A new company, founded by known hacker DVD Jon (Jon Lech Johansen) and Monique Farantzos, recently launched an application that is likely to help speed the process of ending Digital Rights Management in the online music market.
A new company, founded by known hacker DVD Jon (Jon Lech Johansen) and Monique Farantzos, recently launched an application that is likely to help speed the process of ending Digital Rights Management in the online music market.(doubleTwist/J.Anderson)
The company, doubleTwist, was founded on the principal that consumers should enjoy their digital media when and where they chose. The explosion of digital content players has allowed anyone to take their music on the go, and to create an array of melodic compositions. The problem, according to doubleTwist, is that sharing this digital content between devices is almost impossible or consumes entirely too much time.
“When you receive an email, you can read it on your Blackberry, web mail, or Outlook. E-mail just works. With digital media such as video from a friend’s cell phone or your own iTunes playlists, it is a jungle out there. It can be an hour-long exercise in futility to convert files to the correct format and transfer them to your Sony PSP or your phone,” said Monique Farantzos, co-founder and CEO of doubleTwist. “The digital media landscape has become a tower of Babel, alienating and frustrating consumers. Our goal is to provide a simple and well integrated solution that the average consumer can use to eliminate the headaches associated with their expanding digital universe.”
DoubleTwist comes in two forms, doubleTwist desktop, which uses a easy to understand and user friendly GUI for sharing and syncing digital media; and “Twist me!,” a social network application that allows users to share media directly from their profile pages. “Twist me!,” is currently in beta testing. Users can share media with their Facebook friends and provides sync with Sony PSP, Nokia N Series, Sony Ericsson Walkman & Cybershot phones, LG Viewty, and Windows Mobile Smartphones. Apple iPhone users will soon be able to view content they receive from friends by accessing doubleTwist from their phone’s Safari browser. The desktop application is currently available for Windows XP and Vista. Expect a Mac version before the end of spring or early summer.
“We’ve built a format agnostic solution that handles the complexity of file and device compatibility so consumers don’t have to,” said Jon Lech Johansen, doubleTwist founder and CTO.
DoubleTwist developed a “plug and play” solution for transferring and syncing media to supported devices. When a user connects a digital camera, mobile phone, or PSP, media files are found and displayed on doubleTwist desktop. Then, all the user needs to do is select the media they wish to transfer and the application transparently handles any necessary format conversions.
In the case of music conversions, they work by playing the song in “fast forward” mode and recording the audio. Essentially, all you are doing with this application is ripping or re-ripping your existing music.
The application also integrates with iTunes, allowing users to sync their music playlists and iTunes music purchases with their Sony Ericsson, Sony PSP, Windows Mobile, LG Viewty, Nokia N series phones and Amazon’s Kindle.
It is important to remember that this is not supporting piracy. In fact, “Users can only play back the music they have already purchased and they are authorized to play,” said Farantzos. This creates a balance with the online outlets, and the owners of the copyright that is supposedly protected by DRM.
Consumers have often voiced negative opinions over DRM. Many feel slighted by some companies, because of the lack of cross platform support built in to the DRM system. This leads to the feeling that, even after they pay for the content, they are seen as criminals and still do not own the material. The new offering from doubleTwist might help relieve those impressions, and move the market towards DRM free sales.
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