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Jobs Favors DRM-Free Music Distribution
Another anonymous reader tips an essay by Steve Jobs on the Apple site about DRM, iTunes, and the iPod. Perhaps it was prompted by the uncomfortable pressure the EU has been putting on Apple to open up the iPod. Jobs places the blame for the existence and continuing reliance on DRM squarely on the music companies. Quoting: "Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly."
Here's the parts I found most interesting:
At least he understands what the rest of us understand, which is that DRM can never prevent copying. The most it can do is slow it down.
He does get one thing wrong in the article though: "No DRM system was ever developed for the CD". Not true. There are several DRM systems developed for Audio CDs. However, they all depend on the disc being placed into a computer that will pay attention to something other than CDDA tracks, which means they are ineffective on purpose-built CD copiers or computers on which the user has either disabled autorun or holds the shift key while the disc is inserted.
DRM doesn't have to be effective to be DRM...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
He points out he doesn't think there is an effective "lock-in" since by his (perhaps overly-simplistic) statistics, FairPlay music amounts to only 3% of music on iPods.
Aside from that, I wonder if more people would buy from iTunes if there were no DRM. I know I would, but I might not be representative of the population.
(Unless the population lives in their parents basements and cries themselves to sleep at night for all the loneliness they feel every day.)
GPL Deconstructed
Apple provides instructions on how to deauthorize computers. I think from within iTunes.
GPL Deconstructed
Please read the friendly article. Jobs says that Apple have considered it before, but they're in an interesting position: if FairPlay is cracked, and remains unpatched for a number of weeks, then the record companies can simply pull their content from the iTS. Now, at present, Apple can simply patch FairPlay and push out a new version of iTunes and the iPod firmware. However, with multiple players and stores all using FairPlay, the problem magnifies: if any one of those links in the increasingly-complex chain remains weak, and FairPlay is still exposed, it leaves Apple vulnerable.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
That's actually a known way to get around Apple's DRM. The disadvantages are that you use a CD to do so (which you mentioned) and that there is a slight loss in sound quality since it is being re-encoded.
I'll probably do this with my two protected files sooner or later, when I actually get around to it.
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Is it also the record companies that force Steve to sell OS X with DRM? Do not forget that OS X is tied to Mac hardware by a "Trusted Computing Module".
Have you considered checking your facts? The most recent Macs don't even have a TPM module and no version of OS X ever used it, although some third party utilities did, in order to do more secure encryption. Macintosh computers do check the motherboard to insure it is an Apple one, but no "DRM" is in use and if you look at the code that does that it contains a "please don't violate our license by installing on other hardware" message.
The big 4 say iTunes has to to DRM everything, or they can't sell their music. Same goes for pricing. The big 4 won't let iTunes sell other people's music for less.
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Actually, that's only if your Mac has a PowerPC chip in it, and since Apple doesn't (to my knowledge) sell any PPC Macs anymore, this statement is untrue. Your sentiment, however, is absolutely correct. The operating system itself supports (through a virtualization layer) nearly any properly written application released since System 6; it's the hardware that makes the difference. (Rosetta itself is a compabitility layer to allow PPC apps to run, so piling Classic on top of Rosetta would be a marvel of softwrae engineering.)
Nevertheless, it is incorrect to state that you can natively run OS 9 applications on any new Mac. As Apple has wanted to phase out OS 9 for years now, I do not forsee this changing any time in the future.
Formerly GNU/Anonymous Coward. This message has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
It sounds like you didn't read Steve Jobs' original message. He explains why licensing DRM to other companies would not work due to the stringent contractual requirements that the music companies have placed on Apple in regards to maintaining the integrity of the DRM system. He also explains that only 3% of the music iPods are capable of storing are DRM'd/from the iTunes store, the other 97% is likely pirated or legally ripped from CDs or other sources. So most people are not locked in since most if not all of the music on their iPods is not DRM'd.
Did you, by any chance, read the actual article? It discusses exactly the ideas you suggest, and presents a reasonable case for why those would not allow them to keep their obligations to the music publishers.
If you read TFA you'll see that Jobs explains exactly why they don't license their DRM. It's because a requirement of their license to sell the music of the record companies is that any holes discovered in the DRM are patched within a certain time limit. He says that by licensing the technology to a bunch of 3rd parties, that there is more chance of a particular implementation of FairPlay leaking out, yet it would still be Apple's resposibility to fix the holes - but this time for more devices and software platforms. The effectively makes it impossible for Apple to submit to 3rd party licensing because they don't have the resources to be able to take on that level of responsibility.
Bob
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'Sensible' is a curse word.
Mac OS X does not use TPM or trusted computing in any way to tie Mac OS X to Apple hardware. In fact, Apple doesn't use TPM for any purpose, at all.
You can either choose to believe Steve's reasoning that it is the same reason that he states for not licensing Fair Play, or you can believe that Microsoft is INCREDIBLE STUPID as the fact that Zune doesn't use Plays for Sure was a huge black eye for them. It added to customer confusion and isn't helping Zune succeed.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
This quote's at least a couple years old: Second, he gives an argument against licensing FairPlay to other vendors that I hadn't heard or thought of before
Yes, that was interesting: if their contract with the labels requires that kind of control, then they can't legally open up Fairplay and keep most of the music in iTMS available.
I don't think it's a case of Jobs suddenly realizing DRM is bad and becoming a generous benefactor by disregarding his greedy interests. First, he's been against DRM from the beginning. It's come up again and again, and I don't know whether any public statements have been made before, but by all accounts Steve Jobs did not want DRM on iTMS. The record companies just required it.
Second, by most accounts, Apple doesn't make much money off of the iTMS anyhow. They roughly break even. It's a marketing issue, to promote the iPod, and that's pretty much it. Third, even if Apple did make money from the sales, they don't need to make much. While record companies are spending money to actually produce the music, Apple only needs to make enough to cover their costs of running the store. Therefore, Apple doesn't need to worry very much about piracy.
So even if Apple took a small loss on the iTMS, it might be worth it for marketing purposes. However, keeping the DRM hurts their PR, and it's probably a nightmare to manage, keep up-to-date, etc. Plus, they've lost the business of people who might have purchased from iTMS, but who won't because of the DRM. DRM is a net loss for them, I'm sure.
If you don't use Windows or Mac, I'm guessing you're a Linux user. If you're technically competent to use Linux as your primary OS, I doubt you'd have any trouble installing and using Rockbox, which is OSS that would make an iPod behave the way you want it to.
Of course, if you don't see any other advantages to iPods, then there's no point. A lot of people like their price/form factor/clickwheel/battery life/reliability/style/customer service.
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# AAC compressed audio at 96 Kbps generally exceeded the quality of MP3 compressed audio at 128 Kbps. AAC at 128 Kbps provides significantly superior performance than does MP3 at 128 Kbps.
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It isn't piracy: you're free to burn the music to cd. In fact, you're encouraged to make back-ups of your purchased music.
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