Tuesday, March 22, 2005

A group of underground programmers has posted code online they say will reopen a back door in Apple Computer's iTunes store, allowing Linux computer users to purchase music free of copy protection.

The release comes just a day after Apple blocked a previous version of the program, called PyMusique, in part by requiring all iTunes customers to use the latest version of Apple's software.

In a blog posting, Norwegian programmer Jon Johansen, who was previously responsible for releasing software used to copy DVDs online, said he had been successful at reverse engineering the latest iTunes encryption.

Cody Brocious, a Pennsylvania high school student working with Johansen, said they saw the project as "necessary for the Linux community," despite Apple's opposition.

PyMusique was created to provide access to the iTunes Music Store from alternative OS’s such as Linux, BeOS, and even cell phones. I assumed that the DRM was done server-side until I started working on implementing purchasing in PHPTunes, the precursor to PyMusique. Our intent was not to circument copy protection, and if Apple did DRM on the server, we would leave it in place! But applying DRM in an opensource project is not worth the time it would take to code it.