Reality Bites

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

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. Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is not an idiot and he sees all too clearly how the music industry is still missing the boat on digital downloads by insisting on DRM. As Jobs points out, Apple’s research suggests that of the 1000 songs on the average iPod 22 are bought from iTunes and the rest…well the rest came from somewhere else. (Your own CDs, your friends’ CDs or, horrors, P2P networks.)

Engaget remarks,

Well, that’s nice to know — but is it enough for the head of Apple, possibly the single most important company in digital media right now, to just decry DRM and point the finger when under legal pressure from Europe? Steve, listen, we’re glad someone such as yourself has come out and said what needed to be said, written the anti-DRM manifesto, as it were. But don’t just leave it to the consumer to pressure the record industry, you need to lead the way — that’s why we wrote Microsoft that open letter. You and Bill have more power over this ecosystem than any two people in the world, and the big four knows it. Perhaps The Mac and The PC need to rally the troops (i.e. us) and lead this charge together. engaget

It is about time for the record industry to buy a clue and realize that the clever tactic of suing their own customers is not working. DRM as a concept in the music biz is mainly a failure and becoming more of one as more and more of the “product” is uploaded for sharing purposes. Reading Bob Lefsetz you can begin to see what business music can and should evolve into…here’s a hint, the CD is dead.

Written by jay on February 7th, 2007 with no comments.
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