Blackarrow Consulting

Well Apple has given us that one more thing, the new improved Apple TV, However this has caused me to think about one of the less understood aspects of the Apple ecosystem… Fairplay – Apple’s DRM system. Well what caused me to think about this ‘almost’ hidden DRM?

Well what Fairplay gives you is the ability to playback/use protected content on up to 5 devices. It used to be 3 in the past, but Apple increased the limit as they expanded in the number and types of devices/equipment.

I have a fair amount of Apple devices operating all under one account – an iPhone, an iPod Touch, an iPad, two laptops and one PC connected to the TV. You can see I have six devices, and somehow I have managed to avoid the dreaded out of devices message, although I believe this is more because of the fact I do not playback protected content on the two laptops and so I have no idea which one is the authorised device. Sometimes in the next few days I will get that message and then I will be stuck, I will need to deauthorise and re-authorise some of the devices on one account, and add the other to a separate account which cannot playback my protected content, only the stuff that I would buy under the new account.

This is the fun bit, now Apple have released the all new Apple TV which causes me some much deeper pain, as I definitely cannot fit that one in. So something has to change, and I hope that it will be Apple – but that will only come in the form of increasing the number of valid devices or giving us a ‘Family’ iTunes account that allows sharing of content amongst a small number of different iTunes accounts in a Library style. Anything else will raise the ire of the content companies too great, at least that is what I believe since the ‘anything else’ is to remove Fairplay completely.

Until then I think Apple TV is a no-no, and I hope I keep this setup going as long as possible without creating additional accounts. But then my two daughters are getting more digitally aware…argghhhh!