Navio to Reverse Engineer iPod/iTunes DRM

Uhm, isn't this illegal?

I'm actually surprised Apple has not pursued DMCA-related litigation against Real....

Remember that the point of iTunes is not to sell music. The point of iTunes is to sell iPods.

Uhm, isn't this illegal?

Probably violates end user license of itunes to actually use it, but perhaps just offering it is ok,, does sound strange that one can offer software openly to undo DRM.

I wish apple would just license out Fairplay - even if to a select few ( and just moto doesnt count ).

Personally I like to use other music stores - but can't because they aren't compatible with Macs. This is what Apple are afraid of - losing market share in iTMS and MP3 player.

If this was microsoft people would be screaming murder.

This unwillinness to license out Fairplay will return to haunt them - has done in the past, and will again in the future in similar situations.

The legal situation is tennuous, but not explicitly illegal. Messing with DRM is possibly illegal under DMCA, but they aren't necessarily circumventing it, just reverse-engineering it. I'm sure their lawyers would say that the spirit of the law was to protect copyright of the protected material, not to support an iPod monopoly, and they would have a point.

Reverse engineering itself is perfectly legal, as long as they don't come up with the same exact copyrighted code that Apple uses in its Fairplay implementation. See the case law of Intel vs. AMD to verify the legitimacy of reverse engineering.

these sorts of reverse engineering cases are very tricky, I for one would never bother with it. it seems to me that if you really wanted a good business or to make your mark you owuld spend all your time coming out with something actually new and innovative, not a re-engineered version of something that already exists. come on people, take a chance!

I wish apple would just license out Fairplay - even if to a select few ( and just moto doesnt count ).

Personally I like to use other music stores - but can't because they aren't compatible with Macs. This is what Apple are afraid of - losing market share in iTMS and MP3 player.

If this was microsoft people would be screaming murder.

This unwillinness to license out Fairplay will return to haunt them - has done in the past, and will again in the future in similar situations.

I agree. Apple would be better served in the long run to liscence FairPlay. The Ipod and mp3 player will continue to rise in popularity. There are still millions who do not own an MP3 player at all. And portable video WILL continue to gro as well. Pretty soon somebody else will come up with a player that will be pretty cool looking and will be multiplatform. I realize that there are many other players on the market now and some of them are pretty cool, but for now anyway "iPod" is synonomous with MP3. But it won't always be that way.
In my opinion Apple should be ahead of the curve and at least begin to liscence Fairplay as a trial run with some other stores.

P.S. Why is it that Apple was pressured into having teired pricing (=higher prices)for their music when Wal-Mart's music store sells for $.88

Uhm, isn't this illegal?

No, but attempts by Apple to stop it very well could be illegal at this point. That's the down side of big market share.

I can hear grumblings from Apple legal departments already....

enjoy eating Turkey in your office.