There have been rumors going around about a program called Fairuse4wm being available on the internet which is said to be capable of bypassing Microsoft's Digital Rights Management system. While this could be good news to some, it's definitely the opposite case for Microsoft and for online music stores.

For the benefit of those who do not know, DRM (Digital Rights Management)  is designed to restrict the use of purchased music online to ensure copyright is not infringed. Now we've heard that a message on the doom9.org forum put up links to an application called Fair Use for Windows Media, and is now being circulated among different websites. This application is said to be capable of circumventing the DRM system. How it works: the application strips Windows Media audio (wma) files of Microsoft's DRM 10 or 11 protection, and removes usage restrictions.

Senior product manager for Windows Client Division Marcus Matthias said "Microsoft is aware that a tool recently surfaced that circumvents Windows Media Digital Rights Management technology.Fortunately, the Windows Media DRM system has built-in renewability, we have an update to address the circumvention, and are working with our partners to deploy this solution." Other than that, Microsoft has remained unavailable for comment.

However, owners of websites that allow song downloads, such as Paul Myers of Wippit, think that perhaps this calls for legal unrestricted content being made as the norm for online music downloads, instead of it being the exception. Myers also thinks that the spread of the Fairuse4wm could encourage more hackers to attempt to breach Microsoft's DRM system. Hopefully, Microsoft is already working on a system upgrade to deal with future attempts to crumble their current DRM system.

Via BBC News