Apple's Fair Play DRM for iBooks cracked

By Andrew Wray
last updated

It appears as though Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management (DRM) for iBooks has been cracked, allowing iBooks to work on non-iOS ePub readers. MobileRead Forums reports:

It is now possible to remove the DRM from epub ebooks bought in Apple's iBooks store. "Brahms", has recently released a new version, 3.3, of his Requiem software, which has been able to remove DRM from music and videos bought in the iTunes Music Store for a long time. This new version can also remove the DRM from Apple's epub format ebooks.

DRM cracking has been a long standing problem for Apple and other platform owners, originally with iTunes music and video content, later with App Store apps. While Apple dropped FairPlay DRM from iTunes music in 2009, it's remained in place for everything else.

DRM protects authors and other creators from illegal distribution of their content (we all like to get paid for the work we do), though when poorly thought out or overzealously implemented, it can also stop legitimate customers from enjoying the content they purchased.

FairPlay tends to be pretty liberal, allowing up to 5 Mac or Windows PCs to be authorized for iTunes content, and up to 10 iOS devices, including iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Apple TV to access services like iTunes Match.

It's likely Apple is investigating the issue and will have a FairPlay fix put into place via a software update for iTunes and the iBookstore in the near future, but it's a cat-and-mouse game so we probably haven't heard the last of it.

Source: MobileRead Forums via CNET

Andrew Wray

Andrew Wray is a Salt Lake City, Utah based writer who focuses on news, how-tos, and jailbreak. Andrew also enjoys running, spending time with his daughter, and jamming out on his guitar. He works in a management position for Unisys Technical Services, a subsidiary of Unisys Corporation.

14 Comments
  • Picture on the front page is broken fyi.
  • Much better :)
  • Two Articles for you. I'ts useful. 1. How to iBooks on PC and Kindle
    http://www.epubsoft.com/how-to-remove-ibooks-drm-and-read-ibooks-on-pc.html 2. Requiem Download
    http://www.epubsoft.com/free-requiem-download.html ..
  • Requiem Download:http://www.epubor.com/requiem-free-download.html
  • FINALLY!!! I can now read the first and last DRMed book I bought from apple on my other devices.
  • looks like you started getting tired at the end there
  • great so people on a kindle fire can get ibooks scaked down with a smaller choice of books
  • Well it failed to crack the ONLY two books I wanted to read on my Kindle. Fail.
  • here is the guide & src of how to read ibooks on kindlehttp://www.epubor.com/read-ibooks-on-kindle.html
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  • WTFFFFFF I AM PLAY WRITE WARNING ! GAME HACKED AND CANT PLAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELP
  • I will be very grateful when someone picks up this banner and provides a NEW {2015} way to remove Apple's Fairplay DRM from .epub ibooks., Or instead of fighting what consumer WANTS Apple will publish iTunes through Google Play for Android devices. Despite what many seem to assume. Some people DO refrain from using Apple's hardware. This has zero to do with piracy and everything to do with consumers being able to read books they 'purchased" on whatever device they want.
  • I prefer to use TunesKit iBook DRM removal tool on my Mac OS X EI capitan. It works like a charm. It greatly cracks the iBook drm at 30x faster speed and preserve the quality nearly 100%.
  • I have used Requiem for a try, but it seem that this freeware doesn't support the newest Mac OS X. So I searched via Google again and found a new cheap app to crack iBook DRM. It's TunesKit iBook Copy for Mac. Here is what I found on the well-known software review website 9to5mac. http://9to5mac.com/community/how-to-read-ibooks-on-amazon-kindle-nook-ta...