Jobs Is Being Asked To Put His Music Store Where His Mouth Is
02.07.07 - 12:46pm
Since Steve Jobs letter was posted yesterday on the Apple website making a call to end all DRM’s, the outcry among bloggers, music fans and individual artists is - get started on it. The call is that if Jobs is not just looking for good PR, if he is not just looking to pass the buck to record companies, if he is not just looking to get out of the Europe anti-trust lawsuits and fines being currently collaborated - then step up and take some action.
Steve Jobs does seem to be playing the politicians role of going back on earlier statements, such as the when the French passed a bill designed to promote interoperability and Steve Jobs labeled the bill “state sponsored piracy.” At the time Apples stand was a warning to France that their company wouldn’t be hurt cause with all the illegal music out there iPod sales would increase, however CD sales and DVD movies would plummet .
This is the exact statement “The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy. If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over the customers. iPod sales will likely increase as users freely load their iPods with ‘interoperable’ music which cannot be adequately protected.” It really doesn’t sound at all like a statement that approves abolishing DRM’s.
Norway has not yet backed down on their stand that Apple must come up with a solution for interoperablity by March, and must start implementing it by October, or face court and fines.
Norway’s senior adviser to the Consumer Council, Forbrukerradet, while applauding Apple’s apparent willingness to open iTunes said “”It is clear that the record industry has some of the responsibility, but that does not relieve Apple of responsibility.” He also said that Apple was hiding behind the record companies.
A spokesman for Forbrukerradet told the Register: Firstly we’re very happy he’s come out and made a statement, it shows they’re taking this issue seriously. But secondly we see it as a strategic move to shift the issue to the record labels. iTunes is the record store which sells music to Norwegian consumers, as such they have to follow Norwegian law. It’s not good enough to say they have problems with suppliers and their hands are tied”
The Electronic Freedom Foundation, the online consumer rights body, said it “agreed wholeheartedly with Jobs”. But it added: “As a first step in putting his music store where his mouth is, we urge him to take immediate steps to remove the DRM on the independent label content in the iTunes Store. Why wait for the major record labels? Many independent labels and artists already recognize that DRM is a dumb idea for digital music, as demonstrated by the availability of their music on eMusic. Apple should let them make that music available without DRM in the iTunes Store now.”
The Lessig Blog, reported that Colin Mutchler (an indie artist), requested that his music be sold DRM free, when it was made available on iTunes. His request was refused.
Jon Johansen, known for his record of cracking copyright technologies, including Apple’s, said: “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. This could be done in a completely transparent way and would not be confusing to the users. Actions speak louder than words, Steve.”
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