Feb

6

Steve Jobs Dreams of a DRM Free World

February 6, 2007 |

In an unusual statement today, Steve Jobs more or less called upon the music industry to abolish DRM, because it doesn’t work.

Clearly, Apple is trying to position itself on the side of the consumer. Jobs says that, if only the Big Four (Universal, BMG, Bertelsman and EMI) would drop their idea that DRM systems were working, Apple would sell DRM-free music in a heartbeat.

Jobs cites that 90 percent of music is already sold free of DRM restrictions. What sense then does it make for the music industry to sell the other 10 percent with DRM, while seriously encumbering their consumers.

One aspect of the “Jobs Manifesto” I don’t like, though, is that Apple positions itself as a victim of the big music companies. Have a look at this:

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.

Isn’t there more Apple could do itself? It’s fair and well to call upon consumers to rebel against DRM, but doesn’t Apple have some leverage to influence here? In the brilliant movie “The Queen,” Tony Blair asks if there isn’t anybody who will stand up and protect the royal family from itself, only to discover that he is the one who will have to do it.Maybe his Jobness will come to the same realization.

Some other thoughts on this:
Read/WriteWeb, PaidContent, Between the Lines, Jeffrey McManus The Viral Garden, Paul Kedrosky

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1 Comment so far

  1. Lee Pritchard on February 10, 2007 11:51 am

    This piece got me thinking about DRM and why it is there in the first place…

    I must stress, this is my personal view…

    Yes, DRM is there to protect music rights but I personally feel that the whole rights and royalty collecting models are a bit screwed up.

    I think DRM is just an attempt by a conventional industry to retain revenue models that have historically served them well. As the statistics by Steve Jobs reveal, 90% of music has no DRM.

    For me this is indicative of a much more serious issue, the one of trying to make old royalty collecting policies fit new and emerging technologies. A patch work effect of new licenses and restrictions… having to get an additional license from X for using music in A but not in B is just making the whole situation immensely complicated and very restrictive for the man in the street and the small business.

    The rights and royalty situations can now be so complicated that many companies creating and using digital media barely, if at all, understand the rights they have licensed or the rights they may be inadvertently infringing.

    I don’t claim to know the answer to the whole problem but I do feel that there needs to be a massive reform of the collecting models surrounding music and music use. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that this will come from the “big four” or the numerous collecting societies that underpin their operations. I feel is will be the increasing numbers of independents and new thinkers. The policies of movements like Creative Commons and the numerous Royalty Free Music models are a refreshing move in the right direction.

    I won’t mention any names, but when setting up my company I spoke to a collecting society and discovered that their adviser did not even know the answer to some of the questions I was asking…

    If the people creating these policies don’t even understand it what hope is there?

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