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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. Re:RTFA by moongha · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    This is the only posting in this discussion worthy of +1 informative.

  2. Re:RTFA by orthogonal · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This is the only posting in this discussion worthy of +1 informative.

    Mod parent +N meta-informative!!!

    (Or -N, yet another redundant self-referential Cretan paradox. :->)

    --
    Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
  3. Re:Mod parent up, plz... by Altus · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    wow.

    I was trolled.... But clearly by an expert. i havent seen a troll that subtle on here in years. nice work!

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  4. Re:Mod parent up, plz... by Penguinisto · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Actually, I was trying to say that you weren't. (shrug.)

    /P

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  5. Re:Mod parent up, plz... by Altus · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Well, I handled it well, but you did designg that post to elicit (sp?) a response and I did give you one.

    I think we can chalk this up to a well played all around :)

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  6. Re:While... by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yeah, you missed one thing.

    Release Unix under the GPL.

    I can't tell you how much I want to see GNU/ Unix.

    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  7. Re:Mod parent up, plz... by Penguinisto · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    "I think we can chalk this up to a well played all around :)" Sounds good from here too :) /P

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?