The infamous DRM hacker "DVD John", known by his friends and family as Jon Johansen, has successfully reverse engineered Apple"s FairPlay digital rights management technology. However, Johansen is taking a different approach this time. He is licensing the "hack" to companies who want their media to play on Apple devices. It has been reported that Johansen and Monique Farantzos, who form the company DoubleTwist Ventures, approached Apple CEO Steve Jobs about the technology and got a response, but no promise, that no legal action will be taken.
Steve Jobs, however, warned that companies may not embrace the technology because it adds another layer, instead of stripping the DRM. This layer enables songs from non-iTunes services to play on an iPod. The question of the day: Will this hurt iTunes song sales and/or help iPod sales?