QTFairUse Unleashed

[Apoptosis]

What do you guys think about all this?? Hero or Problem?

Jon Johansen, the Norwegian programmer who created the DeCSS hack to the copy protection scheme used in DVDs, has created software that undermines the FairPlay DRM scheme used in the Windows version of Apple's iTunes service. The code he posted on his website, a program called QTFairUse, is a patch to the drivers for Apple's QuickTime file format, on which the FairPlay system is based. QTFairUse is not a canned application that creates clear copies of iTunes music tracks; instead, it is a program that dumps the unprotected audio data from QuickTime's temporary memory in MPEG4 AAC format. This means that would-be infringers must do more work to get the data into a playable format, and already a few people have succeeded in getting the data into shape so that certain MPEG4 players can play it.

QTFairUse does not actually break the encryption used in FairPlay; therefore it would probably not be liable under DMCA 1201 or any European equivalents based on the European Copyright Directive. Instead, QTFairUse exploits a weakness in FairPlay that makes the data vulnerable to exposure data after it has been decrypted.