UPDATE 2/8/2007:
What a surprise: Jon Lech Johansen a.k.a. DVDJon agrees… Jobs is being disingenuous, especially on the topic of not wanting to license Fairplay DRM on the premise that it would "endanger it’s security":
As one who has already reverse engineered Apple’s FairPlay technology, Johansen takes issue with Steve Jobs’ claim that opening up FairPlay to others would endanger its security. DVD Jon points out, “Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM 10 (marketing name PlaysForSure) has not had more security breaches than FairPlay despite the fact that it has been licensed to dozens of companies,” adding that Microsoft’s decision to make the Zune DRM a closed system was a business decision and had nothing to do with DRM security.
LINK: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6012
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ORIGINAL POST:
By now everyone’s heard of Steve Jobs’ rant about how DRM is bad and, why oh why does the music industry "force him" to use DRM.
I’ve never linked to the Inquirer because they’re the bastion of bad journalism – but this is a link to an editorial commentary (and it’s labelled as such on their site) about Jobs real motivations and to be honest, they read my mind. Why?
- Apple is the largest proponent of DRM with it’s Fairplay technology. Fairplay effectively forces user to only use iTunes, iTunes Music store, and iPods because once you’ve made any sort of investment in iTunes, it’s not feasible to leave for another services or device type since your music is tied to Apple.
- Apple needs DRM otherwise, people would, heaven forbid, be able to go to any other music store and purchase music without having a tie to Apple.
"DRM has been very good to Apple, but very bad for the end user."
This article couldn’t be more dead on.
kurtsh
Kurt's Thoughts 