Unlocking the iPod

Looks like DVD Jon is back and this time he's freeing all that music you legally own.

Jon Johansen became a geek hero by breaking the DVD code. Now he's liberating iTunes - whether Apple likes it or not.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Robert Levine, Fortune

(Fortune Magazine) -- Growing up in a small town in southern Norway, Jon Lech Johansen loved to take things apart to figure out how they worked. Unlike most kids, though, he'd put them back together better than they were before. When he was 14, his father bought a digital camera that came with buggy software, so Jon analyzed the code and wrote a program that worked better.
Apple's iPod is turning 5

When Johansen bought an early MP3 player that kept crashing, he studied how it worked, wrote a more reliable program, and posted it on the Internet so other people could download it for free. Later, the company that made the device asked him about writing a new version, but he didn't hear back after he sent in his résumé. "I assume it had something to do with my age," Johansen says dryly. He was 17.


Sometimes, however, the things Johansen tries to improve were made a certain way for a reason. When he was 15, Johansen got frustrated when his DVDs didn't work the way he wanted them to. "I was fed up with not being able to play a movie the way I wanted to play it," that is, on a PC that ran Linux.

To fix the problem, he and two hackers he met online wrote a program called DeCSS, which removed the encryption that limits what devices can play the discs. That meant the movies could be played on any machine, but also that they could be copied. After the program was posted online, Johansen received an award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation - and a visit from Norwegian police.

Johansen, now 22 and widely known as "DVD Jon" for his exploits, has also figured out how Apple's iPod-iTunes system works. And he's using that knowledge to start a business that is going to drive Steve Jobs crazy.
A disruptor

If you want to be specific - and for legal reasons, he does - Johansen has reverse-engineered FairPlay, the encryption technology Apple (Charts) uses to make the iPod a closed system. Right now, thanks to FairPlay, the songs Apple sells at its iTunes store cannot easily be played on other devices, and copy-protected songs purchased from other sites will not play on the iPod. (The iPod will play MP3 files, which do not have any copy protection, but major labels don't sell music in that format.)

Johansen has written programs that get around those restrictions: one that would let other companies sell copy-protected songs that play on the iPod, and another that would let other devices play iTunes songs. Starting this fall, his new company, DoubleTwist, will license them to anyone who wants to get into the digital-music business - and doesn't mind getting hate mail from Cupertino.

So far, DoubleTwist consists of four cubicles in a generic-looking glass-and-steel building in Redwood Shores, Calif., one client, and no full-time employees other than Johansen and co-founder Monique Farantzos.

As he and Farantzos explain DoubleTwist in a conference room they share with several other companies, he points to a sheet of printer paper tacked on the wall that has a typed quote Jobs gave the Wall Street Journal in 2002: "If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own." As Johansen sees it, Jobs didn't follow through on this promise, so it's up to him to fix the system, just as he fixed the software for his father's camera.

"Today's reality is that there's this iTunes-iPod ecosystem that excludes everyone else from the market," says Johansen. "I don't like closed systems."

Companies that rely on closed systems don't much care for him, either. For his role in writing DeCSS, Johansen was charged with breaking the Norwegian law that prohibits gaining unauthorized access to data, then was acquitted twice when courts ruled the data were his own. The movie studios didn't like that decision, which almost certainly would have been different in the U.S., where the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DMCA, for short) prohibits circumventing digital-rights-management technology (or DRM) for any reason. The movie studios used that law to successfully sue a hacker magazine called 2600 that linked to DeCSS on its Web site.

Johansen, who had left high school at 16 to become a programmer, testified in the 2600 case and became frustrated that companies could prohibit customers from using a product the way they wanted. "I really became interested in these issues," he says. He also became something of an icon to hard-core geeks: When Johansen announced on his blog that he was selling the old iPod he had used to break FairPlay, a Berkeley researcher bought it to keep as a souvenir.

"We all talk about disruptive forces in business," says Mike McGuire, an analyst at the Gartner Group. "This guy is a disruptive force unto himself."
A thorn in Apple's side

There's an obvious question: Isn't opening the iTunes system illegal? There is no obvious answer. FairPlay is not patented, most likely because the encryption algorithms it uses are in the public domain. (Apple would not comment for this story.) And Johansen says he is abiding by the letter of the law - if not, perhaps, its spirit.

To let other sites sell music that plays on the iPod, his program will "wrap" songs with code that functions much like FairPlay. "So we'll actually add copy protection," he says, whereas the DMCA prohibits removing it. Helping other devices play iTunes songs could be harder to justify legally, but he cites the DMCA clause that permits users, in some circumstances, to reverse-engineer programs to ensure "interoperability."

"The law protects copyrights," he says, "but it doesn't keep you locked into the iPod." Johansen isn't the only one who feels that way - or the only one who has found a way around FairPlay.

In 2004, RealNetworks (Charts) released a program called Harmony that would allow songs from its RealPlayer Music Store to play on the iPod. Steve Jobs memorably accused the company of using "the ethics and tactics of a hacker" and threatened to sue.

Instead, Apple released a software update that made Harmony ineffective - although Real subsequently fixed that. Another company, Navio Systems, has announced that it has developed a way to play iTunes songs on other devices. Several more programs on the Internet will strip the FairPlay encryption from a file, but none of them has a large following.

And not everyone who wants to open up the iPod is a hacker. There have been demonstrations in the streets of France over Apple's DRM, and lawmakers there have attempted to require Apple to license FairPlay. Apple said that such a move would be "state-sponsored piracy."

In the U.S., courts have traditionally allowed inventors to reverse-engineer products to determine how they function. But the DMCA allows programmers to do that only in certain cases. "What he's working on is clearly in the spirit of the reverse-engineering the courts have been most friendly toward," says Fred von Lohman, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has informally given Johansen advice. "But the law is untested, and the case is complicated."

Since the DMCA was passed, the most relevant legal precedent is a case in which the videogame maker Blizzard sued an ISP that hosted an unapproved server where people could play its games, which the court found to be a DMCA violation.

"On the surface, Apple would have a good case," especially when it comes to making iTunes songs play on other devices, says Robert Becker, an attorney at Manatt Phelps & Phillips who has represented the copy-protection company Macrovision. "Apple would say you're buying music under certain restrictions."

Indeed, how you feel about what Johansen is doing may depend on how you feel about a question that will become more important as the media business gradually embraces digital distribution: What exactly are you buying when you purchase a song on iTunes?

An unscientific survey of friends generated only one answer: a song. An attorney, though, might say that you are buying a license to play a song on a specific set of devices - and that using Johansen's software violates Apple's user agreement (the one you didn't bother to read when you signed up for iTunes).

If the distinction seems minute, suppose you replace your iPod with another digital music player; unless you convert them to MP3s, your songs from iTunes will be as useful as eight-track tapes.
A tense atmosphere

For a man so intent on changing the way music is sold, Johansen isn't a big fan himself. "I've probably bought ten CDs in my whole life," he says. Much of the music he does have - mainly techno - he buys from iTunes. When the store went online, it didn't accept foreign credit cards, so Johansen bought iTunes gift certificates on eBay.

Instead of going to concerts, Johansen bakes. His blog, "So Sue Me," features dessert recipes along with news about technology and arguments about copyright law. When DoubleTwist signed its first client - which Johansen declines to identify - he made an apple pie to celebrate.

Johansen has a soft-spoken modesty that belies his stature as a hacker. He was among the first to crack FairPlay - he did it for fun on a vacation in France - and he has also broken a Microsoft code. "If reverse-engineering were a sport," says Michael Robertson, the Internet entrepreneur for whom Johansen worked before setting up DoubleTwist, "Jon would be on the all-star team."

Johansen realizes that taking on Apple could make figuring out FairPlay look easy. But he seems to regard the fact that he could get sued as one of those complicating factors an engineer must deal with, and he keeps the reverse-engineering clause of the DMCA near his desk for easy reference. "We don't want to go to court, because it's a waste of time and money," he says. "But if it comes to that, we will test these issues in court."

Johansen's legal arguments involve the rights of consumers, but opening the iPod could also be good for the music business. The major labels worry that compatibility concerns will slow the digital-music market, especially when Microsoft (Charts) comes out with its own closed system this Christmas. Chafing at Apple's one-price-fits-all policy, they would love to see more retailers enter the market. But it says something about the power of Apple that none provided an executive who would speak for the record.

It is anyone's guess how Apple will react - the company hasn't contacted DoubleTwist. (Johansen says he had lunch with Jobs last January, but he hadn't yet started his company.)

So far, Apple hasn't sued anyone who has created or distributed any of the FairPlay hacks. That could be because the company is afraid that losing a case would set a precedent that would encourage imitations of the iPod. Or it could be that Apple doesn't want to give anyone the publicity.

Whatever Apple does, Johansen could have a hard time making DoubleTwist into a viable business. Companies could be reluctant to license Johansen's software for fear of being sued along with DoubleTwist. And they might have a tough time convincing the major labels to let them sell their music, since the labels know how much that would upset Apple.

"There has to be an agreement between the label and the retailer," says Josh Wattles, an attorney at Dreier and a former corporate counsel at Paramount Pictures. "What's the likelihood of a record company granting that?"

Whether or not Johansen makes any money with DoubleTwist, he will almost certainly make his point. "The iTunes music store was getting so popular, and I was kind of fed up that people were accepting that DRM."

On the other hand, if Apple gets fed up with him, he'll end up making his point in a courtroom.

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Creative Disables FM Recording In Zen

Read the fine print alert. If you don't read the fine print on the latest firmware update for your Creative Zen music player you may be surprised that you are losing features rather than enhancing or fixing them. The Zen plays music files, has an FM tuner and a record feature. You can even record from the radio. But apparently this was too much for the music industry who have hated the word record since LP's were replaced by CD's. I admit I know a little about downloading free music files but I have never come across an uploaded song recorded from the radio. That was something straight from the tape days of the eighties. The radio recording feature seems like personal use to me and no assurance that an illegal activity is being committed. It reminds me of the VCR recording arguments of old. This is why people detest the RIAA and DRM. It doesn't hinder pirates. It annoys legitimate users and if I was a Zen user and had this feature disabled, I would be on the phone with Creative. If you do call just remember to tell them you own the copyright to your speech and they aren't allowed to record the call.

Creative Disables FM Recording In Zen
By: Aalaap Ghag

The latest firmware update for the Zen Vision:M sneaks in a “feature update” that’s sure to tick off most of its users who decided upon buying the device due to its FM tuning and recording capability. The update disables recording, so even though you can listen to FM radio on your Zen Vision:M, you can’t record it anymore.

The removal of the FM recording feature is a result of potential violation of copyright. Queries to tech support were replied to by saying that the “FM recording feature is removed due to licensing issues.”

Is this the first domino to fall in a series that could probably wipe out the existence of big name products that record media such as DVD recorders, hard disk drive-based PVRs, and even cassette recorders, if anyone still buys those?

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Visa halts its service for allofmp3.com

This sounds like the hammer hitting the death nail for Allofmp3.com. If you have never heard of Allofmp3.com it is a Russian based music store. You could by a whole album for as little as a buck with no copyprotection. Apparently according to Russian law, 15% of the sale price goes to a central Russian agency that then distributes it to the artists. The US music industry (RIAA) did not like this arrangement because it did not set an actual price but a percentage which is why allofmp3 could charge such a low price.

The RIAA has been lobbying the US government to apply pressure to the Russian government to stop this. Since they could not stop them along the legal route it looks like they pressured Visa to do the dirty work. Visa will now not allow you to use their card for a perfectly legal activity; they have made a moral decision. Does this mean that you can't use your Visa at casinos or how about stopping the use of Visa for buying cigarettes and alcohol.

Allofmp3 is now going to an ad supported format. You download a song for free but it can only be played on their media player installed on your computer and it can't be copied to multiple computers. This of course will kill them. It's turning into a radio station and I can get a radio station without downloading an ad-supported media player.

Visa halts its service for allofmp3.com
Beleaguered music download site says it will stop discounting songs and give them away, says newspaper report.
By Greg Sandoval
Staff Writer, CNET News.com


Credit card company Visa International said Wednesday that it has suspended service to music download site allofmp3.com, the latest setback for the Russian company accused in the U.S. of pirating music.


"It's no longer permitted to accept Visa cards," said Simon Barker, a Visa International spokesman. "The action we've taken is in line with legislation passed in Russia and international copyright law."

The news comes as allofmp3.com launches a public relations campaign to counter claims by the U.S. government that the site is an outlaw operation. On Tuesday, allofmp3.com announced plans to give away hundreds of thousands of albums for free, according to a story in the International Herald Tribune.

U.S. trade representatives say allofmp3.com is profiting from unauthorized music sales. Executives of allofmp3.com say that the company carefully adheres to copyright law in Russia. That doesn't satisfy U.S. music labels' concerns about copyright infringement, however.

Like music download sites that came before it, such as Napster and Kazaa, allofmp3.com offers unlicensed music for deeply discounted prices.

After years of court battles, Napster and Kazaa now cooperate with record companies. Other sites around the globe, such as Spain-based Weblisten.com, have succumbed to legal pressure and shut their doors.

The U.S. has indicated that by allowing allofmp3.com to continue operating, Russia could be jeopardizing its bid to join the World Trade Organization.

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Restaurant owner says songs may cost him his business

Found this interesting article. I wonder how many cover bands know this and does the band not have any liability?

Restaurant owner says songs may cost him his business


A performance of the Jimi Hendrix classic, "The Wind Cries Mary," may cost Michael Dorr his restaurant.

Dorr, the 37-year-old owner of Imbibe on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, has been slapped with a federal lawsuit by companies that own the rights to a trio of popular classics that were performed at Dorr's restaurant in 2005.

The songs at the center of the suit?

Other than the Hendrix song, the music companies say Stevie Wonder's "That Girl," and a 1971 tune, "Slippin' into Darkness."

Dorr says a rep from the American Society of Musicians and Publishers paid an unannounced visit to his restaurant one night and heard covers of the songs performed by local band "Black Notes."

Because his place features local musicians and covers are rare, he didn't think he had to pay the musicians and publishers group an estimated $2,000 to cover performances of copyrighted tunes.

But the owners of the songs, including Wonder and Hendrix's estate, say he does.

Now they're suing Dorr for copyright infringement - and they're seeking payment of between $750 and $30,000 for each song, along with attorney fees.

"It's basically going to bankrupt me and put me out of business," Dorr said this morning. "I can't afford the lawyer and the fees. It's going to close me down."

The married father of two, who opened Imbibe a couple of years ago, said bands typically start playing after 10. But after Friday, the restaurant will do without live music because of the lawsuit.

"It's a total bummer," he said. "It's scary for me and my family. The restaurant business is hard and on top of other things, business is slow. This is the icing on the cake."

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