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Apple iBooks Copy Protection Cracked for First Time

709193 large2The Digital Reader points to reports that Apple's iBooks Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection has been cracked for the first time:

Reports are coming in today that the latest version of Requiem, an app that removes Fairplay DRM from music and videos sold via iTunes, will now also remove the DRM from iBooks ebooks.

The news is notable in that it's the first time that iBooks DRM has been circumvented. This would allow iBooks downloaded from iTunes to be used on other platforms besides Apple's iBooks reader.

Apple's DRM for music and movies have been circumvented in the past, and resulted in a cat and mouse game of updates to iTunes to disable these hacks. Apple will likely respond in a similar fashion to this hack.

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Top Rated Comments

186 months ago
You can't read iBook on your desktop. Not even Mac OS X can read iBooks. This is the main reason I stopped buying ebooks from iBooks.

Now I can. Thanks "stupid pirates"
Score: 72 Votes (Like | Disagree)
186 months ago
I've never understood DRM, it's premise seems to be to penalise those who purchase content legally, whilst pirates still get their more flexible content for free.
Score: 45 Votes (Like | Disagree)
186 months ago
<wishfull thinking>
Maybe this is a reason for Apple to drop the drm on the ibook ebooks altogether (like what happened with the AAC's)
</wishfull thinking>
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cambookpro Avatar
186 months ago
What for?
I understand that its a kind of sport for hackers, but for end-user...



Pirates? I dont see anything related to pirating. Its just hacking formats.

Oh I dunno...

* Reading on a Mac
* Reading on Kindle
* Able to copy and paste from iBooks
* Reading on any other ereader
* etc...


:D
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
arn Avatar
186 months ago
You are welcome to discuss the merits of DRM and circumventing it, but please no links to such software, etc...
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AppleMark Avatar
186 months ago
It was always going to happen at some stage.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)