among hackers.
After the film industry complained, Norwegian authorities charged him with data break-in, but Johansen was acquitted.
He has since become a strong advocate of the open-source philosophy of making software code freely available for inspection and sharing.