Music Execs Say Apple's DRM Hurting Industry

Posted by Zonk on Thursday March 1, 2007 @06:56AM from the reference-the-pot-and-the-kettle's-similar-color-here dept.

EMB Numbers writes "C-Net says last year saw a 131 percent jump in digital sales, but overall the industry still saw about a 4 percent decline in revenue. Some executives at this week's Digital Music Forum East conference lashed out at Jobs, blaming Apple and its CEO for their troubles. The impression at the conference was that Jobs' call three weeks ago for DRM-free music was anything but sincere. As the article puts it, 'Apple has maintained a stranglehold on the digital music industry by locking up iTunes music with DRM ... and "it's causing everybody else who is participating in the marketplace — the other service providers, the labels, the users — a lot of pain. If they could simply open it up, everybody would love them.""

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The old music execs failed to adapt. Their loss by OgTheBarbarian · 2007-03-01 07:12 · Score: 1, Offtopic

I've been using ITMS and iTunes & I'm on my third iPod. I can't say I've ever felt restricted in my ability to move the content I bought between devices, back it up etc. I'm about to try my first bulk move from one machine to another, so we'll see how that goes. When I have had a download issue, I have never been unduly hassled about crediting the money spent so I could restart the download. In short Apple seems to act in good faith. I think the real issue is sour grapes frm the established industry. Apple made a runaway success by providing an easy to manage device, store and end user application. As to DRM being eliminated. I don't think so. There's too many ignorant people out there that seem to think other people's creativity and hard work should be theirs for the taking. They're wrong.