iosart blog

Steves Jobs posted an interesting open letter with his thoughts on DRM, iTunes/iPod user lock-in and the role music labels play in all this.

Basically, he believes that the labels should drop their demands that their music be sold protected by DRM, and if that happens he promises that Apple will embrace DRM-free music and support ‘a truly interoperable music marketplace’.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

I couldn’t agree more. I believe that dumping the DRM will be good for everyone – consumers will be able to play their legally purchased music on any device and with any media player, and the increased interoperability and freedom will surely stir up more music discovery, recommendations and, eventually, legal music purchasing. Will 2007 be the year the DRM died?

via Paul Lamere

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.