Katie MarsalA call by Apple frontman Steve Jobs for a ceasefire in the DRM wars has only escalated the fight, with each side taking its own share of potshots — including a shot in the dark by the RIAA.
Coming as a shock to little, the primary target of the letter — the Norwegian Consumer Council whose antitrust threats pose a serious risk to iTunes sales — wasn't easily fooled by the grassroots image.
"It's [the] iTunes Music Store that's providing a service to the consumers and therefore has the responsibility to offer up a consumer friendly product," said the Council's Torgeir Waterhouse. He welcomed the statement as a serious discussion of the problem but characterized the move as an attempt to shift the focus away from the lack of choice in music players for iTunes customers.
Some even argued that Jobs had not gone far enough, pressing him to back up his claims with immediate action. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was one of the first out of the gates with its opinion and urged the Apple CEO to put "his music store where his mouth is" by promptly stripping the Fairplay protection from independent music, much of which is sold on Bleep.com, eMusic, and other online stores without any DRM whatsoever.
Famed DVD protection cracker Jon Lech Johansen went so far as to research the issue and outline the practical reality for such an idea. "It should not take Apple’s iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay when the content owner does not mandate DRM," he said. "Actions speak louder than words, Steve."
Predictably, the gatekeepers of DRM were quick to cling to their familiar bylines. Warner Music head Edgar Bronfman stopped just short of questioning Jobs' sanity: during a quarterly earnings conference call, he said the Apple frontman's suggestion of dropping copy protection was "completely without logic or merit." The Warner chief contended that the ideas of DRM and interoperability weren't mutually incompatible and that his label had every right to protect its files from illegal copies.
Other responses from proponents of the restrictions bordered on the comedic. In what was an example of either strange criticism or a baffling display of misinterpretation, the oft-maligned RIAA responded by welcoming the (non-existent) offer to license Fairplay to other companies, completely ignoring the discussion of eliminating DRM altogether.
SanDisk founder Eli Harari also produced unintended chuckles by penning his own open letter, which contradicted itself by at once claiming that music listeners deserved "the freedom to enjoy content on any device" while urging Jobs to be "less confrontational" and support the industry's lockdown on music.
Neither Jobs nor Apple spokespeople have offered a response to the criticism leveled against them.
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Famed DVD protection cracker Jon Lech Johansen went so far as to research the issue and outline the practical reality for such an idea. "It should not take Apple?s iTunes team more than 2-3 days to implement a solution for not wrapping content with FairPlay when the content owner does not mandate DRM," he said. "Actions speak louder than words, Steve."
Johansen makes a good point. If Jobs really wants us to think he's serious and that it's really the RIAA forcing Apple use DRM then they need to remove it from labels who don't mind being free from DRM.
We will surely be getting an iTunes and Quicktime update for the iPhone and maybe for AppleTV, perhaps we'll see Selective DRM implemented as well... but I doubt it.
I doubt it as well. The only reason that Apple's been able to take a hard line with the big labels is that every label gets *EXACTLY* the same deal. Open up the gates by giving labels the choice of DRM, and you also open up the gates to variable pricing, variable DRM restrictions, and all the other crap that the RIAA labels have been shoving down other channels.
I say keep it the same until the back breaks on DRM. EMI is apparently open to negotiation on this, perhaps it'll start the ball rolling, along with Apply pushing from their end.
Why would anyone listen to Edgar Bronfman about selling music, while he's running Warners Music right into the ground? The only thing "completely without logic or merit" is the fact that Bronfman is still head of Warners.
I do think Apple should strip the DRM off the songs from the independent labels. I didn't realize the independents didn't demand the DRM in the first place, and I'm disappointed that Apple added it to their songs. Of course, at the time, iTMS was experimental, so Apple wouldn't have taken the chance of it falling apart, but those days are long gone.
I can see the Big 4 possibly using the DRM issue down the road to try to get a higher price from Apple, or other concessions.
I agree as well with striping the DRM from those whose labels do not require it. Reason one is this shows that Apple is only using DRM because Apple is being forced to use it as part of the contract between the labels. This points the finger at the labels. Reason two is that by removing the DRM from those that do not require it, this will put pressure upon those that do use DRM.
What's unknown is what response will Apple get by doing this from the labels that require DRM. Will these labels pull the plug on music being sold through iTunes? That is a question that Apple, I'm sure, knows the answer to.
My take on it is that Steve agreed to the DRM to get the show on the road, that was the only way the record companies would play ball, however, once the game reaches a level of no turning back, Steve will "re-negotiate."
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Here's an idea burn a .05 cent cd of your music and re-import it. Done! NO DRM!