Steve Jobs has presented his views on the current state of DRM and music downloads. It seems that Apple is trying to garner public support for lobbying the big 4 music industry producers, Sony, EMI, Warner and Universal to drop there requirements for DRM altogther. Steve argues that only about 10% of music is sold DRM protected (primarily via CD’s) and the rest is covered by solutions such as Apple’s Fairplay DRM.
It looks asthough Steve has been prompted into this by the recent European cases trying to get Apple to open up it’s DRM so that customers can a) play DRM protected songs downloaded from the iTunes store on MP3 players other than iPods and; b) play DRM tracks from stores other than ITunes on iPods. Clearly the pressure is building. Such DRM technical geekery is costing Apple money in both R&D and in the courtroom. Steve’s view is that it should be the consumers who target the big 4, not Apple.
The balance of power is shifting. Apple continue to be a target because of the success of the iTunes store and the iPod - something that Steve mentions about three times in his note. The big 4 are not necessarily playing ball and enforcing their rights as copyright holders - which they are entitled to do.
How would DRM scale? If everyone licensed Apple’s Fairplay system then the whole World could download and play songs on any player and the big 4 would be safe in the knowledge that their songs could not be copied and / or duplicated. Apple would be happy to because they’d get a license fee from those companies who would be using their technology. But is that likely to happen? I think not. This is all about competition, about money and about shareholders. It;s not about consumers.
Although Steve 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. 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.”
But what would Apple shareholders say? Apple’s statistics are fine when looking back on what has been sold, but will iPod and iTunes sales increase if DRM was abolished? Would droves of Windows Media Player users buy iPods? Would ITunes users buy a Zune? Would I buy more or less music?
What I think is that Steve is hinting at the fact that as long as CD’s are still sold in shops, DRM-free, there will always be pirated music. If downlading a song from an online store was the only way to get music then maybe DRM would make sense. Until there is either blanket coverage of a scalable, common DRM platform or none at all this half-way-house doesn’t make sense. I hear what Steve is saying. It’s clearly costing Apple money and maybe he’s worried about market share in those areas where iPods haven’t penetrated yet.
Perhaps the reality distortion field is waning in it’s effect. With this one I think Steve might be fighting a losing battle.