FairUse4WM - a WM/DRM removal program

[somebodeez]

Ars Technica, LLC
Microsoft tells web site owners to take down FairUse4WM

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060917-7761.html

A bit from the article:

(snip)

The "Demand for Immediate Takedown" e-mail comes from a James Young, "Internet Investigator," who claims to be acting on behalf of Microsoft Corporation. The interesting thing about the e-mail is that it makes no mention of the DMCA, which is the one law that would make FairUse4WM (which does not contain any copyrighted code, portions of Windows Media Player, nor any copyrighted music files themselves) illegal.

(snip)

The DMCA is a US invention and applies only in the United States, but many companies have attempted to use it outside their country's borders. The notice advising web sites to take down the FairUse4WM program came from the domain Microsoft-Antipiracy.com, which according to DNS records belongs to Microsoft but is actually administered by the ISP Nildram Ltd, which is based in the UK (the web site itself redirects to a page on microsoft.com).

[The1]

Now Microsoft sues!

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060927-7849.html

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4353

[Conquest10]

That is just... (don't want to say anything since this is not OT). Suing 10 John Does? And this is just hilarious from that link:

The software strips songs purchased from Microsoft partners, such as Yahoo! Music and Napster, of their Windows Media DRM, allowing users to continue listening to songs after canceling their subscriptions to said services and to use the songs on other platforms—things that would not normally be allowed with the DRM in place.

Yeah, the sole purpose of this is to allow use of unauthorized media.

[painkiller]

This entertainment is WAY better than what Hollywood provides us.

And. It's free!


On a slightly more serious note, it would be nice if Microsoft would just work harder on their security implementaions - because, it just ain't good enough.

Apparently.

(Happy with my Win2K. No interest in XP or Vista.)

[drjtech]

Microsoft sues over source code theft

Microsoft has filed a federal lawsuit against an alleged hacker who broke through its copy protection technology, charging that the mystery developer somehow gained access to its copyrighted source code.

For more than a month, the Redmond, Wash., company has been combating a program released online called FairUse4WM, which successfully stripped anticopying guards from songs downloaded through subscription media services such as Napster or Yahoo Music.

Microsoft has released two successive patches aimed at disabling the tool. The first worked--but the hacker, known only by the pseudonym "Viodentia," quickly found a way around the update, the company alleges. Now the company says this was because the hacker had apparently gained access to copyrighted source code unavailable to previous generations of would-be crackers.

"Our own intellectual property was stolen from us and used to create this tool," said Bonnie MacNaughton, a senior attorney in Microsoft's legal and corporate affairs division. "They obviously had a leg up on any of the other hackers that might be creating circumvention tools from scratch."

In a Web posting early Wednesday morning, Viodentia denied using any copyrighted Microsoft code, and released yet another version of his tool.

"FairUse4WM has been my own creation, and has never involved Microsoft source code," the developer wrote. "I link with Microsoft's static libraries provided with the compiler and various platform SDK (software development kit) files."

This latest round of copy-protection headaches comes at a delicate time for Microsoft. In a few months, the company plans to launch its own digital music subscription service, called "Zune," paired with an iPod device rival of the same name. The package will compete with services from Microsoft's traditional partners, such as Napster and Yahoo.

The Zune service and device will use their own flavor of digital rights management, and this will not be directly compatible with Microsoft's partners' products, despite being based on the same Windows Media technology. The company is taking great pains to assure its partners that their PlaysForSure-branded products are still state of the art.

Two-pronged approach
At the moment, Microsoft is taking a two-pronged technical and legal approach to FairUse4WM that goes beyond the scope of its earlier DRM battles.

On the technical side, it is pursuing much the same strategy as in the past: studying the hacker's tool and trying to update its Windows Media technology to block it.

Indeed, the company's Windows Media copy protection technology was designed from the start to support swift updates that would address inevitable cracks. That has long been part of the technology's draw for record labels and movie studios, which are fearful that content protection flaws will lead to films and music being swapped freely online.

Microsoft's copy protection has been cracked before and then quickly fixed. Company representatives said that the FairUse4WM tool, despite its developer's success in breaking through the company's first patch, is simply triggering the same kind of security review that has happened in the past.

"This particular circumvention doesn't change that reality at all, or affect the underpinnings of the system," said Marcus Matthias, a senior product manager at Microsoft. "This is not quite as 'cat and mouse' as some people might have you believe."

The crack's unusual longevity has caused ripples of worry inside the digital media community, however. One service provider, the British network BSkyB, even temporarily canceled movie downloads.

Representatives from other services say Microsoft's previous rights-management security updates have been successful and expect this effort ultimately to be no different.

"One of the great features of the Windows Media DRM is its renewability," said Bill Pence, chief technical officer at Napster. "When the DRM system is compromised, we can incorporate updates with minimal impact on users, and we expect to do the same with the current patch."

Using courts to track a cracker
However, the federal "John Doe" lawsuit, along with "dozens" of legal letters sent to Internet sites that are hosting the allegedly copyright-infringing tool, is a decidedly different tack for Microsoft.

The copyright lawsuit was filed in Seattle federal court last Friday, without a name attached. Just as in the recording industry's many lawsuits against accused file swappers, it targets an unknown individual or individuals, whose true identity will be sought in the course of the case.

For now, that means going to the Internet service providers for Web sites where the original FairUse4WM tool was released, in hopes of tracking down an IP address or other digital traces that might lead to the developer, MacNaughton said.

Microsoft is also contacting other Web sites that have posted the FairUse4WM tool, asking them to remove the software, on the grounds that it contains copyrighted company code.

Company representatives declined to speculate on exactly how "Viodentia" gained access to copyrighted source code. The code in question is part of a Windows Media software development kit, but is not easily accessible to anyone with a copy of that toolkit, Microsoft said.

So far, little is known about the developer, who has used the pseudonym "Viodentia" in several online postings at a site called Doom9.org. "Viodentia" could not immediately be reached for comment.

After spending an unaccustomed month of grappling with the problem, Microsoft representatives stopped short of promising their latest Windows Media update will be impregnable--although certainly, the hope is that a third patch won't be needed. Viodentia's newest release, posted online Wednesday, will test the strength of the company's latest approach.

"Any time we put out an update, it is our hope that it will be as efficacious as possible," Matthias said. "It is our hope that the technical mitigations that we've put in place will do something to impede this circumvention."

Analysts say that "Viodentia" hasn't proved that Microsoft's DRM tools are fundamentally flawed, but has shown that the business of keeping it, or any rights management system, secure is increasingly becoming a full-time job.

"Any DRM out there is going to be cracked," GartnerG2 analyst Michael McGuire said. "More important is how the technology service reacts. Someone has to be keeping an eye online all the time now, looking for the next time."

[DereX888]

so now they sue ghosts as well, lol
How American: just sue somebody, anybody

[smeezy]

Conquest10 wrote

Did it not play because of the license? If so, you might have a problem because in order to remove the DRM it has to first acquire a license for it.

If you scroll back a page or two one post gives a link to the doom forums where it mentions a site to go to and download a drm clip. This clip will give you a dummy license to use with whatever you want. According to the post, the license did not have to be from the file you want to play. It just needed a license ingeneral to get the reg # from

That's false, I'm pretty sure that drm clip is just for testing purposes. I tried it and yes it removed the drm from the demo clip but did not remove the drm on my other videos. I'm sure you have to have a license for the video in order to remove the drm.

Anybody have any idea on when or if a drm removal tool will be created without having the need for a license? I have tons of drm-protected content that I downloaded and had working licenses for but they all expired...

[mats.hogberg]

I'm sure you have to have a license for the video in order to remove the drm.

Yes, that's how it works, and how it should work, IMO. As a tool to counter fair use violations. Not to give you access to stuff you're not entitled to.

/Mats

[smeezy]

I'm sure you have to have a license for the video in order to remove the drm.

Yes, that's how it works, and how it should work, IMO. As a tool to counter fair use violations. Not to give you access to stuff you're not entitled to.

/Mats

Actually I do have a license for the files that I have but they either expired or the drm site that gives the licenses are no longer in business, so what am I suppose to do?

[painkiller]

Since I have never gone the route of purchasing audio/video downloads (no gots iPod or anything like that), I am confused about what Smeezy just pointed out.

Is this right? When you buy a license to play DRM effected files - you have to eventually buy it again??

Smeezy, if you can please give me (us) more details on this, if you would. What was the outfit that went out of business? Audio files? Video files? Which were affected that you can't play anymore?

Immensely curious.

[jagabo]

Is this right? When you buy a license to play DRM effected files - you have to eventually buy it again??

More or less.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34949

[Conquest10]

Is this right? When you buy a license to play DRM effected files - you have to eventually buy it again??

I'm sure this can and will happen again and again. I don't know about Apple's or the drm'ed wma but the drm'ed wmv files (and I'm sure wmas too) have to go online and ask permission to play before you can watch it. What do you think will happen when one day the company goes out of business? Or just decides to refuse to give you a license? This has happened to me. I tried watching a movie and it refused to give me a license unless I updated the player. Why?

[painkiller]

While I'm sure others knew this before me - I wasn't aware some folks were already experiencing this.

Even though I've read quite a bit of material on the DRM technology issues - I have always been suspicious of it from the get go. Now I know why.

Sheesh.

I wonder just how much of the public-at-large is starting to get hit with these kinds of problems?

Seems to me this would be an interesting poll, or has that been done here already?

[DereX888]

While I'm sure others knew this before me - I wasn't aware some folks were already experiencing this.

Even though I've read quite a bit of material on the DRM technology issues - I have always been suspicious of it from the get go. Now I know why.

Sheesh.

I wonder just how much of the public-at-large is starting to get hit with these kinds of problems?

Seems to me this would be an interesting poll, or has that been done here already?

Public = idiots who eat whatever Big Corporations feed them daily.
They will take anything even if it hurts them.

Some rumours will get some attention in the news etc when some big salesman of DRM-infected files will go belly up (i.e. itunes) leaving hundreds of thousand people without access to what they thought they already paid for
Then and only then average Johnny Q Public (aka the idiot) will get some slight idea how badly he let the big Cos f*ck him in the ass... but it will be too late, as usual.

[Rich86]

Well, personally I have no problems with downloaded music with incorporated digital rights management That is because I refuse to purchase any of it. Even the freebie sampler songs offered by folks like Amazon are immediately deleted unplayed if they demand any modifications to my software, or downoads of programs or licenses. And "no" these comments do not make me a person who uses illegal downloading to acquire my music - because I have never done that.

Just call me an old, ex-customer who does still purchase some cd's, but already has plenty of music to listen to and videos to watch without need of wasting money on music or movie downloads that I cannot use as I please after purchasing.

[DereX888]

Johnny Q usually doesn't even know that what he paid for on itunes is way inferior from what he would have bought (on CD in the store).
He usually just follows what Big Co's brainwashing device in his living room shows him to buy and use Its like 1984 fully implemented already hehe

Im seriously surprised they still churn out those CDs for sale. Its gotta be that damn lack of internet in every house on the planet, but I have no doubt once it will be implemented even in the deepest jungles of Africa, the "outdated" CDDA format will quickly disappear :/

[Jess.Light]

It seems when the program re-recods the audio signal - it's absolutely legal!
spam

You are in breach of the forum rules and are being issued with a formal warning.
/ Moderator Baldrick

[alynne]

I tried to use FairUse 1.0.3 and it didn't work. I can't seem to find a downloadable copy of Fairuse 1.2 on the net. It came up with this error:

IBX Version 11.0.6000.6324 isn't supported yet.

... guess I'll have to find 1.2 out there somewhere