Apple’s Thoughts on Music
Cynic dropped us a note pointing us towards an interesting article from Apple concerning their stance on music. The article touches base on the idea of DRM technology:
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. They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. It is a cat-and-mouse game. Apple’s DRM system is called FairPlay. While we have had a few breaches in FairPlay, we have been able to successfully repair them through updating the iTunes store software, the iTunes jukebox software and software in the iPods themselves. So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.
What are the options? Should Apple stay its course, license its FairPlay DRM technology, or abolish DRM altogether?
5 Comments, Comment or Trackback
Cynic821
Cool! Im teh best!
Anyways, I think i remember reading a few months ago that the Contract with the Music Studios is up in the middle of this year. If thats true, this could be apples way of explaining tihs for the umpteenth time to them to just give it up already with the DRM.
Feb 6th, 2007
chad
@cynic
wishful thinking, but I won’t hold my breath on this… from stance of the music industry trying to turn a buck this makes no sense to ditch the DRM.
Think of it as giving someone access to your ATM PIN… sure they may not use it and steal all your money, but it def. gives you less control of how, when, and where it is used.
I hope they keep cranking out DRM and hackers keep cracking it personally… that way the music industry continues to play nice under a false sense of security ;)
in the mean time I will continue to love Bit Torrent :D
Feb 6th, 2007
Kyle
Apple can’t abolish DRM without the music industry agreeing to it. Unless they can pursuade the music industry to drop DRM in their contract renewal, DRM will be upon us for quite some time. I don’t see how Apple can pursuade the music industry to drop it, it just has no quantifiable benefit to the industry.
Feb 6th, 2007
Jeffrey
PS: thats an article actually written by the big apple himself, Mr. Jobs…
Feb 6th, 2007
viperguy
It’s a great article, I printed it and already read 2 times.
For me, the best part is where it says that 90% of the music that the “big 4″ sell is DRM free… because they’re from CDs, that can be imported to computers and distributed ilegally with the touch of some buttons… Makes me think if DRM really works… at least for the purpose it was created for
Feb 6th, 2007
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