SharpMusique

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PyMusique under Microsoft Windows
PyMusique under Microsoft Windows

SharpMusique was a rewrite in C# of PyMusique, which was an iTunes Music Store client written in Python by Travis Watkins, Cody Brocious, and Jon Lech Johansen for the purpose of allowing downloads from the iTunes Music Store on Linux. It was first released via Johansen's website in March 2005. Although the iTunes Music Store's method of applying FairPlay DRM to the songs was widely known, PyMusique was the first program to exploit a loophole in the system, allowing users to download songs without the DRM restriction.

PyMusique also allowed songs to be re-downloaded for free, in case a user accidentally deleted their purchase. Within a number of days, Apple broke the client by forcing all users to upgrade to iTunes 4.9 [1]. In response to Apple's actions, Johansen released PyMusique version 0.4 on March 22, 2005 [2], which allows users once again to use PyMusique with Apple's store.

With the launch of 0.4, developer Cody Brocious stated on his blog that no future versions of PyMusique would be released with Microsoft Windows support.

In September 2005, Jon Lech Johansen released SharpMusique, written in C#, which took over where PyMusique left off. The program was kept updated until version 1.0, at which point it was no longer updated. The iTunes protocol changed, and users of SharpMusique were able to release primitive patches to account for the changes until mid 2006, when the protocol changed drastically. Around this time, without public announcement, the download links for SharpMusique and its source were removed from Johansen's website [3]. As a result, it is no longer easily available.

Another program, QTFairUse, also removes DRM from iTunes Store downloads, and continues to be maintained.

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