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DVD Jon, who gained fame as a teenager for hacking the encryption scheme for DVD movies and has since been a thorn in Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) side, is going corporate.
The hacker, whose real name is Jon Lech Johansen, has released two products that simplify the flow of media across devices and social networks.
These are the DoubleTwist desktop, which sits on the user's PC, and Twist Me, a Facebook widget.
Both are currently available only for Windows Vista and XP; Mac versions will be issued by early summer.
They are both free and do not come bundled with spyware, adware or malware, according to DoubleTwist, the San Francisco-based company DVD Jon cofounded with Monique Farantzos.
Notes From the Underground
Johansen has over the years reverse-engineered and created open source versions of Apple FairPlay; the Apple iTunes protocol for downloading FairPlay user keys, authored FairKeys and updated reverse engineerings of Apple Music Store protocols, according to his blog.
These were all released freely as shareware.
Now, however, he appears to have succumbed to the lure of loot, telling the Financial Times that, while he worked on things for geeks in the past, he has the opportunity now to reach the mass market.
That's a wise move, because Jon is "tapping into a perceived trend that people want to move stuff around from device to device," Michael Gartenberg, of JupiterResearch, told MacNewsWorld.
"As more consumers have more screens that they want to watch -- on their TVs or PCs or cell phones or media players -- they want content to flow with them, and, if these guys can tap into that early enough, there's a tremendous opportunity," Gartenberg added.
The Desktop Technology
DoubleTwist essentially lets iTunes users rip their songs -- it replays a song at high speed and rerecords it. There is only a five percent degradation in sound quality, which DoubleTwist said is similar to the results when you duplicate CDs.
The product can convert 100 songs in about 30 minutes.
While it lets users send friends copies of copy-protected songs, users can only copy songs that they themselves own the rights to.
It also lets users send digital videos to friends.
When users connect digital cameras, mobile phones or PSPs to their PCs, the DoubleTwist desktop finds and displays available media files. Users select the files they want to transfer and the application converts the files to the appropriate format when sending them.
Media can be sent to various cell phones, including the Sony (NYSE: SNE) PSP, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N Series, Sony Ericsson Walkman and Cybershot, and LG Viewty. They can also be sent to Windows Mobile smartphones.
Apple iPhone users will soon be able to access DoubleTwist from the phone's Safari browser to view content sent by friends.
Twisting on Facebook
The Twist Me Facebook widget essentially works the same way as DoubleTwist, letting users send audio, video and pictures to friends from their profile page and share media files with their friends directly from Facebook.
However, it has received mixed reviews.
One user, signing himself Robbie, wrote that the application "looks as if it was designed in Photoshop and cropped into images using ImageReady." There is "no adjusting the application's size. The GUI is essentially terrible. There is no support for non-iTunes media libraries," he wrote
Robbie also expressed concerns about tying real-life credentials such as full name and cell phone number through Facebook to DoubleTwist. However, he will recommend it to those who use iTunes.
What's at Stake
Apple watchers have already labeled DoubleTwist an "iTunes killer."
No such thing, Gartenberg said: "DRM is almost a non-issue now because of Amazon's selling non-protected music."
Apple is still selling music with DRM (digital rights management) because the labels whose music it carries won't remove rights management as a means to "wrest power from Apple," Gartenberg added.
"Everyone understands the base level -- if you have a string of bits representing something, as long as you replicate it perfectly you have a perfect copy without any loss of fidelity, and you can make an infinite number of copies," Roger Kay, president of consultant firm Endpoint Technologies Associates told MacNewsWorld. "The unlocking of the iPhone demonstrates that content wants to be free and people don't want to live in a walled garden."
DRM comes into play in video distribution, Gartenberg said, adding that this "could become a potential issue going forward."
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