Jobs on Music

(Via Rich)

Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Computer, in case you live under a rock) posted an article on DRM. It’s quite an interesting read; Rich says he’ll go into more detail later, and he’ll probably give more insight into it than I will, but I’m just going to briefly comment now.

Jobs appears to be saying that the only reason Apple uses DRM is that iTunes wouldn’t be allowed to use most of the music it can at the moment, because the companies that hold the copyright to the music (or “own” it, as they seem to like to call it) won’t allow it. If those companies would allow the distribution of their copyrighted material without DRM, iTunes would do so in a flash - after all, Apple has nothing to gain from the DRM, since they don’t own the music.

He also points out that those companies do allow the distribution of their copyrighted material without DRM - on CD. They just appear to be too dense to realise that DRM on downloaded songs won’t make a dent in “piracy” if CDs can be copied without a problem (the discs that do have DRM technically aren’t CDs, since they don’t comply with the standards and won’t play in many standard CD players).

Ah, idiocy and hypocrisy from American big business; whatever next?