QTFairUse

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QTFairUse

Author:	Original Coder Jon Lech Johansen New Coder Igor Skochinsky
Initial release:	November 2003
Latest release:	2.5 / November 2006
OS:	Microsoft Windows XP/Vista
Available language(s):	English
Use:	Audio
License:	GPL
Website:	hymn-project.org

QTFairUse is Free / Open Source software first released in November 2003 by Jon Lech Johansen. It dumps the raw output of a QuickTime AAC stream to a file, which could bypass the digital rights management (DRM) software used to encrypt content of music from media such as those distributed by the iTunes Store, Apple's online music store. Although these resulting raw AAC files were unplayable by most media players at the time of release, they represented the first attempt at circumventing Apple's encryption.

Its only purpose is to take protected audio purchased from Apple's iTunes Store and convert it into MPEG-4 without DRM. To accomplish this task it takes a rather unique approach: Instead of removing the already present DRM, it waits for iTunes to playback the protected file and intercepts the AAC as it is sent to the soundcard. When this occurs it copies frame-by-frame of unencrypted data into RAM taking the audio and saving it back into a new MPEG-4 container that is free of any DRM.

Previous versions of QTFairUse could only save the RAW AAC but later incarnations properly supported full conversions.

[edit] iTunes Versions

The current release (as of Feb. 03, 2007) of QTFairUse6, version 6-2.5, supports iTunes 6.0.2 through 7.0.2. An updated config file compatible with iTunes 7.1.1 was released on March 17th, 2007.Hymn Forum