PlayFair - Stripping AAC DRM

Source code for an application called Playfair has been released.

The application takes protected AACs from the iTunes Music Store and decrypts them into unprotected AACs. From the site:



According to reader feedback, the application does work as described, allowing owners of purchased songs to convert their Protected AACs into UnProtected AACs. Due to the key-based system, users are not able to decode protected AACs from other individuals.

The application is presently only available as source code and requires compilation.

It will damage iTMS business and Europe release... F*ck with this!... :mad:

It will damage iTMS business and Europe release... F*ck with this!... :mad:

Nice little tool that saves you from burning to disk and then re-ripping, but I'm sure it's not going to make Apple or the RIAA happy...

I'm guessing first comes the DMCA lawsuit and then changes to the iTMS structure. More than likely this is going to result in more restrictive DRM in the long run...

I respect the philosophy behind the app, and really don't think you can stop stuff like this from being written, but this certainly is going to add strength to WMA (until it's also cracked).

Was only a matter of time. Very sad though :(

Hopefully Apple can quickly fix this vulnerability or it will hurt the online music stores.

You try and give people the option of a legal place to download music and some people just have to find a way to bring dishonesty into the mix.

Bill now I know why Longhorn is delayed--this took up some of your resources huh?

I think (if possible) Apple should sue the distributor of this source code. Or can this only be done if it is distributed as a working program, rather than just the source code?

This might also delay the European introduction of the iTunes Music Store. :(

This got me thinking about the motivation for obtaining unprotected files from your own purchased protected files. It is clearly a different motivation to downloading songs illegally.

The most obvious reason is to allow you to play your files somewhere you currently cannot, maybe on a portable player other than the iPod or on more of your computers than you are allowed, on a linux box or to share across your network. None of these strike me as a particularly wrong, obviously you are not meeting the restrictions of the sale but you are not doing anyting you couldn't do with a cd, except maybe playing on several devices at once.

There clearly could be a other reasons, such as wishing to share the music with friends or over p2p networks. This obviously goes against the principle of iTMS and will be damaging to the service. However until CDs are properly protected against this form of copying will it really cause any additional harm to the industry?

I wonder if this will have any effect on the role out of iTMS here in Europe, I guess it comes down to a trade off is it better for the record companies to sell more music this way and have some copied or not to sell it digitally? Personally I don't see iTMS being here in Europe for a while. Clearly UK music stores are up and running, so Apple must be making the store Europe wide (to some degree) the problem is then the licensing which will mean a lot of problems to iron out.

As noted on the web site, this tool only allows you to decode your own files. Fair Use, nothing more.

People will still download and pay to do so.

Individuals may share their decoded files via P2P.

If an individual shares copyrighted files they can apparently be prosecuted.

Let the courts decide whether sharing is legal or not, this is not a sharing tool. This tool is legit and legal.

No contest.

I just downloaded it and checked out the readme and install files. They don't mention any platform-specific instructions, so it looks like it'll work for OS X. Well, time to compile and find out :)

Edit: It looks like you can't use it on OS X, at least not without an iPod. Maybe it does, but I can't find any documentation online, and there's no MAN page installed. Ah well.

If it is used for personal use only, I see no problem with it. But if it is used to share music then it's stealing. I hope people would just pay the 99 cents per song or at least rent music thru a subscription. That is fair.

This is just one of the fundamental (unsolvable) problems in computer science showing it's head again - If You Can Read The Data You Can Copy The Data. That's just the way it is - no ifs, no buts. All systems like Fairplay do is make it slightly more of a pain in the ass to do so.

Trying to make this sort of thing impossible is like trying to ban gravity. It tends to keep happening no matter what you do because it's a fundamental law.

Man, this sucks...

Aren't you "allowed" already to share WMA in p2p apps?
I mean, it can be done, right?
How come nobody complains about that?

All of the bad publicity Apple is gonna get now! :mad:
DAMN!