September 8th, 2006
Microsoft's patches DRM with record speed, but FairUse4WM counters
Microsoft bypassed its normal monthly patch Tuesday cycle and delivered the fastest security patch ever for the FairUse4WM DRM stripper in a record 3 days from the day it became known. But FairUse4WM 1.2 has already countered the patch and is stripping DRM as fast as it ever did with one exception, it no longer works on music subscription services and WMA files that have expirations on them.
FairUse4WM version 1.2 will only work on WMA files that were purchased (usually $1 per song) so that it cannot be used to abuse subscription services and allow people to download the entire music catalog and disable the DRM. This may be a good compromise that will hopefully avoid such a panicked reaction from Microsoft last time to protect its partnership with the music industry and the subscription services like Napster, Yahoo, or Urge. People who have already purchased music legally but want to play it on any of their own devices feel too restricted by the DRM technology and desire the ability to strip those limitations, but completely stripping the DRM protection will allow the WMA files to freely replicate on peer-to-peer networks which terrifies the music industry. As a result, the struggle over DRM and the cat and mouse game of crack and patch continues.
George Ou is Technical Director of ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
