Go To Latest Video ReviewsNokia Comes With Music DRM Cracked
| Author | Gordon Kelly |
| Published | 10th Dec 2008 |
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TrustedReviews NewslettersNokia rather took the world by surprise when it announced Comes With Music almost exactly one year ago, after all a phone manufacturer wasn't meant to be first out the gate with an all you can eat audio download service. Naturally there was a big hairy 'but' in all this and that was: but there's extensive CMW Digital Rights Management which safeguards the content, or did...
You see today sees something of a wild, rabid tiger thrown into the mix as a new version of little known software Tunebite has been released with the ability to strip DRM from all Comes With Music tracks rendering them yours, forever, to do whatever you want with.
Interestingly, Tunebite's approach is to play CMW tracks at speed and redub them into a non-encrypted file - something which a) is very fast, operating at up to 54x meaning seconds per song and b) essentially it circumvents rather than cracks the encryption meaning it may prove hard for Nokia to do anything about. I can hear the screams from Finland and hair pulling inside the lavish boardrooms of the Big Four record labels as we speak.
What restrictions were there to begin with? Well, key is that the WMA tracks are locked exclusively to your Nokia phone (currently only a 5310 XpressMusic or N95) and your library can only be accessed from a single PC. Re-ripping however won't change the fact the majority of tracks are restricted to 128Kbps (192Kbps with some newer content).
So what now? Well, Nokia can't exactly pull its CMW service from under the feet of its customers and it will likely rely on limited exposure of this situation (sorry Finns) but more importantly it may just deter other companies from launching similar business models...
Tunebite is out now for just 20 euros (£17.48).
Links:
via ElectricPig
Tunebite
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Keith said on 10th December 2008
Pbryanw said on 10th December 2008
I suppose one answer is convenience. If you buy from CDWOW you have to wait for them to despatch it, then for the postal service to deliver it. On iTunes it's just one click a... more
b_o_d said on 10th December 2008
It may be a first for a mobile supplier, however Napsters have been running a £10/month download as much as you like service for a few years now. Tunebite works fine with that.
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Luka said on 12th December 2008
Tunebite is for over 4 years on the market, 100% legal and has done a great job since it was mentioned in many software magazines and was awarded by them.
It can be used onl... more
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DRM has never, and will never stop copying of music/videos etc, the only thing it has ever done is annoy there customers, not a very good business model to use.
I wo... more