Up until Apple released version 6.0 of iTunes an anonymous coder by the name of FutureProof had developed a great Java based application called JHYMN (Java Hear Your Music aNywhere). JHymn provides an easy to use GUI with much added functionality including multiple was of scrubbing your iTunes purchases of Apple’s FairPlay DRM. Apple is no longer allowing iTunes versions other than 7.x to purchase music (or otherwise) from the iTunes Store but if you have (or can find) a copy of the iTunes 5.x installer you could install it onto another computer on your network and use this system to scrub your DRM music. This will NOT work if you have previously installed iTunes version 6 or higher on the same computer.

Now on to the newer but less direct approaches to the DRM issue.

Seidai Software has developed a piece of Mac OS X only software called FairGame that will convert songs you bought on the iTunes Store to an unprotected format (using iTunes default encoder) and keep all the original metadata, lyrics and artwork. They say that a 4 minute song will take around 2 and a half minutes to convert to a fully scrubbed AAC file on a MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz notebook. This is one of the best solutions since JHYMN was a viable solution… that is until Apple released a “fix” for many of the new iTunes 7.01 problems. Once version 7.02 was released FairGame no longer worked.

So you’ve read up on the previous two methods but you have already upgraded to iTunes version 7.02 and you still need to rid your precious music library of that filthy FairPlay (ya right) DRM! Well if you’re a long time iTunes user you may have noticed that there is a somewhat “legal” method to removing your DRM’d music by simply burning a CD of that music and then re-importing that CD back into your iTunes library. Yes, I can hear you saying “That will take forEVER! and a day to scrub my ultimate iTunes library!” I completely agree with you on this point and that is why I use BurningThumb’s DRM Dumpster application. This Mac OS X application is built of the premise that you can indeed just burn you MP3’s to a CD followed by reimporting your music back into iTunes. Nothing too new here except DRM Dumpster DRM Dumpster is able to erase and reuse a single CD-RW disc to handle your entire MP3 library without you having to babysit and pop discs in and out of your optical drive. How sweet is that and this process will work with any version of iTunes you are currently running under Mac OS X.

I hope this post helps someone out there figure out what the best method for DRM removal is for their particular situation. Please feel free to drop comments as well

*UPDATE 1/20/2007 *
Many people have been asking about a Windows solution for stripping iTunes DRM and so I have done a bit of research and found that the JHYMN peeps have a project called MyFairTunes6 which may due just that. This project is still in it’s infancy but should be working with only a few bug left. Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you!

UPDATE:BoyGenius has the 8703e spec sheet here!

myFairTunes6 v.0.2b – Windows C++ Port of QTFairUse6: An AAC Stream Capture based loosely on Igor Skochinsky’s Freely available QTFairUse6 Python source code. This extremely beta software features support for iTunes versions: 6.0.5.x, auto browse your entire iTunes library(s) for M4P files (DRM’d filez), backup and replace DRM’d filez with newly scrubbed MP3/AAC’s. There has been some talk about the loss of metadata during the scrubbing process so please beware that you may have to reneter this data, though this is a small price to pay for DRM free files it can become some what of a pain.

The Best Antivirus Results as of August: The is way to much to talk about here but if you are truly interested in SUPERIOR AV protection (non of dat Norton s#!^) they take a look at these results. The mentionables of course are NOD32 (for its superior heuristics abilities) & Kaspersky.

Kablooey Mail: A very slick webmail service that allows the end user to control what happens to their mail after they have sent it. Comes with a handy dandy Mission Impossible *this message will self destruct in 30 seconds* feature. How doesn’t need this? I had signed up with their services and will report back once I have completed my findings / tests. They are currently still BETA now… but then again who isn’t these days?

Hamachi Bought by LogMeIn: The creator of the popular LAN to LAN VPN software, Hamachi has been puchased by one of the most useful and resourceful companies on the internet, LogMeIn.com. If you haven’t used this software then I would highly recommend that you go and download this FREE software as soon as possible. LogMeIn reports

Through Hamachi, LogMeIn customers can get the instant-VPN functionality they require

Who doesn’t need that? Sources have reported that the Alex, the creator/owner of Hamachi spent much time analyzing LogMeIn as a company before deciding to sell his software and 3.9 million user base to them. He was very interested in their privacy policies and security infrastructre and he (and now I) was very pleased to see that privacy is their #1 concern when it comes to user data and access.