Hmm....

[sleigh]

Steve Jobs has written an open letter to the world, giving his thoughts on DRM-free music. He states that the only reason Apple sells DRM-protected music is because the big four music companies insist on it, and won't license their music without DRM. He points out, rightly, that "[t]hough 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." In comparing the sales of CDs to the sales of DRM-protected online music, he points out that the record companies who are insisting on DRM protection for online sales sell 90% of their music in totally unprotected format via CD.

What benefit, then, do these companies derive from insisting on DRM for online sales? "There appear to be none."

As to his own stance on DRM protection, he says this:

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.

Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. Good stuff, that. Steve talks the talk. Walking the walk would be to start offering DRM-free music on iTunes: it's out there. There are well-known groups (Barenaked Ladies come to mind) who speak loudly against DRM; my bet is that BNL would allow their catalog be sold on iTunes without DRM. I'd think it'd be easy enough to 'tag' songs on iTunes as "DRM-free" so we'd know which ones were in "Protected AAC" format and which were in the regular open AAC format.

I hear the beating of the heart...

Comments

[jbru.livejournal.com]

The question arises, "Does BNL, for example, have the ability to do that?" Their label may control distribution so that their feelings on the matter aren't relevant. (The BNL I own, I downloaded from iTunes.)

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

And the answer is: "I don't know..." I do know that BNL has made public statements opposing DRM, and they've done all sorts of 'open' stuff that bands aren't supposed to do. But who controls their music? I don't know...