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Congress Ponders Opening up iTunes DRM
hammeredpeon writes "Congress is debating whether or not to require that music shops keep their DRM open for interoperability. Apple wasn't present at the hearings, but Napster's CEO was, arguing that the market should make the decision about interoperability. Considering that previous standards (FireWire/USB, Betamax/VHS) have been decided by the market, could it be that Apple isn't big enough to keep the government out of its industry?"
That's kind of what happens... Sony makes a $0.025 patent royalty on each disc sold.
Face it, the iPod is killing everything else sales wise. As a result, nobody but Apple can legally sell music for it....
Even if I ignored for the fact that the iPod actually also plays regular AAC and MP3 files in addition to Apple's fairplay-restricted files -- why the fuck does the government have to get involved?
This is a market issue. If people were really tied to iTunes and sick of it, they'd buy something other than an iPod. It's not like the iPod is the only digital music device you can buy.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
iTunes is a software application for managing and playing digital music. Ninety plus per cent of the music that I have, for example, in iTunes is in MP3 format without any DRM, because that is the way I ripped it.
iTMS (iTunes Music Store) does use DRM, but there is nothing that requires you to get your music from iTMS. It is perfectly simple to buy the music on CD, rip it, and then put it on the iPod. There is no direct tie between iTMS and the iPod.
The issue is that the iPod only supports one form of DRM, the form used by iTMS. So, if you argue that Apple is tying the iPod to the use of iTMS and the Fairplay DRM, then you are implicitly accepting the argument that the only legitimate digital music is that controlled under a DRM scheme.
This is not a legal opinion, no representation is expressed or implied.
No. I have an iPod, and it plays DRM-free MP3s just fine, thanks. Admittedly, Ogg Vorbis support would be nice, but I still don't have to use iTunes. As for music stores, if Apple doesn't want to support WMA and MS's DRM, that's their decision, and if you want a player that will play those files, by all means, get one. No one is forcing you to use iTunes or get an iPod, and this isn't a Microsoft Windows sort of case--you can still get pretty much any music that would be available on pieces of circular plastic that are compatible with a whole lot of things.
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Dell, Microsoft, Sony, and Time Warner are among his top 20 contributors who would have a direct stake in the outcome of any government intervention. If you check his PAC contributions, you'll find he also accepted $3000 from the RIAA.
No, there are some things that are for damn sure artificial limitations. My definition of an artificial limitation is when the designer goes the extra mile to insure incompatibility. In other words, if it takes more effort to make your product incompatible then to make it compatible, it is an artificial limitation. Something like designing a DRM system to tack on top of otherwise standard mp3's so that other people can't use them, or region coding where only certain DVD players can play certain DVD's, those are artificial limitations and company's are greedy assholes for employing them.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace