Jobs calls for DRM-free music
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Feb 6, 2007 at 12:27pm
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has called on the four major record companies to start selling songs online without copy protection software known as digital rights management (DRM), according to a message at the Apple web site. He said there appeared to be no benefit to the record companies to continue to sell more than 90 percent of their music without DRM on compact discs while selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system.
“If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players,” Jobs said in a statement. “This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.”
The CEO foresees three different alternatives for the future. The first alternative, he says, is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music.
The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores. However, Jobs thinks that’s a bad idea—and explains why in his message. He says the third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely.
“Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats,” Jobs writes. “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.”
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 10,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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