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August 03, 2004
Department of Ooops: Apple FairPlay Edition
Posted by Ernest Miller
According to a report from a German Macintosh news site (Macnews.de) via the Mac News Network, Apple's own iMovie software will strip FairPlay DRM from iTunes music (Report: iMovie strips FairPlay DRM from iTunes songs):
The site reports that Apple's own video tool can be used to create unprotected song files that be played on any computer without recompression, circumventing iTunes' DRM protection. iMovie users can use the "Share" feature of iMovie to export any imported (protected) song from the iTunes Music Store. The exported songs can either be stored in the un-protected AAC file format (used by Apple at the iTMS) or in the raw WAV file format; both of these formats are supported by iTunes.
If true, this would certainly be an embarrasment to Apple. I'm not sure what all the legal implications are. For example, would this be an excuse for
Real to sue Apple for DMCA violations? What about the copyright holders, both those who encoded their music through iTunes (probably a contractual issue) and those who used Real's
Helix DRM (why not the DMCA)? See,
Can Real Sue Apple Under the DMCA?.
Comments (2)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Digital Millennium Copyright Act | Digital Rights Management
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Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
1. PrivacyHound on August 3, 2004 07:04 PM writes...
This has been known for quite a while. I don't think this work around actually strips the protected acc file, per se. It allows you to save the file in a different format, such as "uncompressed" or you can *recompress* the file in a compressed format like acc, so there will be a quality loss.. Either way, this is the same as the burning of the file to a CD, which is allowed in iTunes. This is not news.
Permalink to Comment2. PrivacyHound on August 3, 2004 08:33 PM writes...
Note that the trick of using iMovie to convert the Harmony file may not work the way it does with protecteted acc files. Harmony files are put on the iPod directly by real. Not through iTunes. In order for this trick to work, you'd have to copy the Harmony off the iPod onto *Mac* because the Helix software only works on PCs and iMovie only works on Macs. Plus, Ipods do not support transfer from the iPod to a computer (it can be done, but you have to know what you are doing or have 3d party software). Finally, the keys to unlock the music are on the iPod not any Mac. So, your hypothetical question is really, really hypothetical since your proposed DMCA violation really doesn't exist!
I'm interested in your great updates, but this one seems to have been posted in haste and without deep knowledge of the issues involved.
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