Steve Jobs Says Yes To A DRM Free World - Challenges Record Companies
02.06.07 - 05:25pm
“If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music,” wrote Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs has written a essay, and posted it on the Apple website, concerning the issue of iTunes, and the DRM’s which prevent Apple’s iTunes music from being played on anything other than the iPod. In this essay Steve Jobs challenges the music industry to let their songs be sold DRM free.
This seems to be in direct contradiction to early statements made by Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr. Nuemayr spoke on the escalating European discontent with iTunes incompatibility in which he said ‘’Apple hopes that European governments will encourage a competitive environment that lets innovation thrive, protects intellectual property and allows consumers to decide which products are successful.”
The issue of iTunes incompatibility has become a major snowballing force against Apple in Europe. Last month the Netherlands joined France, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland in the fight against Apple saying ““What we want from Apple is that they remove the limitations that prevent you from playing a song you download from iTunes on any player other than an iPod. When you buy a music CD it doesn’t play only on players made by Panasonic. People who download a song from iTunes shouldn’t be bound to an iPod for the rest of their lives”.
Regarding the issue in Europe Steve Jobs said 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.”
As far as anyone being bound to an iPod for the rest of their lives, Jobs brings up the point that on average only 22 iTunes songs are sold for every iPod bought. (A huge point made over the Christmas season among analysts who said that iTunes might be costing money rather than making it) Which adds up to 3% of the music bought from iTunes and 97% of music downloaded from CD’s or other sources, which can be played openly. So if so little of iPod users’ music is from iTunes, why are people bound to an iPod?
The other issue Jobs brings up is that 90 percent of songs purchased last year were on CDs, completely DRM free. So why must the record companies insist on DRM’s for the paltry 10 percent left? Jobs wrote, “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.”
Jobs states that the only reason DRM’s are on the iTunes music is because the music companies have required it. He says that having open DRM’s makes it too difficult for them to control leaks. Hackers try to break DRM’s and then post the information on the net, thus requiring the continual upgrade of the DRM system.
It will be rather interesting to see how the four big record companies, Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI, decide to handle this now that the buck has been passed onto them. It will be interesting too to see how Europe will react. Jobs has said he will go DRM free if the record companies will let him. Could it be possible that we could once again live in a DRM free world? Or is this simply a way for Jobs and Apple to have their cake and eat it too?
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