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BusinessWeek on Opening Apple's iTunes DRM

Posted by michael on from the back-seat-driving dept.

hype7 writes "BusinessWeek is running a very interesting story on Apple's foray into music, with a different bent to everyone else's. BW suggests that, instead of opening the iPod up to the world, Apple should instead license its DRM - 'Fairplay' - to anyone who wants to start up a music store. The upside is obvious: it would mean that Apple's music format, AAC, would become ubiquitous; Apple could quite feasibly make money on licensing fees (say 1 cent per song sold); and, it would just happen to stick it to Microsoft and the Windows Media Format. As the iTunes Music Store isn't running at a profit (or forecast to make a big one), having the Music Store clones eat into Apple's existing market share wouldn't be a problem; all these stores would be doing is building a bigger potential market for the iPod."

7 of 489 comments (clear)

  1. AAC by daeley · · Score: 5, Informative

    For the nth time, AAC is not "Apple's DRM technology." It is part of the MPEG-4 specifications. More info here.. To quote:

    AAC was developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony, and Nokia--companies that have also been involved in the development of audio codecs such as MP3 and AC3 (also known as Dolby Digital). The AAC codec in QuickTime 6 builds upon new, state-of-the art signal processing technology from Dolby Laboratories and brings true variable bit rate (VBR) audio encoding to QuickTime.

    --
    I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  2. Re: Apple DRM? by One+Louder · · Score: 5, Informative
    Consider yourself corrected - AAC is not proprietary and is part of the MPEG-4 specification. Apple's DRM wrapper for AAC, called "Fairplay", however, *is* proprietary.

    On the other hand, Microsoft's WMA is proprietary no matter how you slice it.

  3. RTFA by Ogrez · · Score: 5, Informative

    It doesnt say that AAC is Apples DRM.. it says that Apples DRM is called 'Fairplay' and licensing that to others would increase usage of the AAC FORMAT.

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    Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
    1. Re:RTFA by cOle2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      FairPlay is actually owned by Veridisc so it may not be up to Apple to choose who to licence it to (if at all).

      http://64.244.235.240/explained_contentprovider.as p

    2. Re:RTFA by farzadb82 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Umm... hate to burst your bubble but VeriDisc's Fairplay is not related in anyway to Apple's Fairplay (see)

  4. Re:If apple want's to win with AAC they have to .. by One+Louder · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's not Apple's decision to make, since they aren't the owners of AAC. And they're apparently smart enough at least to know that, unlike, say, you.

  5. Re:Apple's DRM by jcain · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you send an email to iTunes Support, and ask them nicely, they will de-authorize all the computers on your account automatically. Just tell them you no longer have the computers you authorized and cannot de-authorize them the normal way.

    Worked for me.