http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2007-07-17_D8QEFI3O1&show_article=1&cat=breaking

Microsoft Copy Protection Cracked Again
Jul 17 01:13 PM US/Eastern
By JESSICA MINTZ
AP Business Writer

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SEATTLE (AP) – Microsoft Corp. is once again on the defensive against hackers after the launch of a new program that gives average PC users tools to unlock copy-protected digital music and movies.

The latest version of the FairUse4M program, which can crack Microsoft’s digital rights management system for Windows Media audio and video files, was published online late Friday. In the past year, Microsoft plugged holes exploited by two earlier versions of the program and filed a federal lawsuit against its anonymous authors. Microsoft dropped the lawsuit after failing to identify them.

The third version of FairUse4M has a simple drag-and-drop interface. PC users can turn the protected music files they bought online—either a la carte or as part of a subscription service like Napster—and turn them into DRM-free tunes that can be copied and shared at will, or turned into MP3 files that can play on any type of digital music player.

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Like an arms race, the DRM folks are spending a lot of cycles on a failing paradigm.

Like putting lipstick on the proverbial pig, it annoys their paying customers and is pretty ugly! Some of my biggest irritations, in my computing career, have been at the hands of “copy protection”. Couple that with bad, or non-existent, support and you have the seeds of a revolt.

I now don’t buy content online — music or other kinds — if it has copy protection. I have a lot of expensive 8 tracks, cassettes, and cds of “content” that are unusable. Add to that “software”, which has stopped working, stopped being supported, or otherwise orphaned.

My most recent experience was with MusicMatch JukeBox being acquired by Yahoo and forced to “upgrade”. This was one of my last purchases, excuse me “licensing” — what “barbara streisand”!! — before my new policy of “no more”.

“No more” locked content. “No more” buying software, excuse me licensing it, from vendors who are one step below used car salesmen. “No more” operating systems that require “activation” and have “self-help” provisions.

I look to the open source software makers and happily “donate” to their projects.

I’m calling out the content makers, “software” licensors, and the entire Microsoft empire as the hucksters they are. At least the snake oil sales men of yesteryear didn’t try and make you “license” the bottle! A plague on all their houses.

Imagine how I’ll be when I get old and crotchety!
fjohn

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