More Buffoonery From The Media In QTFairUSe Coverage

by , 4:30 PM EST, December 1st, 2003

Last week, we brought you a report detailing the ways in which the media has misreported a new piece of Windows software called QTFairUse. QTFairUse allows Windows users to record songs downloaded from the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) into a separate file as it is being played. Based on a security hole in QuickTime itself, the QTFairUse exploit effectively makes Apple's DRM scheme, FairPlay, irrelevant to those wishing to make copies of their iTMS downloads (read TMO's full coverage for more information).

In our report last week, we discussed the fact that the media has largely misreported this technology. Some reports have said that the software broke FairPlay, and at least one report even said that the software allowed Windows users to download music for free. Neither of which is true, of course, but we have a new article that takes such utterly poor reporting to new levels of incompetence, or perhaps just ignorance. The article was published by PakNews.com, a Pakistani news outlet that bills itself as "The most reliable news source on the Internet."

Let's start with the title to the piece: "Norwegian Hacker Beats Apple's iTunes DVD Code." Observant Observers will note that iTunes doesn't have a "DVD Code." The short piece, however, goes much farther. From the article:

Jon Lech Johansen, 19, a young Norwegian has created a program called QTFairUse which circumvents Apple Computer's ITunes' anti-copying program MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding.

A quick look at that short paragraph shows three things.

1. QTFairUse does not circumvent FairPlay, as "circumvent" suggests that QTFairUse directly addresses FairPlay. As noted above, QTFairUse captures sound being played through a hole in QuickTime, and does not actually involve iTunes or FairPlay
2. MPEG-4 is not "Apple Computer's ITunes' anti-copying program"
3. Neither is Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)

That is all that is Apple-specific in the article, but you can read the full piece at PakNews.com.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Not everyone can be a geek, so perhaps we are being a tad too critical. Then again, PakNews.com was founded in 1991 by "Pakistani computer scientists and journalists."

Be that as it may, it's interesting to see how much interest QTFairUse is generating around the world. That it is generating so much technical inaccuracy may simply be a product of that interest, coupled with the not-so-easy to understand (by non-geeks) concepts involved.

PakNews.com Article