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Steve Jobs says DRM should go away


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So when does Steve Jobs put up or shut up then? Current files you download from I-Tunes are full of DRM.

 

Until he does it, he is just blowing smoke at best.

 

Actually, the article is really a call to labels to allow Apple to offer music DRM-free. It's a good read.

 

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. 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.
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Indeed, tendril. It's a very curious statement indeed because to me, it also contradicts a whole bunch of legal stances that Apple's taken in the past few years with regards to opening up FairPlay to other devices to support the iTunes store - Apple's been quite insistant that to use the store, you must have an iPod. Funny, that.

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Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat..

Couldn't they create an open source standard that any manufacturer or music distributor could implement? :confused:

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Couldn't they create an open source standard that any manufacturer or music distributor could implement? :confused:

 

I'm no programmer, so I could be wrong, but open-sourcing a DRM is equivalent to no DRM at all, since the source would allow anyone to decode the DRM.

 

An alternative, which is discussed in the article (or blog, or whatever it is) would be to license FairPlay to other companies. But Jobs suggests that the resulting complexity, of trusting the companies to keep the keys safe, and the difficulty of updating the DRM/players to fix security holes in a timely manner, make it a non-starter...in his opinion. This is, of course, predicated on his suggestion that the big 4 record labels wouldn't allow their music to be distributed without a secure DRM.

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I'm no programmer, so I could be wrong, but open-sourcing a DRM is equivalent to no DRM at all, since the source would allow anyone to decode the DRM.

That's not the case. Just about every encryption algorithm out there is available for public scrutiny. A simple example is the implemention of https (ssl) that allows you to submit data across the internet securely. Various servers and browsers successfully implement https without any type of colaboration.

 

If there was a desire to get this done it most certainly could, but the push would need to come from the music publishers. Hardware vendors aren't going to put out the r&d money only to give it away to the competitors.

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It is?
Yes, do share. I'm sure Sony and the others would love to hear what you got. Seriously.
What alternate reality does that statement come from?
If you burn a CD with the music you bought (which i do anyway as a backup), you rip it back to your computer, and it can be used on anything. Not the easiest way to do it, but its possible. I do it so i can stream the music to my 360. It wasn't rocket science to figure it out, and I have a backup copy of all the music I bought put away on the CD's in a safe place
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If you burn a CD with the music you bought (which i do anyway as a backup), you rip it back to your computer, and it can be used on anything. Not the easiest way to do it, but its possible. I do it so i can stream the music to my 360. It wasn't rocket science to figure it out, and I have a backup copy of all the music I bought put away on the CD's in a safe place

 

Scew that. I don't have time for that. I don't even have time I want to spend sitting down and burning copies of my CDs...I've been putting it off for ages. I avoid itunes and most downloadable music like the plague because of DRM. I might be able to deal with compressed non-physical music if it wasn't wrapped in annoying DRM. I know some sites carry non-DRM'ed music but the selection sucks.

 

As it is I do not use iTunes to download songs, ever. I only used it a few times when I had free downloads from 7-11...and then, I don't even know where it is as that version of itunes is nor how to get the songs off on my other drive and a few installs of windows back. And you know what? The 3-4 songs are not worth my time to figure out how to import/export or whatever.

 

If this happened, I would be willing to pay for mp3s instead of CDs, sometimes. It seems though in recent years I have just plain stopped buying music all together. I grab an occasional $3-$4 CD from wherehouse.com or once every few years I do a Columbia House/BMG order.

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If you burn a CD with the music you bought (which i do anyway as a backup), you rip it back to your computer, and it can be used on anything. Not the easiest way to do it, but its possible. I do it so i can stream the music to my 360. It wasn't rocket science to figure it out, and I have a backup copy of all the music I bought put away on the CD's in a safe place

 

Yep, of course there's an "analog hole" like that. It's no longer the exact same file however as you're effectively re-ripping an already ripped file. Previously, the DRM could be stripped out without that process. And that's what people are wanting - the original file without DRM.

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Yep, of course there's an "analog hole" like that. It's no longer the exact same file however as you're effectively re-ripping an already ripped file. Previously, the DRM could be stripped out without that process. And that's what people are wanting - the original file without DRM.]
Yeah that's true, but I only use the re-ripped stuff for 360 streaming anyway.

 

Scew that. I don't have time for that

 

I tried it again to make sure it worked, and it took a couple of minutes. I'm not going to complain over a few minutes. I can see if you are starting everything from scratch or if it took 10 minutes or more per Cd.

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If anyone could convince music companies to drop DRM at this point, it'd be apple. How much does the music industry rely on itunes sales at this point? Is Apple in a strong enough position to say "we're canning DRM, and if you want to sell your music to ipod users, it has to be DRM free"? I don't think so...yet, but if all the major downloadable music outlets got together and said the same thing could it work? I have no idea how much music is actually sold digitally now.

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