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2/06/2007

Steve Jobs on DRM

Steve Jobs offers up three alternatives to the DRM problem, including this...

"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. 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.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy."


Sounds great Steve, but do you think you could also advocate the same for the downloadable audiobook publishing industry?

PS: I think Jobs left out an obvious 4th alternative ... to adopt a global DRM platform/solution that will work for everyone on all media players.

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