Scalawag DVD Jon Johansen is at it again. A couple weeks ago, we mentioned that Jon had again cracked Apple’s FairPlay DRM scheme. This time, there was a twist: Jon planned on starting a company that would license his code to both third-parties that wished to enable playback of iTunes-protected tracks and music services that wish to play their own protected tracks on the iPod.
With an extensive profile published the other day in Fortune, Johansen’s new business, DoubleTwist Ventures, has become the center of attention. The company claims that at least one client has already signed up to use the technology to enable playback of protected music on the iPod.
The real question here is how Apple will respond—and respond they must if they intend upon keeping their gleaming white citadel of iTunes secure. When Real tried this same idea with a software they called Harmony, Apple quickly changed up the protection scheme, leaving Harmony users out in the cold.
Then, of course, there’s the fear of legal reprisal. Laws covering reverse engineering seem to be murky at best; DoubleTwist believes they have a solid foundation to stand on, though I can’t imagine they relish the idea of going up against Apple Legal and its voluminous pocketbook. For those who wonder about the effect of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits circumventing copy protection technology, Johansen is quick to point out that their technology does not actually strip protection, but rather adds copy protection, making files that appear to be FairPlay-protected. Tricksy, indeed.
Finally, there’s the point of Johansen’s guiding principles. On the wall of his office he’s pinned up a now-infamous 2002 quote by none other than Steve Jobs: “If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own.” Zing.
