Steve Jobs: DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy
In an unusual paper titled thoughts on music, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs has shared with the world his thoughts about the future of DRM.
Mr. Jobs suggests three different possible courses of action for the future of music distribution. The first is keeping the current situation of several competing and proprietary DRM systems, the second is licensing Apple FairPlay (to which he says no) and the third is abolishing DRM completely.
"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat".
He then says about the labels:
"So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free (he is referring to CDs), what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies".
He concludes by saying:
"Convincing them (the four major labels) to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly".
Mr. Jobs is proving once again that he is a very shrewd business man. After leveraging DRM to take over the marketplace and reaching an unprecedented position of power in the music industry, now that the outcry against Apple's FairPlay is reaching dangerous levels he is moving to reposition Apple as the savior of consumers and the one who would want nothing more than abolishing DRM.
This same man has used the panic in the music industry back then when the iTunes store was established to position Apple as the savior of the desperate labels and artists and now he is doing it again, this time saving us the consumers from the dreaded DRM schemes that are to be blamed on the labels.
To all this, I say, Apple and Microsoft are to be equally blamed for DRM. They were the ones that mislead the labels by claiming that DRM could solve piracy. Therefore they are the one that we, the consumers, should hold responsible (together with one label, Sony BMG, for their use of rootkits).
Either way, the more people join the battle to eliminate DRM the better, so as long as Mr. Jobs truly means what he says, we are happy to accept him with open arms.
UPDATE
Some response from Hilary Rosen, former chairman and CEO of the RIAA, is available in the following CNBC video interview:
