DVD Jon, the guy who cracked DVD encryption, has set up shop in California as DoubleTwist Ventures. His goal is to pirate license technology enabling iTunes to play on non-iPods and non-iTunes DRM-ed tracks to play on iPods (how’s that working out, Real?). It would be nice if Apple’s copy protection scheme (aka FairPlay) was made available to other devices, however they’ve been reluctant to share… and probably won’t until a court orders them to do so. Until then, I expect they’ll go after Jon and anyone brash enough to integrate his work into players — it’s no accident his blog is titled So Sue Me. I don’t know how the Norwegian legal system compares to America, but I hope he’s got backers with deep pockets…
Fortune writes: Johansen has reverse-engineered FairPlay, the encryption technology Apple uses to make the iPod a closed system. Right now, thanks to FairPlay, the songs Apple sells at its iTunes store cannot easily be played on other devices, and copy-protected songs purchased from other sites will not play on the iPod. Johansen has written programs that get around those restrictions: one that would let other companies sell copy-protected songs that play on the iPod, and another that would let other devices play iTunes songs.