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Navio Plans to Crack Apple's FairPlay

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005 at 9:05 AM - by Staff

Navio is working on reverse engineering Apple's digital rights management (DRM) technology, FairPlay, according to Playlist. Navio, a DRM development company, intends on offering its version of FairPlay to other online music retailers so that they can sell iPod compatible songs.

Online music resellers are currently blocked from selling copy-protected songs that play on the iPod because Apple is not licensing FairPlay to other companies.

RealNetworks has already reverse engineered FairPlay more than once. After the company broke Apple's code, it started selling iPod compatible songs through its Rhapsody service. Apple modified its DRM, disabling songs purchased via Rhapsody. RealNetworks has since re-broken Apple's code so that it can continue to sell music for the iPod.

Reverse engineering is a risky business, since Apple can modify its DRM at any time, rendering competitors FairPlay-enabled songs useless.

Apple has not yet commented on Navio's plans.

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:30 am

Announcing to the world you intend to break the law is only slightly less stupid than announcing it and then doing it. EULAs strictly prohibit reverse engineering.

Sounds like it's time for Apple Legal to kick into high gear. Or better, Apple Corporate to go out and buy these companies and SHUT THEM DOWN. They're nothing but a bunch of theives who need a smackdown.

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Al Swearengen said:

member since 10 May 2005 with 339 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:47 am

Wouldn't the "other online music retailers" have to obtain permission from the song's owners? Does Apple and the song owners have an agreement that only Apple can sell songs with DRM in question, I don't know, but I suspect it is so. No doubt a lot of people want a slice of iPod pie

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John F. Braun said:

member since 11 Jun 2001 with 233 posts, TMO Staff, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 11:52 am

Although most EULA statements restrict one from reverse engineering, in most cases, this is permitted, as long as you are trying to duplicate functionality. Where these guys may get into hot water is that they are specifically trying to mess with technology that protects a copyrighted work, which is a no-no under the annoying DMCA.

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Dean Lewis said:

member since 29 Sep 2001 with 162 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:26 pm

John F. Braun wrote:
Where these guys may get into hot water is that they are specifically trying to mess with technology that protects a copyrighted work, which is a no-no under the annoying DMCA.

That's what I was thinking. I don't necessarily agree with the DCMA, but it is the law right now. Do they have the money to be dragged into court and attempt to challenge the law through every level of court? This should get interesting...

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JulesLt said:

member since 06 Jul 2005 with 136 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 3:04 pm

EULA's may not be strictly enforceable - a sign in a shop saying 'Goods may not be returned' does not over-ride your legal statutory rights, and I believe reverse engineering has a well established legal precedent. There are steps you have to take to ensure any such engineering is clean (not sure what the details are - but it is something along the lines that you would need to analyse AAC/Fairplay files, rather than the iTunes binary code - this would also get round any EULA issue as you do not need iTunes installed).

As for the DMCA - it is illegal to try and circumvent DRM. If you're talking about a product that would strip Fairplay off iTMS files, then that might qualify.

(Well, at least if you developed it in the USA - although try telling that to the DVD producers who seem to think US law extends to Scandinavia).

Navio's plan is quite the opposite - it is about trying to duplicate DRM (ditto Rhapsody) - you would be talking about something that could apply compatible DRM to AAC files. I don't see that falling foul of the legislation.

While it's true the DMCA has given ridiculous powers to copyright holders, I don't think it is there to protect any specific monopoly.

Don't know if Apple have an exclusive deal with producers - otherwise Rhapsody would have been dead in the water from content rather than Apple trying to break it.

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algr said:

member since 07 Aug 2003 with 296 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 3:56 pm

Quote:
Don't know if Apple have an exclusive deal with producers - otherwise Rhapsody would have been dead in the water from content rather than Apple trying to break it.

I find it inconceivable that the music industry would agree to sell anything exclusively on iTunes.

==================

You know the irony here? Anyone can sell iPod compatible music online, and Apple can't do a thing to stop them!

All they'd have to do is use the standard mp3 format without copy protection. Already the vast majority of legal music on people's hard drives has no DRM, because it comes from CDs. There is no reason why music bought online is any more likely to be pirated then music ripped from CDs, so if copy protection were really that vital, then the CD would have already killed the music industry! DRM is like hoping that if you plug up one hole five times, you can ignore four other holes.

By keeping their DRM closed, Apple is doing exactly the same thing to the music industry that the music industry wants to do to the public. People shoplift from music stores, but that is no reason to put all sorts of restrictions on people who paid for their CDs. All DRMs tie your purchase to hardware that will fail or become obsolete. Companies go out of business or stop supporting old products on new platforms.

DRM is not about stopping piracy - it clearly won't make a dent. It is about making customers pay again and again for the same songs when their old hardware and DRMs become obsolete. Remember, Apple's stock was at $12 when the music store was announced. What was the music industry expecting to happen...?

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 4:16 pm

I fail to see your logic. Apple's stock was at $12 per share when they announced iTMS. Almost 4 years later...and it's gone up 500%. They've moved into seventh place in the top ten US Music companies, and with the iPod, have taken more than 50% of the market in Japan and the UK and are gaining in other markets as they open them up. Online piracy took a major nosedive in the meantime, Apple actually made a profit on iTMS, against what everybody said they could do.

Yes, anybody can put their music on their iPod, a point that seems to be lost on just about every music pundit these days, because even with the other stores, IN ADDITION TO ITMS, you can burn a copy of your songs onto CDs and then put them back into your computer as an mp3 and dump it to any digital device. It's really not that hard. Two extra steps. You can do one song in about the time it takes to brush your teeth.

DRMs won't stop theft, they're designed to impede it enough to entice people to keep it legal. Security measures are never foolproof (even US currency can be counterfeited). But by using their DRM technology, they can hold up to a standard of reasonable attempt to prevent people from outright theft of music, which really does still hurt the artist in the long run.

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algr said:

member since 07 Aug 2003 with 296 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 10:30 pm

The logic is that the music industry went with Apple's music store precisely because they thought that Apple was going to go out of business. People would buy a bunch of DRMed discs, and when Apple died the DRM would not be updated to play on new PCs and so buyers would have to buy the same discs again. Result, the record labels get paid twice, and Apple takes all the blame. (Yes I know there would have been ways to get around this, but a large number of consumers either aren't that tech savvy, or don't want to invest the time.)

This is the same thing that happened to people who bought Divx DVDs from Circuit City in the '90s. Without the central computer to coordinate the DRM, the discs soon became unplayable even to people who had paid full price to make the discs permanently watchable.

But of course Apple's future turned out very different, and now the music industry wants to change the rules.

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gslusher said:

member since 13 Nov 2002 with 2088 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Nov 23, 2005 11:45 pm

JulesLt wrote:
(Well, at least if you developed it in the USA - although try telling that to the DVD producers who seem to think US law extends to Scandinavia).

Go back and check that story. The guy was charged with violating US law because he distributed his software to people in the US. He was arrested when he came to the US. If he hadn't distributed the software to anyone in the US, he probably would have been safe. It's the same principle of law that would allow the US authorities to arrest a "drug kingpin" of child porn provider from some other country when he entered the US.

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