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February 06, 2007
Thoughts on Music: Jobs sez abolish copy protection
In the same week as reports that Microsoft Windows Vista operating system has booby traps for iPod and iTunes users and Euro and Scandi courts remain contentious, Steve Jobs has posted a Mark Cuban-like, lengthy musing on the potential abolition of Digital Rights Management systems, firing any number of shots against a finite number of bows: "With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies... Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music... The solution was to create a DRM system, which [envelops] each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices... [A] key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store... The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music... It is a cat-and-mouse game... Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies..." The alternative? "[T]o abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats... This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat." [More of the cut-and-dried and the black-and-white at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at February 6, 2007 04:29 PM
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