FairPlay DRM was an utter breath of fresh air compared to the DRM we were using at AT&T. There were other companies like InterTrust competing at the time to build incredibly-restrictive powerful DRM, and despite all this crazy work (many PhDs in cryptography!) the labels kept asking for more before they would begrudgingly put a few titles on sale. FairPlay DRM was "just good enough" to satisfy the DRM requirement while also being pretty easy to break, and it remained more or less regularly "broken" for many years. This didn't matter because it turned out that very few people pirated content by breaking the DRM (especially when you could just rip a CD yourself.) As you pointed out, Apple eventually got rid of it.
In my later security evaluation career I saw a similar dynamic play out for other DRM companies, and even saw how corrupt the industry was. If you knew the right people or had enough market power your DRM would be "good enough", and if not: tough luck. Technical evaluation didn't matter.
In my later security evaluation career I saw a similar dynamic play out for other DRM companies, and even saw how corrupt the industry was. If you knew the right people or had enough market power your DRM would be "good enough", and if not: tough luck. Technical evaluation didn't matter.