DTT's "Thoughts on Music"
The web is buzzing about Steve Job�s �Thought on Music� that is prominently displayed on Apple�s main page. This letter by the CEO of Apple discussing the state of digital music distribution, mainly DRM, has created a lot of buzz on blogs, message boards and even inspired press releases from a few large corporations. I generally don�t like writing editorials as newsbreaks and will spend a few days reading what others have to say. I never jump into an opinion, as I shouldn�t. I do have a few things to say now that I�ve seen the reactions to this open letter to consumers and the music industry.
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First, Steve Jobs hasn�t written a document of this type for many years. Working for Apple, I received many internal memos that were sent to every employee from Mr. Jobs ans they were insightful, personal and well written. I�m not going to say that Steve wrote this article all by his lonesome while he sipped his soy late and watched CNBC because I�m sure he received some support and words from other members of his team but putting his name and stamp on this made the �thoughts on music� piece a very �take notice� piece. Steve Jobs is holding the reins to the company that has sold 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs. They have the most popular site for movie trailers on their Quicktime section and their computers are used to produce a lot of the music and movies your purchase from the iTunes Store. There are even Apple haters that cry out, �Linux forever!� that do recognize that their Nine Inch Nails CD / DVD was made completely on Macs. In other words, Steve talks and we take notice.
The article begins with Steve outlining the current state of music distribution and he does happen to plug Apple�s music sales just in case you didn�t know. The next bit discusses how Apple would like to get music to you and he discusses that Apple could sell DRM free music or license its music to everyone to use so you could buy music from Rhapsody, the Zune store and eMusic and all of the music could play on an iPod. The final section is devoted to why Apple can�t do that and lists reasons. I am doing a poor job summarizing but you can just read the whole thing yourself and come back.
Writing this piece was a bold move but is exactly what we need to upstart the DRM conversations again. The record companies became pretty comfortable with selling a lot of music and reaping the profits. They have become used to how things currently run but deep down, bloggers and consumers are still wishing they could buy one MP3 player and buy music from anywhere. Many of us thought that Steve was part of the group that was happy with its agreements with the �big four� record groups but after reading, I came out happy that Apple is on my side. Apple is not looking to lock us in and force us to buy music from their store and use it on their iPods. Apple and Steve Jobs would love to sell DRM free music.
Steve was completely against licensing its DRM for other music distributors to use and for the same reason that he decided to not license the Mac OS for other manufacturers to install on their computers. Issues arise from a few things. First is compatibility. Apple needs to know that the manufacturers of DAPs and the distributors of music are completely prepared to send out updates / firmware updates if Apple�s DRM security is compromised. Since the existence of the iTunes store and its FairPlay DRM, there have been three major breaks in how that security is implemented. In other words, there have been apps released that strip the copy protection from Apple�s sold content allowing users to do anything with that music. They can then distribute that across the internet, burn it to CDs unlimited times and make it into ringtones for their phones and anything else for that matter. A piece that was revealed is the agreement between Apple and the big four that if their DRM is broken by someone, Apple only has a limited time to fix that compromise before they lose the license and ability to sell that music on their store. Apple doesn�t want to deal with DRM but to be able to sell music on their store, they must adhere to those terms set back in 2001 but Apple would really like the ability to sell DRM free music.
Steve�s argument on selling music that does not have copy protection is that you can purchase music from a store that doesn�t have any copy protection and rip that to your computer and distribute it freely across the Internet. This is not legal but neither is breaking Apple�s DRM protection. Apple�s sore spot is that if consumers can buy music in the CD form and do what they want with that then why is Apple and other music distributors punished and forced to create digital rights management for everything they sell.
I learned a few things about the industry while I was reading the bit from Steve and I strongly feel that anyone that has purchased music or made music should read this and feel a little bit smaller once you finish.
