A California DRM company has vowed to crack the iTunes DRM so that they can sell a product that allows other DRM companies to make songs that play on iPods.
Confused?
iTunes DRM makes it potentially illegal to make a song that is locked and yet will play on an iPod (why anyone would want a locked song is another matter — do online music store customers actually desire technology that locks them out of their own music?).
Navio Systems promises to reverse-engineer the iTunes DRM format and offer it to Apple's competitors, who will then be able to able to lock their music with Apple's restrictive software and then offer it for use on iPods (they can presently offer music that plays on the iPod by offering the music in MP3 form, which iPods can also play).
"Typically, we embrace and want to work with the providers of the DRM," said Ray Schaaf, Navio's chief operating officer. "With respect to FairPlay, right now Apple doesn't license that, so we take the view that as RealNetworks allows users to buy FairPlay songs on Rhapsody, we would take the same approach."
In 2004, after unsuccessfully courting Apple to license FairPlay, RealNetworks introduced its Harmony technology, which allowed users to buy music from online sources other than the iTunes Music Store and transfer it to their iPod. RealNetworks' move was then denounced by Apple as adopting "the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod." In December of 2004, Apple shot back by releasing an iPod software update that disabled support for RealNetworks-purchased songs.
