Apple uses DMCA against iPod interoperability project

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Apple wants to stop iPod owners from using non-Apple software with their iPods, so its lawyers have sent a "cease and desist" order to BluWiki, which hosts the public face of the iPodHash project. However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has offered to help.


Apple is trying to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to stop the iPodHash project, and thereby to restrict the freedom of iPod owners who'd prefer to use alternatives to iTunes, such as Songbird and WinAmp. Since Apple does not make iTunes available for Linux, this is also an attack on open source users who own iPods. It could even result in BluWiki -- which has received a "cease and desist" order from Apple -- being forced offline.


The background is that Apple has added a new hashing algorithm to its iTunesDB database file -- which stores user data, such as the details and location of each song on the iPod, as obfuscated by Apple -- to prevent anyone else's software from writing to it. The iPodHash project is an attempt to crack the latest hash.

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This page contains a single entry by published on November 28, 2008 9:19 AM.

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