FairPlay as crackers get to core of iTunes

DVD Jon, erstwhile menace to the movie moguls has allegedly turned his attention to the music industry.

Jon Lech Johansen became famous six years ago after cracking the copyright protection on movie DVDs. According to reports he has now joined forces with two other crackers and released software that can bypass Apple's iTunes FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) code.

The software called PyMusique is said to allow people to copy songs bought through the iTunes site onto music players other than iPods. The method is simple. People connect to Apple's iTunes music store and purchase songs. But because the crackers found that Apple's DRM is only added to songs at the last moment, they short-circuited this part of the download process. This allows files to be copied over and over again. Using the MyMusique software appears to break the terms and conditions of iTunes that state: 'You will not access the Service by any means other than through software that is provided by iTunes for accessing the Service.

Apple is reportedly keeping quiet about the problem at the moment but it is believed it won;t take long to plug this hole.