Tuesday, January 13, 2009

DRM Isn't Dead:

In return for letting Apple build up its inventory, the labels needed assurances that iTunes wouldn't be a haven for piracy. Having been burned by Napster, music biz bigwigs were understandably concerned that putting MP3s up "for sale" would be tantamount to giving away their catalogs to music-thieving college students. Apple assuaged these fears by creating a "digital rights management" plan called FairPlay, which prevented customers from putting songs on more than five different computers or from burning any playlist more than seven times. In addition, iTunes songs would not work with non-Apple hardware and software, and Apple's devices wouldn't accept copy-protected songs purchased from most other online stores. At first, these last two restrictions sat well with the recording industry; keeping downloaded songs tied to the iPod would limit piracy, the labels believed. But then the iPod became a phenomenon. Suddenly everybody had one—and the only place to buy music for the iPod was through iTunes, which would go on to become the most popular music retailer in the country. The irony was delicious, even poetic, the industry hoisted with its own petard: By demanding DRM, the labels had tied their songs to a single hardware and software platform and had inadvertently given Steve Jobs total control over their business.

5:17 AM