The new DRM in iTunes 7 has been cracked within hours of its release.

I think the response time of the hackers to by-pass the new encryption deserves an applause.  I can't even get the IT Admins at work respond to a critical issue withing 3 weeks of reporting it (just in case they are reading :P ).

Of course, the best thing is that iTunes customers no longer have to fear being restricted in how they use their legally purchased music (I still don't get how they think listening to music on different devices is theft, when you already bought the music).  When cracks for the DRM are developed so easily there is no real reason to not use iTunes.

Although, my partner ventured onto iTunes to buy a select few tracks and her experience was less than positive.  First she told me she bought wrong versions of a couple of tracks because she couldn't tell which version she wanted without hearing the full track.  But she also criticised the sound quality, which surprised me, because she is by no means an audiophile.  She thinks the stock-standard stereo in her car sounds good.  But she was right – I plugged my fancy headphones into her Nano and the hip-hop songs clearly lacked definition and the bass you expect from hip-hop music.  And she was furious when I told her she couldn't transfer those songs to any PC like with MP3's.

So now you can strip the DRM from iTunes tracks and use them like MP3's, but if the sound quality of the tracks suck in the first place, what's the point?  Download the FLAC version on P2P ;)