Plays for Sure Hacked... so what else is new?

Michael Gartenberg | August 29, 2006, 10:21 AM

The big news over the weekend was that Plays for Sure had been hacked. Using a simple application, users could download content from places like Napster or Urge as part of their subscriptions and then use the tool to strip off the DRM, creating perfect, no quality loss files (that supposedly kept things like album art and ID3 tags). So what does this mean? Not all that much I suspect. Most mainstream users will never find or bother trying to use something like this and it's likely that MSFT and partners will have their stuff patched pretty quickly. No doubt, for a few days, Napster 2.0 will seem a lot like Napster 1.0 but if there is a lesson here, it's that no matter how good you make the lock, someone's going to try and pick it. That doesn't mean that there won't be DRM to keep casual piracy at bay but it does mean we might see more odius solutions. It's clear that anyone can make the locks stronger but doing so also means there's a greater chance that a legitimate owner will get locked out.