02 October 2006

Oh, the Irony

DVD Jon is one of free software's folk heroes, famous for reverse-engineering the control software used by DVDs, to allow GNU/Linux systems to play DVDs people had bought (a rather reasonable desire, one would have thought). Now he's doing something similar that is so clever it's painful:

DRM-buster DVD Jon has a new target in his sights, and it’s a big piece of fruit. He has reverse-engineered Apple’s Fairplay and is starting to license it to companies who want their media to play on Apple’s devices. Instead of breaking the DRM (something he’s already done), Jon has replicated it, and wants to license the technology to companies that want their content (music, movies, whatever) to play on Apple devices.

So what will Apple do? Sue him for helping to increase their sales? It's true that the music industry does precisely this when it goes after P2P systems, but Apple's more savvy, right? Right???

No comments:

Post a Comment