apple to offer fairplay drm licensing?

January 17th, 2007 post a comment (3) stumble it! digg it! by: technabob

iTunes DRM Locked Up until now, its been nearly impossible to (legally) use your purchased iTunes music and videos on anything other than Apple’s own gear. According to a post on Tech.co.uk, this may be about to change soon.

The story claims that Apple may be getting ready to announce that they will offer licensing of its proprietary Fairplay digital rights management to Made for iPod licensees. If this really happens, streaming media devices other than Airport Express and the forthcoming Apple TV could be enabled to play purchased iTunes media.

There are a handful of devices that do provide streaming of iTunes tracks to non-Apple devices, such as the Logitech Wireless DJ and Netgear’s recently announced EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD media streamer. However, it’s my understanding that these devices don’t directly access tracks, but instead piggyback onto iTunes to let it do the DRM authorization.

I’m hoping that this story does turn out to be true, as it’s one of my biggest frustrations with iTunes purchased media. I personally don’t care for Apple’s current streaming solutions, and would love to be able to use my purchased iTunes tracks on other media devices such as a Slim Devices Squeezebox, or (wishful thinking here) my Xbox 360.

[via Reg Hardware]

January 17th, 2007 post a comment (3) stumble it! digg it! by: technabob

tags:

apple, drm, fairplay, itunes, license, media

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3 comments post a comment

1. ManChicken | January 17th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

I think it’s a great thing that Apple wants to consider consumers… but perhaps they should instead remove their DRM altogether and allow consumers the ultimate freedom of choice.

With DRM the way it is now, you’re tied to whatever devices are manufactured by companies that were willing to pay “licensing fees” (properly pronounced “blackmail kickbacks”) to whatever entities claim “ownership” over the codec (which was designed to be defective). Not all devices are like that. One trend I’m noticing is that many devices are supporting bare-bones DRM support (WMA-DRM), but that’s where it ends. MobiBLU doesn’t do anything with Fairplay or Playforsure, nor does Neuros, and I think iRiver got rid of DRM altogether.

I’m also seeing articles saying that some labels are abandoning DRM altogether (e.g. EMI) and that Yahoo! Music is selling more and more DRM-free music.
2. Jamie | January 12th, 2008 at 1:17 am

Yeah hey i have just put my deal onto freedom and i have called ppl up nd they r my 5 numbers and now i am loosing credit. Could it be that telstra is doing a fairplay? If so how long does it go for?
3. technabob | January 12th, 2008 at 7:55 am

I don’t think that your question has anything to do with Apple, does it? Isn’t Telstra Freedom some sort of mobile phone package? Certainly that has nothing to do with Fairplay or DRM.