Continuous Learning

Steve Job threw a grenade to RIAA yesterday and it exploded in the blogosphere!

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.

As a technologist, I agree with others that DRM does not work today, and that getting rid of the DRM constraint is probably the best solution. However, I can see why some think Job is a hypocrite. After all, Apple is not exactly a weakling being pushed over by the 800-pound RIAA, and Job’s argument that licensing DRM technology is difficult does not hold water from technical/business perspective.

Of course, given Apple do not own these songs they would have to license by RIAA terms. Job’s judo move is quite mastery indeed. It would be more interesting to see whether he answers the same way with regards to digital movies, given his interests in Disney/Pixar.

Can RIAA pick their heads up from the sand to face reality of internet? As an outsider I can’t tell their motives, but perhaps they are smarter than what we outsiders give them credit for. After all, they probably know if they let go of control, internet will evaporate their business models quickly - this might be why they rather call their customers thieves than taking advantage of the model.

Let time be the judge