[Infowarrior] - Windows Media DRM Apparently Cracked, And No One Cares

[Richard Forno]

(Obviously, if you Google the file you can find it pretty quickly ......duh!
-rf)

Windows Media DRM Apparently Cracked, And No One Cares
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cmusings/2006/08/25#a1889

Windows Media DRM has apparently been compromised. Reader Frank Payne
pointed me towards a program called FairUse4WM that decrypts Windows Media
files. I had heard of a similar program recently called drmdbg.  I cannot
confirm how and the extent to which these function, including
incompatibilities with certain software setups. I also can't tell how new
these tools are -- I found posts about drmdbg from over a year ago, but only
news in the last few months about FairUse4WM. Regardless, the tools
apparently are ways around the DRM for WMA and WMV, including Janus DRM.

While interesting news, it's rather irrelevant to online media services
using WM DRM. Most users won't care about these decryption tools, not
because the DRM is "consumer-friendly," but rather because there are already
readily-accessible alternatives to acquire unencrypted copies and thus get
around the DRM's unfriendly limits.

About a year ago, I reported on the development of a work-around for
pre-Janus WMA DRM. To my knowledge, this development never produced a
working crack, and, given how readily other DRM systems like CSS have been
circumvented, that may be surprising to some. One might wonder why it took
so long for a decryption utility to become widely-available.

The most plausible answer is that the online music DRM is so easy to get
around that essentially no one gives a damn about actually circumventing it.
If iTunes or Napster Light users want to make a use that the DRM prohibits,
he or she can burn the song to CD and rip, use the analog hole, or get on a
P2P network.  All three are trivially easy ways to get an unencrypted copy
and make circumvention practically unnecessary. The subset of users unable
or unwilling to perform these steps is, I suspect, an incredibly low
percentage of the whole userbase. (Which is not to say that the DRM causes
no outrage or damage among users. That small subset of users is
unfortunately prevented from making many non-infringing uses of purchased
music, while the DRM does nothing to prevent "Internet piracy.")

This answer is a lot more compelling, I think, than believing that the
online music DRM was particularly well-designed and difficult to beat in the
face of the DMCA. But my answer prompts another question: why would these WM
tools come out at all, and why now?

I can think of two main responses.  First, people might still have wanted to
create these tools for fun. Sure, few would have a practical use for them,
but that discourage everyone. The alternative avenues for DRM evasion merely
meant there was less incentive to work on a decryption tool and thus less
people developing one -- less, but not zero.

Second, the recent though meager growth of Movielink, Cinemanow, Rhapsody
Unlimited, Rhapsody-to-Go, and similar services created a matching recent
though proportionately meager increase in incentives to create decryption
tools. All the content on those services remains readily-accessible on P2P.
But burning and re-ripping is not possible, and, for movies, using the
analog hole is a little bit more difficult. So, with those alternative
avenues slightly cut off, that was enough to kickstart a little renewed
interest in creating an actual decryption tool.

That's my speculation. Again, this doesn't really affect the argument over
whether DRM+DMCA can achieve their intended purpose of stopping "Internet
piracy" -- they don't and can't, as I addressed at length in recent posts.
But that would have been true had these tools never been created.

Update, 11:23 AM Friday: Endadget has screenshots and apparently
successfully tried this tool. See:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/25/fairuse4wm-strips-windows-media-drm/