FairUse4WM : Strippingng DRM (digital rights management) from windows media

[mouser]

This may be of questionable legality.  Visit the page for an interview with the author..

A small utility called FairUse4WM has been making the rounds for the past month and it has been giving the people at Microsoft quite a headache. The utility is able to strip Windows PlaysForSure media files of their digital rights management (DRM) allowing for unlimited playback and distribution.

Microsoft patched the first exploit a few days after its initial release only to see the author of FairUse4WM adapt to the new changes. Now we see that Microsoft is in full-blown attack mode and the Redmond-based company claims that it has developed a patch to render FairUse4WM 1.2 useless. But for every patch that Microsoft releases, there will likely be another update for FairUse4WM to get the ball rolling again.

In light of all of the news surrounding FairUse4WM and Microsoft's efforts to shut it down, Engadget was able to get an exclusive interview with the author the utility and get his thoughts on why he created the utility, how easy it was to code and how Microsoft dropped the ball on DRM:
...

http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4315

from http://www.dailytech.com/section.aspx?cat=2

[Renegade]

Grrrr... 

Legal or not... It's still supposed to be "FAIR USE". The RIAA, MPAA, NMPA, MPA... These guys are archaic and need to get a life. Their revenue model has shifted from the entertainment industry to the litigation industry.

Yes. A pet peeve of mine.

You can find more information about that program at Hydrogen Audio. It's somewhere in the forums.

And there's no real point in trying to protect audio or video as it can ALWAYS be ripped.

Grumble... Grumble...

It would be better if the RIAA, MPAA, NMPA, MPA, etc... all tried to deal with their CUSTOMERS in GOOD FAITH. They don't.

[housetier]

Music enthusiasts could also look for labels and artists that let you download and copy their music for free. Some even encourage you to do so!


Sometimes you even get all the settings and tracks and stuff for software like reason so you can take "their" tunes and do something different with it. 


It hasnt caught on really yet, because the big radio and tv stations are owned (in the 1337 sense) by the big labels, and those big players do not like competion one bit.


Anyway this is a very emotional issue for me, mostly involving hate or disgust so I will stop for now. Given interest, I'll dig out the "free labels" that I know for you...

must...calm...down...

[f0dder]

The program is pretty interesting - instead of trying to work on the files, break the encryption, etc... it hooks the player. FairUse hooks it right after the decryption of a chunk of audio date, which can then be written out to file instead of just playing it.

This is probably a lot easier than doing reverse engineering of (I guess) heavily obfuscated code dealing with the file, and it should be easy enough for the Reverse Engineer to use a tool like bindiff to "catch the patch" when the protection is updated.

Only downside is, of course, that decryption is a bit slow. Just say no to DRM'ed media in the first place, and say no to CDs that violate the standard - even if you have a nice drive capable of ripping it.