iTunes cracked

WinNetMag | at | by Mike

The Norwegian programmer who created DeCSS, the first widely used tool for decrypting the copy protection found on commercial DVD movies, announced this week a similar hack for the Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology that protects songs purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store. The hack casts doubts on Apple's ability to protect the intellectual property rights of artists who sell music on the iTunes service, and comes just a month after the company opened iTunes to Windows users. Critics have long alleged that much of Apple's software development advantage in the past came from its small, tightly-controlled market; now that Apple is pushing DRM-enabled products like iTunes and the iPod into the wider Windows world, the company is finding out how difficult it is to control the teaming masses.