Not even the lure of one million songs could separate Stanford University student Rolf Steier from his iPod. When Stanford partnered with Yahoo to offer students a free subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited, Steier -- like most other people he knew -- didn"t bother to check it out because his iPod won"t let him play songs bought from other online music stores.
"I don"t know anybody who used it," Steier said. "I don"t even remember anyone who considered using it." The issue is the same for many music fans because Apple makes content bought from its iTunes online music store available only for its own products, while songs purchased from other online stores typically do not work on the market-dominating iPods.
But this could soon change -- because of a 22-year-old hacker who as a teen cracked the encryption on DVDs and now has developed a system compatible with Apple"s "FairPlay" copyright technology that allows iTunes music to play on other devices and gives iPod users access to other music stores.