DVD hacker 'liberates' content

DVD Jon, the hacker (in)famously credited with releasing the DeCSS DVD decryption tool, is now promising to liberate your content and allow consumers to share and access their media on any number of devices.

doubleTwist, the company founded in March 2007 by Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen [DVD Jon], revealed the fruits of its labour this week, with a mission to help consumers enjoy their digital media on the widest possible range of devices.

As doubleTwist CEO Farantzos rightly points out, “With digital media such as video from a friend’s cell phone or your own iTunes playlists, it’s 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. 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.”

The cause is noble, it’s really something that should have been done a long time ago, but you can’t help but think that the legal issues that have dogged other attempts to free content, won’t somehow affect doubleTwist. Especially since the social networking aspect of the service, Twist Me, allows users to share content between themselves.

DVD Jon has already been acquitted of breaking DVD enrcyption twice. Will his luck hold out for a third time? Or is he hoping that the apparent sea change in attitudes to DRM will save his platform?