Microsoft stuck in endless DRM battle with Hacker
Most online music stores employ some form of DRM to attempt to prevent customers from making unauthorized copies of music they have purchased. However, DRM systems are impossible to completely secure and are usually cracked within a few months of release.
Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, used by online music stores like Rhapsody.com and Napster.com, was recently cracked by a hacker known as Viodentia. In response, Microsoft released a patch to fix the hole. Viodentia struck back within days with a new version of his application to bypass PlaysForSure DRM that works even with Microsoft’s patch. Microsoft retaliated with a second patch and today filed a lawsuit against Viodentia. Unfortunately, Microsoft has no idea who Viodentia is and had to file the lawsuit against “John Does 1-10″.
According to public statements by Viodentia, he does not live in the United States. Many other countries don’t have laws against bypassing DRM systems, so Viodentia may not have broken any laws in his home country and may not be in danger of prosecution. It is likely that he will be free to continue updating his FairUseWM program to work around Microsoft’s latest patches.
Yesterday, Engadget was able to interview Viodentia. He agrees that Microsoft has no way to completely secure it’s DRM system:
Is it possible for [Microsoft] to repair PlaysForSure without totally starting over?
As soon as I release something, Microsoft can certainly patch around it. I can do the same. I don’t believe that either of us has a nuclear option.
Microsoft claims that it has no choice but to continue to fight this battle. They claim that they will be driven out of business if they can’t protect music their partners sell with DRM. However, there is good evidence to refute this claim. Emusic.com doesn’t use DRM to protect the music it sells, yet it has been far more successful in the marketplace than any store that uses Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM system.
Viodentia seems to agree. In the interview, he suggested that his application might allow online music stores to see that DRM protection is not what makes their services valuable:
I think FairUse4WM is a good thing for the industry — it demonstrates that the entire world doesn’t turn upside down when there’s no effective protection on content. I doubt subscription based services are impacted — programs exploiting the analog hole were already widely spamvertised. The value of a subscription is the continuing access to new titles, which isn’t dependent on the protection. I wonder if any subscription company will publicly admit that FairUse4WM was good for
them.
Interview with Viodentia at Engadget
But for now, the battle continues without an end in sight. Viodentia has already announced that a new verison of his program will be available within days to work around Microsoft’s latest patch. A response from Microsoft soon after is all but assured.
technorati tags:microsoft, playsforsure, fairusewm, viodentia
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The claim of Microsoft being driven out of business without DRM is not about sales of DRM protected music versus non-protected music. It’s about the major labels (Microsoft’s “partners”) refusing to sell new music without DRM. No matter how well non-protected music is doing in the marketplace, it’s not Microsoft’s call. The labels want to sell protected files and if they can’t have the protection they’d (apparently) rather sell nothing at all.
Yes, it’s immensely stupid.
[...] Yesterday, I reported on the battle between Microsoft and the hacker known as Viodentia: Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, used by online music stores like Rhapsody.com and Napster.com, was recently cracked by a hacker known as Viodentia. In response, Microsoft released a patch to fix the hole. Viodentia struck back within days with a new version of his application to bypass PlaysForSure DRM that works even with Microsoft’s patch. Microsoft retaliated with a second patch and today filed a lawsuit against Viodentia. Unfortunately, Microsoft has no idea who Viodentia is and had to file the lawsuit against “John Does 1-10″ Microsoft stuck in endless DRM battle with Hacker [...]
[...] According to his letter to The Consumerist, Jarrett has now sworn off of all legal music downloads due to his experience. In a misguided and ineffective attempt to keep people from copying music for free, Rhino records has lost one of it’s best customers. [...]
[...] In September 2006, Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, used by online music stores like Rhapsody.com and Napster.com to prevent unauthorized copying of music, was cracked. A program called FairUse4WM was released that allowed users to unlock purchased music and copy it without restriction. [...]