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Apple, the New Microsoft?
VE3OGG writes "Apple, the ultimate source of cool. The marketers of slick. The next 'evil empire'? While it might sound goofy at first, Rolling Stone magazine is running an article that summarizes some very interesting points that detail how Apple could become the next technology bad guy. Among the reasons given: Apple's call to be rid of DRM (while continuing to use it in iTunes); Apple's perceived arrogance when they warned consumers not to upgrade to Vista, while not rushing to fix the problem themselves; and Apple's seemingly unstoppable market dominance in the form of the iPod. The iPhone featured heavily as well, a product that is months from release but steals the press from more competitive products. What do you think, could Apple eventually take the place of Microsoft?"
A friend emailed me this:
Why DRM and Locks on Apple Stores are Dumb
by Steven Jobs
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
With the stunning global success of Apple's iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to "open" the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods.
Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music, software, movies, and video games encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player or console can play music or games purchased from any store, and any store can sell music, movies, and games which are playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies, and software companies, and Hollywood studios, and video game companies, would license Apple their music, movies, video games, and software without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music, movies, and games on our iTunes store, and DRM-free software in our stores. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music and movies, and we shall give them away for free, along with our trendy iBooks.
In order to lead this initiative, Pixar will begin offering all of its movies for download upon the Apple website, in DRM-free formats, which one can rip, mix, and burn on any device. The record companies caused the Napsterization of the recording industry by being too slow to give their content away for free, and in order to thwart pirates, Hollywood must beat them to the punch.
Software too shall be given away for free in DRM-free formats. Final Cut Pro and the Mac OS X will lead the charge. One of most burdensome characteristics of software is that if the customer loses the box with the license key, the customer must purchase an entire new copy to install the software on a second device. This is "unfair play," und thus all software shall henceforth be released license-free, along with its source code. Now that both Macs and PCs run on Intel architectures, it makes sense that all software should be able to run on all devices.
Just as the musician shall voluntarily give up their rights to their music in this brave new world, Apple will be releasing all of its patents and trademarks for the public good. Citizens are encouraged to show up to Apple with video cameras, walk around, attend meetings, and post the videos to youtube, as information wants to be free.
DRM has failed. The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music. They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. We cannot win. Nor can car security systems nor digital security for banks triumph, as brilliant hackers shall forever share secrets about cracking these burdensome entities on the internet. So often it is that customers, forced to buy cars with locks, find themselves locked out of their very own cars!
Starting next week, Apple employees will be forbidden from locking their cars, and the bank DRM that protects my back-dated stock options shall be removed, as no security system can be superior to hackers, and it is a mark of hubris before Zeus himself to even try. Locks are being removed from Apple stores, so come on by and get your free iPod for your free music, along with a free black turtleneck.
A brave new day is dawning, so drop on by the Apple site to downl