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Apple is DRM's Biggest Backer
parvenu74 writes "Arstechnica is running an article pointing out that while some pockets of the entertainment industry are experimenting with DRM-free distribution, Apple Inc, which announced that they have now sold over 2,000,000,000 songs on iTunes, is now the strongest pro-DRM force in digial media. From the article: 'DRM is dying. It's a statement being echoed with increasing frequency around the Web over the last few weeks, and is perhaps best articulated in this Billboard article. But there's a powerful force standing in the way of this DRM-free panacea, and it might not be the one you expect: Apple, Inc.'"
I know Mac OS X is an excellent system. I enjoyed using their earlier systems in the 1980s and 1990s. But since the advent of the iPod and iTunes, I have refused to buy anything from Apple just because of their support of DRM. I don't need my rights "managed", especially by a corporation.
Yes Apple is DRM's biggest backer, then again Apple's DRM is the only DRm that is constant among all songs. Windows DRM can change per player, musician, studio, or even CD. If you have to have DRM then Apple's is certainly better than anyone else's.
Now the only thing better would be no DRM at all. I can't see that happening as long the RIAA exists. How else could they afford to pay to make more Britney's, and Spice Girls?
Till then I will boycott music from non independent sources.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I read that Apple TV works without DRM, well the DVI signal to the TV/monitor is not encrypted. How does that fit into this picture?
Apple DRM isn't exactly the strongest brand of DRM Goodness(tm).
I'm fairly certain everyone else is aware of that little secret too.
Be it the little known loop hole of secretly burning off your music and re-ripping it into your favorite codec or the more nefarious path known as fair play.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
On what planet did the writers come from? Apple is and has always been a company of control freaks. Not to say that every aspect of such behavior is bad, but it's often not good either.
(1) They control what hardware their OS will run on
(2) They often tried (though not recently) to control what OS(es) will run on their hardware
(3) They tried to control who/what could put songs on their iPods
(4) They are trying to control what software can be Applied to their iPhones
They are all about control, and I would be more surprised if they weren't in the top 5 biggest DRM supports since they deal in music, than that they are the biggest DRM supporter.
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the article is short-sighted. apple supports DRM because they have to in order to be granted the right to sell media from various studios. apple is a hardware company, and their hardware works just fine with non-DRM'ed media. the itunes music store embeds DRM because it has to. at no point is apple diametrically opposed to the destruction of DRM; it's not a mutually exclusive relationship in the least. in fact, if media were easier to obtain, a valid argument could be made that apple would benefit- if media were free, people would potentially be more interested in obtaining media hardware [from apple].
Apple's DRM doesn't wonderously restrict files. You can still burn them and rerip them.
.99 for a song, do almost what you want with it. They mostly have DRM so they can segway that iPod purchase into some iTunes purchases, and they can only offer that type of DRM. That is why the French fought to try and force Apple to disclose their DRM method. Apple is doing it more for a business model rather than legality according to distributing music. So it's going to be a tougher fight for them to either disclose their DRM method or to be totally non-DRM.
YES! We know there's a small reduction in quality.
Even though they have DRM, they aren't doing it totally for the RIAA. They have a business model that kind of works:
In reality, it's still the record labels that are in the biggest way of DRM and their legal rabbit the RIAA. The recent russian site that closed did send royalty checks to RIAA, but they never cashed them.
Systems are in place, but it's the industry that holds it back.
In Soviet Russia, dots slash you!
there will be no need for anti-piracy efforts.
Allofmp3 showed the path, is the riaa going to take the red pill or the blue pill?
My personal price range is 25 cents a song.
Enjoy Every Sandwich
I love Apple Notebooks and products because of their elegance but DRM has the advantage of locking you in. Apple's songs can be transferred to CD and other players once that iPod gets old but that is not so easy for Joe Average, better to get another iPod.
Apple put in DRM to reassure the music companies, but now it is working to their advantage. The music companies are probably regretting mandating DRM now because Apple is such a strong force in music because of this, that they can strongarm the RIAA into deals now, not the other way around.
This wouldn't have been easily possible with truly open music - then anybody with an iPod could have bought digital files anywhere they like, instead, they semi-have to go to Apple. (Yes, I realize the iPod can play many formats and ripped disks - but perception and ease of use among the average user is king here.)
Apple has an agreement to DRM the music in order to carry it.
Steve Jobs said:" "None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content."
It seems to me when DRM goes,Apple isn't going to try and stop it.
No I don't own any macs.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Apple may be "pushing" DRM, but according to what I've read, it's mainly because they couldn't get the publishers to agree to a DRM-free model. To get access to the music catalogs, they had to be able to say they had a scheme for preventing iTunes from turning into (the old) Napster. The DRM model that they use is pretty much the weakest model you can have and still cal it DRM--you can burn any song or songs to CD and the protection scheme is weak enough that it's been repeatedly broken by people interested in "unprotecting" the files.
I know there are a number of purists (and anti-Apple types) who argue that any and all DRM is bad. But in my opinion, Apple's weak DRM scheme hasn't stopped the imaginary DRM-free world these folks are advocating--it has actually helped by prevented something much more onerous from becoming the de facto standard.
Can you imagine a world where the most successful music download service provides music in Microsoft's WMF and you can't burn a CD or copy the song to more than one PC? My hope is that the success of the weak-DRM'd iTunes store will discourage people from "renting" music or subscribing to some scheme where the DRM is significantly more restrictive.
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But a feud between Apple and RealNetworks over music downloads is exposing Jobs' tragic flaw. Amazingly, he seems to be making the same devastating mistakes with the iPod that he made with the Mac 20 years ago.
The iPod has half the digital music player market, and iTunes sells 70% of all legitimate music downloads. Jobs practically willed the digital music business into being.
But around 1985, Jobs and his executives decided not to license Apple's technology or operating system to any other company. Apple wanted total control. It wanted to sell all the products itself. It wanted no competitors.
This was a yawning opening for Microsoft, Intel and the PC. Since anyone could buy the licenses and components to make a Windows-based PC, that technology took wing.
"Apple could have reaped the benefits of having dozens, even hundreds of imitators all adding their own unique value to the Mac," wrote Jim Carlton in his 1997 book, Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders. "Legions of suppliers would have sprung up all around the world to furnish components such as disk drives and memory. And since the software was light-years ahead of everybody else's, the Mac's, not Windows, might have come to dominate the personal computer market."
Instead, the opposite happened for Apple, and the PC crowd took advantage of those kinds of economics. This year, Apple is left with less than 4% of the market for personal computers -- basically a cult following.
More recently, Jobs has done for digital music what he once did for personal computing: He's made it appealing to non-techies. Once again, his design sets the pace. No device is as good as the iPod; no software solution works better than iTunes.
But like the Mac of 1985, it's a closed system. Other than open-source MP3 files, only music downloaded through iTunes will play on iPods, and iTunes music won't play on any portable device except an iPod. Apple refuses to license the technology to third parties. Instead of setting a standard for all, Apple wants to own it all. When Microsoft behaves that way, everybody screams antitrust.
So how comes that as a surprise that they are the major users of DMR technlology?
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Apple is pretty friendly to independent music sources, as well - CDBaby has a deal where for a small fee they'll perform digital distribution, and I've noticed that iTMS is the overwhelming source of all of the digital purchases of my band's stuff.
Their payout rates to artists are as good or better than other services, as I discussed elsewhere.
So while no-DRM would be ideal, Apple's approach isn't unfriendly to indie musicians.
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Restrictive DRM = Bad for consumers. Draconian style restrictions that stop the average consumer from doing ordinary things with their music.
Apple's music is unrestrictive DRM (2 Billion songs worth) you can even burn it to a Audio CD removing the DRM entirely.
We're not talking about zunes that let you share a song which expires after a few plays or a few days (which ever comes first.) Or windows media devices that require regular docking otherwise the music will cease to function. We're talking about the ability to legally download music and literally give it to any of 5 computer users. Or burn copies and spread them infinitely. Some kids use maybe two of their 5 licenses on other computers in the house, the rest usually go to their friends. (Legal or not, it still lets you.)
The fact that Apple is the #1 'DRM purveyor' is just a function of the fact that they are the #1 music download service. DRM was a condition absolutely insisted upon by the big record labels. You can argue as to whether or not DRM would have any kind of foothold as it does today were it not for iTMS, and its a valid argument. In the end, this too shall pass; you can't change physics and the old model must pass away eventually. (Kicking and screaming, as it turns out.)
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
You can live in a DRM free world today. Your participation in the existing paradigm is voluntary. Is there anything stopping you today from producing your own hit movie and releasing it without DRM?
If you don't like DRM then become a DRM-free producer. You'll be a more effective leader by walking that walk than you will by being a harping critic who takes no action.
DRM is not inherently evil, but often implementations are troublesome or onerous.
I probably sound like an Apple apologist here, but to be honest I have no problem with the relatively weak DRM included on iTMS songs or movies. They don't prevent me from watching, they don't prevent me from copying (within reason) and I really believe that the DRM inherent in iTMS and by extension iTunes is not a problem.
OK, some people may have a huge problem with DRM philosophically. I must admit, I am not over the moon about the whole idea either but the DRM world is one that we are going to live in whether we like it or not. If we have to accept DRM, then it shouldn't be overly onerous. I think that Apple's implementations are as "consumer-friendly" as you're likely to find. They don't prevent me from using my purchased media, and I don't get the feeling that Apple can "turn off my music" at whim just becuase I changed my registered card number at iTMS. Besides, it's simple to work around with even lossless conversions. I know, I've converted stuff in the past... but generally my purchased iTMS music remains "DRM encumbered" and I have no problems sharing it with my wife's computer or my daughter's iPod as well as my own iPod. The only reason I sometimes convert said music is so I can put a copy on my MythTV box so I can have it when I want to play music on that.
All of course IMO.
So Apple is the biggest backer of DRM. But then, the DRM I get when I buy songs on iTunes still gives me more choice than the DRM that comes with some CDs these days. And it won't install root kits either. So maybe Apple's just the biggest backer because they're the only large company that uses a kind of DRM people don't mind to being subject to.
But it is also the entity responsible for the oncoming demise of DRM on digital music- or at least the non-FairPlay, non-Watermark variety. Why is Microsoft suddenly the biggest cheerleader for non-DRMed music? Because their obtuse and nasty version of DRM got flattened in the marketplace.
All the other DRM formats can't compete and so they are going to the labels and applying their utmost pressure to be able to release DRM free. The labels are listening because the alternative is ceding utter control of their future digital distribution to Apple.
Watermarking will end up being their common friend. The RIAA gets someone to sue and the online music stores get a format that plays on the iPod. I'm not sure watermarking gives me the warm fuzzies (in fact the whole idea gives me the willies), but it is the likely way for this to play out.
"(1) They control what hardware their OS will run on"
No, they control the software need to run the hardware they build.
Apple is a hardware company, always have been.
"(2) They often tried (though not recently) to control what OS(es) will run on their hardware"
No, they never helped some write software for there hardware, but they never tried to stop anyone either.
"(3) They tried to control who/what could put songs on their iPods"
No. They came out with a way to get music onto a hardware device they made. They have done nothing to stop the myriad of other software that can also be used to content onto the iPod.
"(4) They are trying to control what software can be Applied to their iPhones"
This has yet to be seen. I suspect this is an issue with American carriers, if itis true.
Apple doesn't really care what you do with the hardware you purchase.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This article nor the second one is infact not well written at all, a good article would not make such huge leaps of faith saying the market is one way, when there is plenty of evidence that exists now (such as the fact that much of the music on iPods comes from CD rips, NOT iTunes Music Store) that proves its not even that way today.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I've always imagined that Apple's reluctance to open their iPod/iTunes environment up to third parties will eventually be the iPod's undoing. At the moment, consumer electronics are a mess. Everything is proprietary and nothing works together, much the same way PC's were back in the early 80's. It's only in these kinds of situations that Apple's closed culture really thrives.
Eventually, though, someone is going to get it when it comes to consumer electronics, much the same way Microsoft did with PC's. People like to give Microsoft a lot of crap about how they run their business, but forget the they did a lot of the legwork for making the PC a standardized environment.
Once the digital media market has matured, I imagine we'll look back on the days of the iPod much the same way we look back on the early days of Apple. Meanwhile, Apple will have moved on to another market segment and continue to do what they do best, innovate within a small, closed environment.
First they argued to labels that the liberal DRM is needed - or consumers will not buy songs. Now the coin flipped and Apple wants DRM themselves since it is one of the reasons why people buy iPods - so they can use well-integrated iTMS.
Well, it is business as usual: they have made some sacrifices in past (like $0.70 label fee on every song sold) but now they just want to maintain the position iPod has gained in market.
If Apple resorts to such tactics, we may conclude that end of iPod's rein in market is looming. And Apple is feeling that: otherwise they wouldn't have resorted to such low tactics.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
The headline and summary state that "Apple is DRM's Biggest Backer" as though this is fact, so I was disappointed to see that the link is just to an opinion piece--I was expecting a smoking gun, like Jobs saying "DRM is wonderful; DRM forever."
I'll set forth my own opinion: Apple gains nothing from DRM. Apple makes its money selling hardware, like iPods and Macs. Nobody credible believes that Apple is making much, if any, money from the iTunes music store. Instead, it seems the iTMS exists for the convenience of Apple's customers--that is, so Apple can sell more iPods.
Therefore, in economic terms, music is the complement to the iPod: the more music that's out there, the more iPods Apple sells. It's in Apple's interest to ensure there is as much digital music out there as possible. DRM in the iTMS is merely a means to an end, in that it makes it possible for Apple to sell downloads in an easy-to-use, legal product. I don't mean that DRM makes it *technically* possible, because of course Apple could sell DRM free MP3s. It makes it possible from a *business* perspective, as the labels would cry bloody murder if Apple sold DRM free MP3s in its easy-to-use store.
Because the DRM exists ultimately for the convenience of Apple's customers--that is, so they can download music from an easy-to-use store--Apple doesn't care about the DRM. They just want the music to be easily available in an easy-to-use store (P2P services are not nearly as usable as the iTMS.) Prices at the iTMS are relatively high, considering what ALLOFMP3 is selling music for. But Apple isn't making much money here. Apple would be better off without the DRM, if it could get away with that, and with cheap prices--remember, the more music that's out there, the more iPods Apple sells. More music also would drive appetites for bigger capacity iPods, thus driving sales for newer models.
I think the evidence shows that Apple realizes that DRM benefits it little and that DRM hinders its customers, thus ultimately reducing the sales of iPods. Apple does not license its DRM scheme to other players. I think part of the reason for that is because Apple realizes that it would not benefit from having an industry standard DRM scheme. Such a scheme would keep music prices high, which would mean that customers would have less money to spend on iPods and less music to put on them.
Also, look at the weakness of the iTunes DRM. Burn to a CD, rip it back. It's a well-known hole. Apple has done nothing to close it (unlike Microsoft, which has attempted to implement digital watermark schemes) because Apple doesn't want the DRM to be a hassle. They only have the DRM to placate the labels, and the DRM works well enough for this purpose. This hole is a hassle for customers, though. I think Apple would prefer no DRM at all.
I realized all this when I heard of the lawsuits of people complaining that the iPod is not interoperable. That's absurdity. The iPod plays MP3, the most universal music format there is. The iPod is interoperable with any store that sells MP3s. It's not Apple's fault that the other music stores (except the brilliant ALLOFMP3, along with other players like Magnatune and eMusic) are selling music encumbered with Windows DRM. If Apple were truly interested in locking people in with DRM, then Apple would make their music players play ONLY Apple DRM-locked files.
TFA says "The lock-in afforded by FairPlay creates an Apple ecosystem that essentially ties the iPod to iTunes and to Apple, at least for commercial transactions." That's equally absurd. There is an ecosystem between iPod and iTunes, making them easy to use together. That certainly benefits Apple. However, FairPlay is not creating the lock-in. The majority of music in most people's iTunes collections are ripped from CDs or are downloaded through means other than the iTMS. If Apple sold unencumbered MP3s in its store, then there would still be an easy-to-use Apple ecosystem. The purpose of the ecosystem is to sell more iPods, not to lock people in to a DRM scheme.
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I'm not even going to RTFM. Apple sells 2 billion DRM'd songs, ergo, Apple must be the biggest road block to removing DRM from electronically distributed goods? That's nonsense. It wouldn't be nonsense if Apple owned rights to what they're selling, but they don't - they're just the distributors. The DRM is a condition of being able to distribute. Take Apple out of the equation and you'll see what the RIAA really want - which is price differentiation (latest pop "hits" cost more than old stuff), music "rentals" (you never own what you buy) and a big slice of the revenue from every device sold for use to play or perform the digital content.
So far as I know, the DRM stops casual copying but is easily circumvented. It seems like a pragmatic solution to me and if people want to see real DRM, bring on the Microsofts, and Napsters of this world!
People need to get real about Apple. Much of this thread just consists of saying that when Apple does it, it doesn't count. It does count. Apple is the leading exponent in our industry of the customer lockin. Now, this makes things uncomfortable for the devotees, who realize that lockins and DRM are decidedly uncool and ethically very dubious, and associated with the arch enemy MS. So they spend a lot of their time in intellectual contortions trying to deny that Apple is what it is. It is a bit like trying to argue that the former Soviet Union was really very free and democratic. Same sort of silly contortions and denials. Facts:
1) OSX is not open source. Its as proprietary as Windows.
2) You still cannot buy a retail copy of OSX that will run on your shiny old MacIntel. You only get to buy either an upgrade or a retail pack for PPC. Can you think of any legitimate reason for this other than lockin?
3) Despite the fact that the MacIntel is a standard enough Intel box, Apple has gone to great lengths to lock OSX to only those Intel boxes that it has blessed with its logo. No technical reason, its pure lockin.
4) iTunes is a locked system. Yes, you do have to use the Apple software to buy an iTune, and then once you have it, you can't play it on another player without going through contortions and losing quality and maybe violating the DMCA. There is no reason to refuse to license fairplay other than a deliberate effort at consumer lockin.
5) Jobs did say, to the NY Times, that you won't be able to run your own software on the iPhone. The laugable reason given was to protect you and the cellular network. But it fits with all the rest. Its just about control and lockin. As is the taboo on unlocking it and moving it to another network.
Add it all together, and its not much different from MS in approach. The details vary, but the approach and the aim are identical. It stinks. What Apple people need to do is stop denying this. Stop justifying it on the grounds that it helps sell Macs. Of course it does, that is the entire point of lockins, to make you buy things you otherwise would not.
You may all like the fact that the trains run on time, but no, there are no elections and there never will be any. Just accept publicly that lockin is the price you are prepared to pay for your chosen platform and the prosperity of your chosen company. But don't tell the rest of us that black is really white, and there really is no lockin. There is, and it stinks.
And its not at all cool either.
Depends. If you push the CD tray back in when iTunes pops it out after burning, it can automatically import the songs back as MP3 files complete with tagging. If you wait, or burn multiple CDs at one time, it won't and you'll have to tag them yourself.
* "PERSONAL FABRICATION: A Talk with Neil Gershenfeld"
* Democratizing Innovation
Bring on the future, where things like fab@home are in every home, where people no longer have to wait for companies to develop products, the people as a community develop them together, with the same spirit/philosophy of FOSS.
I don't want a Win/Mac box, I don't care how easy either of them appear, I want a free and open source box and neither Win/Mac provide me with that freedom. Here's a brief article I recommend everyone read:
The Land of "Nothing for free" by Jeremy Allison .
The fact that our society today is filled with people who would rather consume than fiddle is one of the reasons why gas guzzling cars with proprietary internals are still used by the majority. Eventually this will all change as people will more easily be able to develop their own hardware themselves (think something like fab@home in every home) with free/open hardware designs shared and improved upon.
The question is: do you want to support the FOSS movement or do you want to support companies who provide closed source software? I don't care if hardware from Microsoft or Apple can run Linux, I don't want my money going to either company, period. If other people enjoy tinkering with said hardware, cool. I believe we all should (and will, eventually) be developing hardware on our own. Those who would respond with, "I don't care about all that, I just want X,Y,Z" are the focal point of blame. Unwind the philosophy from the person and the soul is nothing but another bag of peas to scan at the check stand for Company A,B,C.
How many bootleg Macs do you see out there? It is this low piracy rate that has kept their marketshare so low. And if any of the others were really worried about piracy, they would employ Apple's and Avid's and Pro tools' methods of tying software to hardware. I'm not complaining about it, just pointing out that Apple has been very successful in this matter because they have always had DRM built into their hardware...er..software. How many of you are running OSX or OS9 or even 7.5 in a virtual machine on your linux boxes? And furthermore, how come Apple gets to keep their BIOS under IP lockdown when IBM had to give theirs up? They may treat other peoples' Imaginary Property rather lightly, but they protect their own with a very effective iron fist...so to speak :-)
What?
Wow, dude, it's amazing how incredibly misinformed you are about how all this works. Not only are you completely wrong about essentially everything you say, but you apparently don't have the reading comprehension to understand what the GP said in the first place, and, to top it all off, you're rude and condescending, all while looking like a fool to the vast majority of Slashdot readers, who do know that repeated use of a lossy encoder (hint: CDs don't store music in MP3 or AAC format) results in considerable loss of quality.
There are a number of concepts that you should become familiar with before you spout off: first, what is a lossy encoding? What is a lossless encoding? Which is MP3, which is AAC, and which is used by a CD? Why is the concept relevent?
What does "128" mean? You don't seem to understand. What's the difference between ABR, CBR, and VBR?
You'd better spend a bit of time thinking about this before you put on your Apple Fanboy hat and try ineffectually to flame someone who clearly understands all of these things, when it's blatantly clear that you do not.
There's nothing wrong with being ignorant, per se. It's being condescending and ignorant that really makes you look like a fool and a jerk.