DVD Jon to kill Apple's DRM controls

THE TEENAGER who hacked DVDs so that they could play in Linux has come up with what he considers a legal hack of Apple's DRM.

According to Gigaom, Jon Lech Johansen, better known as DVD Jon, has reverse-engineered Apple's Fairplay and is starting to flog his version of the product to outfits who want their media to play on Apple's devices.

Now 22, Johansen is involved in an outfit called DoubleTwist Ventures, which is Johansen's first attempt at commercialising his hacking. So far it has already sold the Apple DRM hack to one punter.

Apparently he has already told Apple's spiritual and temporal head about his plans. Steve Jobs apparently said that Apple was "not a litigious company", but other tech firms might not take kindly to whatever DVD Jon might be up to.

Jon thinks that what he is doing is not illegal because he is adding DRM rather than breaking it. It will be interesting to see if this proves right. It could damage iTunes if it is, but open up the iPod if it isn't.

More here. µ