QTFairUse is a software application first released in November 2003 by Jon Lech Johansen

Jon Lech Johansen

Jon Lech Johansen , also known as DVD Jon, is a Norwegian programmer famous for his work on reverse engineering data formats....

. It dumps the raw output of a QuickTime AAC stream to a file, which could bypass the digital rights management

Digital rights management

Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...

 (DRM) algorithm

Algorithm

In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...

 called FairPlay

FairPlay

FairPlay is a digital rights management technology created by Apple Inc., based on technology created by the company Veridisc. FairPlay is built into the QuickTime multimedia software and used by the iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, iTunes, and iTunes Store and the App Store. Formerly, all songs in...

 used to encrypt music content of media files such as those distributed by the iTunes Store

ITunes Store

The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...

, Apple's online music store

Online music store

An online music store is an online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from music streaming services in that the music store offers the actual music file, while streaming services offer partial or full listening without...

. Although these resulting raw AAC

Advanced Audio Coding

Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....

 files were unplayable by most media players at the time of release, they represented the first attempt at circumventing Apple's encryption. These early versions of QTFairUse would save only the "raw" AAC (not contained in an MPEG-4

MPEG-4

MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...

 (MP4) container), but later incarnations properly supported full conversions.

Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

, QTFairUse is free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

.

Technical approach

Functionally, the purpose of QTFairUse is to convert protected audio files (.m4p extension) purchased from Apple's iTunes Store into M4a files, without DRM. To accomplish this task it uses a rather uncommon approach: instead of removing the already present DRM, it waits for iTunes to play back the protected file and intercepts the unencrypted AAC data stream as it is sent to the sound card

Sound card

A sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...

. During this process, it copies unencrypted data, frame-by-frame, into RAM and then inserts it into a new MP4 container that is free of any DRM.

iTunes versions

The current release (as of December 13, 2007) of QTFairUse6, version 6-2.5, supports iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

6.0.2 through 7.0.2. An updated config file compatible with iTunes 7.1.2 was released on May 14, 2007. An iTunes 7.3.1 compatible configuration file was released on June 12, the same day Apple released the new iTunes update. An iTunes 7.4.2.4 compatible configuration file was released on September 18, 2007. This config file is also compatible with iTunes 7.5.0.20. The config file needs to be updated with each new iTunes release; so far the author has released updates the same day as the new iTunes release. As of January 15, 2008, the author has not updated QTFairUse for the latest version of iTunes, and the current revision is not compatible with that version.

Cease and Desist

As of February 20, 2008, the QTFairUse project was given a cease and desist letter by Apple, Inc.
All files were subsequently removed from the main download site.

External links

• iTunes Copy Protection 'Cracked' - BBC News (Posted October 25, 2006)
• QTFairUse6: Is Hymn Finally Back To Strip FairPlay on iTunes 6? - Engadget (Posted August 29, 2006)
• DVD Jon Unlocks iTunes Locked Music - TheRegister (Posted November 22, 2003)
• Cease and Desist Order - Forum (Posted February 20, 2008)