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I was browsing our forum the other day and one thing I noticed was a couple people asking if iTunes music could be used with the AT&T Tilt.  Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t like playing nice with other devices (lest we forget the issues with Apple surmounting the Roku Soundbridge) so a bit of sideplay is necessary in order to attain functionality between the two.

Historically, Apple’s opinion (as well as the majority of the music industry’s) is “too bad, get an iDevice”  It created a rather hostile environment for those who wanted to switch platforms who meerly had the option to either loose hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars worth of music to swap from an Apple Device to a Microsoft DRM based device or vice versa.  However, given the maturity of the situation, we now have solutions.  More after the break.

Meet Jon Lech Johansen, who some of you may know as DVD Jon, or one of the first guys to crack the copy protection system on DVDs (Content Scrambling System or CSS) and helped publish DeCSS which is still in use today in famous software like Mac The Ripper for removing the copy protection system from DVDs.  Since DeCSS, Jon has been very active with reverse engineering on other fronts, including being one of the first to hack the iPhone and Apple’s FairPlay DRM system, which is what we’re wanting to remove so we can get our iTunes music on our AT&T Tilts.  But how does this all factor in?  Well a few months ago a company was founded called DoubleTwist that employed Jon.  Just about everyone knew what was coming, and it’s finally here.

Meet DoubleTwist, a powerful and easy to use piece of software that removes the Apple iTunes FairPlay DRM from your rightfully owned music so you can sync it to your Tilt or any other MP3 compatible device.

Now one thing that comes to mind is ethics, and as a writer, I want to seriously warn you to avoid any and all piracy activities of procuring music in a way that violates the license through which it’s distributed.  Id est, don’t be an idiot and steal music.  This is a tool to expand your rights to listen to your music on the device you choose, not to assist in illegal procurement of music and other media.

With that said, first you’ll need iTunes installed on your computer, and all the music you wish to liberate will need to be authorized to play on your computer.  An easy way to make sure is to just click on a few songs and make sure that they’ll play (don’t worry though, if they’re not authorized, DoubleTwist will ask you to authorize them).

Next comes installation.  Download the software from the company website and install.  The company obviously is focused on simplicity with the short 3 step installer that even has the license agreement box checked for you, and you’re even prompted if you want to go ahead and liberate your iTunes music.

If you’re ready to go ahead and liberate your music, leave that checked and hit finish.  Once DoubleTwist starts, it will start liberating your music (if you asked it to) or it will display a notification in the “Recent Notifications” box asking you if you want to start.

Please note, this process will take a long time, especially if you have a lot of music.  Just be patient.  The software will even run in your system tray if you want it to (just hit the X button, you can get iTunes to do likewise in Preferences->Advanced->(check) Minimize iTunes to System Tray->Hit OK->Minimize iTunes).

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One thing you may notice about the software is that it can do quite a few other things, including functioning as a Sync center, sharing center, and even giving you a Facebook Application to share media with your friends.  Have fun playing with these extra features, but they go beyond the scope of this post.

Once DoubleTwist is done liberating your media, you’re free to sync the music to your Tilt in the way that you normally do (ActiveSync, Windows Media Player, etc).

Enjoy the liberated music!

DoubleTwist Website
Jon Lech Johansen’s Blog

Tyler (30 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook