Jobs serious about DRM free music? Do you believe in Santa?

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 13 February 2007 02:03

Opinion and Analysis

As the argument seemingly rages between Apple's Steve Jobs and the four major record companies about removing digital rights management (DRM) restrictions from downloaded music, some facts seem to have been conveniently forgotten.

Fact number one is that the iPod was launched in 2001, two years before the April 2003 launch of iTunes in the US and later launch elsewhere. Prior to the launch of iTunes, sales of the iPod were not exactly shooting through the stratosphere as they are now. Apple was a late comer to a very crowded market.

Pundits and Jobs who point to the fact that only 2 billion songs have been downloaded to iPods - an average of about 20 per iPod sold - ignore the fact that every single one of those songs were destined for just one brand of device - an iPod.

Fact number two is that Jobs, now the champion of DRM-free music, has until recently been a very vocal opponent of European efforts to force Apple to make iTunes downloads interoperable with other players and iPods interoperable with downloads from other online stores. He claimed it would encourage piracy.

If Jobs really does believe in DRM free music and is totally opposed to the pro-DRM stance of the record companies then why not, as an interim step immediately license FairPlay to other music player manufacturers? Why not make iPods compatible with PlaysForSure and Zune DRM?

The same questions could be asked of Bill Gates and Microsoft, who have craftily copied the Apple model with the Zune player.

Let's get serious here. The current situation is that if you happen to be an iTunes user, you're going to also be an iPod owner. And if you're an iPod owner, you're most likely going to be an iTunes user. Does anyone seriously believe that Steve Jobs wants to change that?