DVD Jon (aka Jon Johansen) is big in the news these days with his hack of Apple's FairPlay DRM on iTunes songs.

The guys at Slashdot bash the whole media attention with basically saying that you can store any iTunes song on a CD and then rip it back as MP3s - so what is the big deal?

CNet just published an interesting interview with DVD Jon's business partner Monique Farantzos. Together they started DoubleTwist Ventures.
DoubleTwist Ventures will license technology to media player companies to make their players work with iTunes and online music stores to enable them to work with Apple iPods.

The interesting part is that they got the simplicity aspect. Sure I can download an iTunes song and the burn it on CD and rip it back, but that is work. To really reach the mass market, the solution needs to be automatic and hidden.
Monique Farantzos says: "Essentially, what we do is trick iTunes into thinking that the device is an iPod." Sounds easy and powerful at the same time.

Still, nobody knows how Apple will react to this and if any large music player company will take the step to license technology that is based on reverse engineering.