DVD Jon Creates DRM Killer

Firmafest writes to let us know that 'DVD Jon' Lech Johansen's company has released an open beta of DoubleTwist, a desktop application that allows the user to copy media to any device. There's a Facebook app too. The software is available for download at Doubletwistventures.com. Currently only Windows is supported, but a Macintosh version is on the way.

I wonder who will be first..

[jskline (301574)]

I wonder who will be first to be contacting these guys and threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

"You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"...

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[infonography (566403)]

I wonder who will be first to be contacting these guys and threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

"You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"...

I would guess it would be Prince. [techdigest.tv]

Who else?

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[edwardpickman (965122)]

He knows it's a safe bet suing them since they'd rather settle out of court than admit to having a Prince song on their iPod. That should teach people for bulk downloading without checking what they are downloading. If you've downloaded 30,000 to 50,000 songs then there's a good chance there's a Prince song in the wood pile so you might want to cull them out.

Re:

[infonography (566403)]

Anarchists are so cute!

Actually it's Anarchists are so cute when their Angry!

Of course its just the structure fires that make it look that way.

Re:What is property?

[Capsaicin (412918)]

Anarchists are so cute!

Q: Why do Anarchists drink Herbal Tea?

A: Because proper tea is theft.

"It Won't Be Apple"

[Wandering Wombat (531833)]

From Another Article:

The company is confident there will not be any legal challenges from Apple. "All we are facilitating are friends sending things to one another," Ms Farantzos told the Reuters news agency.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[unlametheweak (1102159)]

Well if we can get everybody here on Slash to keep this little secret to ourselves, I'm sure there won't be any problems with the MPAA, DMCA or any other organizations harassing the company with lawsuits, etc. To quote the eloquent and charismatic [wikipedia.org]Steve Jobs, "Loose lips sink ships".

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[McFadden (809368)]

Wait, you're crediting a 40's-era propaganda campaign to Steve Jobs?

It's like mp3 players, smart phones, slim notebooks etc... None of them existed until Apple invented them. I thought everyone knew that.

DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[SethJohnson (112166)]

threatening legal retaliation based on DMCA.

I'd like to see US law enforced over in Oslo, Norway. Wouldn't that be a hoot.

Seth

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[aitikin (909209)]

Too bad Doubletwist was founded in California in the "USofA" and, as such, is subject to DMCA, regardless of where its programmer's reside.

Re:

[unlametheweak (1102159)]

From what I can gather from TFA the only thing that is happening with this technology is that it is merely making a copy of the analogue version of a song. With 64-bit computers that support hardware and software base Trusted Computing Platform, and the 64-bit versions of Windows which support TCP software and hardware, this application may become antiquated in the not to distant future.

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[lgw (121541)]

Not trusted computing, but Vista attempts to plug the analog hole by not alowing high fidelity analog output (at leats of video). Trusted computing could be used to prevent driver-level work-arounds, but that's the direction Microsoft took. Instead they just invalidate all of your DRMed content if they detect a driver not on their whitelist (at least according to the NEtflix story a few weeks back).

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[unlametheweak (1102159)]

Pardon? How does trusted computing plug the analogue hole, and what has 64 bits got to do with it?

The 64-bits is just a product of history. Microsoft's plan is to have all there 64-bit operating systems support TCP, and Microsoft plans to phase out all their 32-bit operating systems (much like they did with their 16-bit operating systems) circa 2010. One of the goals of TCP is to in fact "plug" the analogue hole. The idea being that hardware would be harder to crack than software, and the hardware thus helping the OS to police the software and policies set forth within, that designate user rights (such as copying). As lgw points out, the analogue hole is itself not fully plugged ATM (probably only because of compatibility issues with TCP High Def monitors and video cards for example (and those that are not fully compatible yet [we here such marketing phrases as HD-compatible for example]), and the marketing and PR issues that ensue when people cannot adequately use the products they purchased).

Re:DMCA doesn't apply ourside USofA

[wvmarle (1070040)]

Pardon? How does trusted computing plug the analogue hole, and what has 64 bits got to do with it?

One of the goals of TCP is to in fact "plug" the analogue hole. The idea being that hardware would be harder to crack than software, and the hardware thus helping the OS to police the software and policies set forth within, that designate user restrictions (such as copying).

There, fixed that for you.
Remember, DRM stands for Digital Restrictions Management. It doesn't give you any rights, it at most takes away some. DRM just adds restrictions.

Re:I wonder who will be first..

[TheVelvetFlamebait (986083)]

"You can't copy that tune from there to this device. You must pay another fee!"...

From the DMCA: [copyright.gov]

Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.

This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.

I am not a lawyer, or by no means competent in reading laws. However, from what I can gather, unless the DRM is designed to prevent you from accessing the content (e.g. napster after your subscription expires), then you may circumvent for fair use. It actually does prohibit "making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure", but not owning or being in possession of such goods or services. That means that as long as DVD Jon's actions are legal in whichever country he chooses to stay, he can continue to make and distribute his DRM-circumventing programs, and we can legally download and use them, so long as we don't distribute the programs ourselves (e.g. give it to a friend).

Supported Formants

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

Supported Media Formats

Video: 3gp (used by most cell phones), MPEG4 (.mp4, .m4v), wmv, avi and MPEG2 (.mpg, .mpv, .mpeg) Audio: mp3, aac/m4a, wma, wav Pictures: jpg, gif, png, bmp

Quotable Quotes

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

The EULA [doubletwist.no]
The Privacy Policy [doubletwist.no]
The Terms of Service [doubletwist.no]

Quotable Quotes

Please note that this Privacy Statement is not a binding contract and does not create any legal rights. It is made available to you so that you can make an informed decision about using the doubleTwist website and services after considering the steps doubleTwist takes to protect your private personal information

doubleTwist" means the SpiceFlow Corporation, a company incorporated under the laws of Cayman Islands, having its registered office at PO Box 309GT, M&C Corporate Services Limited, Ugland House, South Church St, George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, and any SpiceFlow Corporation subsidiaries or affiliated companies.

You acknowledge and agree that doubleTwist, in its sole discretion, may modify or discontinue or suspend Your ability to use any version of the doubleTwist Software, and/or disable any doubleTwist Software You may already have accessed or installed without any notice to You, for the repair, improvement, and/or upgrade of the underlying technology or for any other justifiable reason...

We may use Personal Data to: provide services and customer support You request; resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems; enforce our Terms of Service; customize, measure, and improve doubleTwist Software, VoIP Service and Website content and layout; inform You about targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers (unless You opt out)

Re:

[Ragzouken (943900)]

SpiceFlow Corporation? I sense plans within plans.

They Are After Our Spice!

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

Spiceflow... you're right... I was blind, but now I see. It's the goddamned House Horkonnen [wikipedia.org] at it again. Probably in league with House Ordos [wikipedia.org].

But can it...

[Thelasko (1196535)]

1)Convert all of my HD DVD movies into Blue Ray movies?

2)Run on Linux

Oh, great...

[XxtraLarGe (551297)]

Every time this dude releases a hack I'm not interested in using, I end up being forced to download a new patch from Apple for my iTunes/iPod if I want to buy new music.

Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[by Anonymous Coward]

On a whim, I tried installing this. Once the setup is complete, it wants my e-mail address to create an "account" for me... and it installs a couple of other programs I didn't agree to. Sorry, not interested - deleted.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[d3ac0n (715594)]

Looks like this is an "Online Only" program. Basically, if you don't have an account to sign into, it doesn't work. It is NOT a standalone application, but a networked application.

Looks to me like they are trying to create another Kazaa or Napster.

Too bad. It seemed much nicer when I thought it was a standalone. I have no interest in running yet another networked application just to gain access to what should be a standalone function.

Excuse me, I have to go uninstall this now.

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[TheVelvetFlamebait (986083)]

Um, if your sig is accurate, how the hell did you end up replying to an AC?

Re:Setup Wants an E-Mail Address

[MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)]

"Um, if your sig is accurate, how the hell did you end up replying to an AC?"

Um, if your sig is accurate, why did you reply instead of abusing the moderator system?

Re:

[d3ac0n (715594)]

ffdshow is just a media codec. Nothing to worry about there. I already had it since I have the Matroska community pack installed on my machine.

in related news

[circletimessquare (444983)]

RIAA Creates DVD Jon Killer

Re:

[Unique2 (325687)]

DVD Jon? Come with me if you want to live.

Re:

[SpydeZ (1196075)]

Except when they sent it back in time, the orders got a bit scrambled and it ended up trying to kill someone named John Connor...

It Required MSdotNET

[Soloact (805735)]

Went to give this a try. Upon starting the installation, the application required MS' dotNET and started to download it. That's when I hit the CANCEL. Don't want that dotNET on my computer at all.

Re:

[Billly Gates (198444)]

How can the mac version run if its written with .NET?

Just read the license and Priv. statement

[wethion (871311)]

Umm.. after reading them relatively carefully, I don't think I'll be using that software. Basically, you give us your info, we update ourselves on what you're doing, we send it to the Cayman Islands and we promise promise promise never to give it to anyone else unless you agree, we're bought, subpoena'd or otherwise compromised. Somehow... I don't think so. Peace.

Aww, no Blu-Ray?

[Thagg (9904)]

At some point, I do expect that very large organizations will break the DRM on Blu-Ray, and they'll probably present it to DVD-Jon, much like they did with DVD's. Probably be a while, though.

Stay tuned for DVD Jon's Autobiography...

[jpellino (202698)]

"My Life As A Nail"

10 Years Down the Road...

[BoRegardless (721219)]

After you've bought 250 movies, and the DRM they made "back then" is no longer supported, DVD Jon will have made sure you can still see what you bought.

OK?

Oh yeah, well top this

[heroine (1220)]

My startup is a Web-based social network portable media player plug & play standards based open media file swapper with AJAX Google enhancement.

GUI for Sox, Image Magic and ffmpeg

[flyingfsck (986395)]

It sounds like a GUI front-end for Sox, Image Magic and ffmpeg. As such, it should be immensely useful, since running those utilities from a command line is quite a challenge.

Re:Oh really

[ditoa (952847)]

So it is basically doing a software based line-out to line-in (aka loopback) encode? How is this anything special? I have done this for years using nothing but simple audio tools. Or is it doing something more intelligent? (I fail to see how though as it is still lossy -> lossy conversion).

Re:Oh really

[Romancer (19668)]

It's special because of two things, the history of the name and the goal of the product. DVD Jon is creating a friendly all encompasing media bridge between online media, local collections and portable devices that "your parents could use" according to the article. This means mass adoption if it works and doesn't get legally raped.

Re:Oh really

[compro01 (777531)]

How is this anything special?

it's simple, automated, and usable by pretty much anyone.

Re:Oh really

[somersault (912633)]

It's the digital equivalent of growing seamonkeys!

Re:Oh really

[somersault (912633)]

Well, if you must know, there are magical anti-DRM pixies inside the code that lovingly polish every bit as it passes through the transcoding process just to get its guard down, then they sprinkle them with magic pixie dust to remove the DRM, and finish the process with a nice close shave and boot polish. It's a trade secret though so don't tell anyone.

Really though - a DRM remover is a DRM remover, and this just goes to demonstrate that you will *always* be able to break DRM with the analog hole, the whole thing is such a joke.

Re:Oh really

[MBGMorden (803437)]

I hate to break it to you, but ANY conversion from AAC is going to be lossy->lossy. There's not way around that because the compression algorithms are different. The best you could hope to achieve would be to convert from DRM'd AAC to non-DRM'd AAC. That's the only way you can avoid the quality loss incurred by a format conversion.

For a similar example in non-DRM terms: take an image. The less simple it is the quicker this will become obvious, but even on a photograph it will show soon. Save it as JPG. OK, now save it as PNG. Save it as JPG again. Go back and forth like this several times. Open and view the image. Notice that regardless of the fact that there was no-DRM involved and this was a completely legit "no workaround" conversion between formats, it looses information every time.

Re:Yes

[moderatorrater (1095745)]

Of course the whole point is that people can use this to share any kind of media with pretty much anyone

It could also be used (and correct me if I'm wrong here, i'm going way out on a limb) for being able to play your music on any device that you want to. Incompatibilities have killed my (legally bought) media before, and that's what I'd use this software for. If I wanted to freely share my any kind of media with anyone else, I'd just download it with limewire or bittorrent.

Re:Yes

[infonography (566403)]

Slips out of a tricky situation with regards to breaking DRM. By using a already owned DRM key it doesn't have to break the protection. This keeps the software maker (you know who) out of any sticking 'breaking their encryption issues'. This makes it fairly immune to DMCA attacks thus reducing it to an automated method of converting files. These already methods already exist and it just makes the task easy.

Re:VAC?

[boourns (1180959)]

Virtual Audio Cable isn't free, while DoubleTwist is.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[maxwell demon (590494)]

I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness).

I've tried to use it to copy a CD to my mouse, but it didn't work, even when run as root.

Re:A utility to copy media to any device

[just_another_sean (919159)]

I've been using something like this for awhile, its called "dd" (run as root for extra goodness).

Yes, DD which, as it's name suggests, makes an exact duplicate of whatever it is copying, including whatever DRM is in the file.

And while there are a lot of tools for stripping DRM available Jon is saying he wants to bring it to the masses. To quote (paraphrase?) "I want your parents to be able to do it".

It's not about hacking DRM because it should all be free, it's not about mass distribution of "pirated" (Arhh!) material, it's about making the exercising of fair use rights by consumers as easy as it was with VHS/Cassettes/CDROM (the real CDROM, the one that is allowed to use the logo).

Re:One-trick pony?

[compro01 (777531)]

how do you figure that? as far as i understand it, this is practically an automated analog hole trick. theoretically, it should be able to bypass pretty much any DRM scheme.

Re:

[argent (18001)]

Decompressing does not cause a loss of quality. Recompressing in a lossy format may, but there are a variety of lossless formats you can use if you find that you can hear a difference (I can with some files, but not with most), or if you want to retain the option of recompressing the music with a different codec in the future.