Apple's iTunes DRM Dilemma

An anonymous reader writes "Understanding how Apple's FairPlay DRM works helps to answer a lot of questions: why it hasn't been replaced with an open, interoperable DRM that anyone can use, why Apple isn't broadly licensing FairPlay, and why the company hasn't jumped to add DRM-free content from indie artists to iTunes."

Comments

Re:DRM Paridox.

[Creepy Crawler]

You really arent that smart, are you?

1. What's a "paridox"? Did'ja know that google can spellcheck?

2. Is there some sort of subliminal message wIth ranDom smatterIngs Of capital leTters?

3. Do complete sentences?

"The problem with digital music unlike previous forms Records, and Tapes."

4. Thats what we in the know call a factual error. MP3 is lossy. FLAC is not. I dont see much FLACs being traded, other than torrent sites.

"With the Compressed Digital Music now causes a problem where music can be spread rapidly, without quality loss."

There's even much more wrong, but find that out for yourself. Ignorance can be fixed, but stupid cannot.

Re:Open DRM?

[Macthorpe]

In a sense, you're right - it is worth a read, but only because it provides a very brief snapshot of how Jobs works behind the reality distortion field.

One - the inevitable 'honestly, it's not vendor lock-in' paragraph in the middle that just shows the intention of the document. He's not concerned with DRM at all, this paragraph and others is merely a tool to try and convince countries like Norway that they're not doing anything wrong.

Two - The guy can see the way the tide is flowing. If he was truly as opposed to DRM as he claims he wouldn't be using it. However it is better to state how much you dislike DRM, no matter how hypocritical and full of crap it is, than be caught out when everything shifts and nobody uses DRM anymore. When that happens, and it is inevitable, he will look like a visionary because he wrote about 20 empty paragraphs detailing how his own business model isn't viable.

Three - He is making no moves himself to convince any of the music companies to move away from DRM. Instead he claims it is governmental responsibility to force the music industry to change how it does it's business - never mind that this is exactly what some governments are doing to Apple in order to get them to open Fairplay up.

You don't even have to read between the lines. The message here is clear; the only way Apple will stop using Fairplay or limiting Fairplay to it's own players is when the market forces them to.