Comments on: Steve Jobs: “dump the DRM”

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:57:20 +0000

Sounds about right, yeah.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:34:56 +0000

And I think the point about subscriptions bears that out: if Apple were so wedded to DRM for lockin they would have exploited the ultimate lockin, the subscription service: but again, I think that people don’t always realise the music goes away when the subscription stops, and again, I think it just undermines the whole concept in the long term, creating all kinds of mental barriers about technology “tricks” when it comes to buying digital content. (No-one in my family really understands DVD regions, for example, they just know that “DVDs don’t always work” and so are quite wary of buying them.)

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:31:11 +0000

Sure, I’m not saying DRM doesn’t have a lock-in effect in practice (although I wonder if the negative feelings induced in people who, as you say, discover DRM in a very annoying and personal way, doesn’t outweigh the supposed benefits, as in “I’ll never buy that shit again”) but I was saying that I don’t think DRM lockin was a major motivating factor for Apple, the way all the Mac haters and the Euro authorities make it out. I think they were indifferent at best, conscious of the negatives I outlined previously, and only did it because of the Evil Labels.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:39:06 +0000

Incidentally Gruber makes an excellent point about DRM – music subscription services don’t work without it.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:38:17 +0000

I’ve never bought the “DRM lockin” argument

I think it’s important. I’ve spoken to a fair number of people who simply don’t know DRM exists until they try to move stuff from one machine to another and surprise surprise, discover DRM then. The worst example, to be fair, is the way in which Windows Media Player tried to DRM your ripped tunes, but the sheer hassle of getting round DRMed stuff (yes you can burn a CD, but it’s a hassle if you have more than a few tunes) is enough to make me steer well clear.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:34:33 +0000

I don’t find this very surprising: I’ve never bought the “DRM lockin” argument; I’ve always seen FairPlay as something Apple was forced into doing by the record companies to be allowed to sell music at all, so the fact that Steve is now ever so delicately pointing out the sheer idiocy of DRM, is not much of a surprise.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:31:37 +0000

Gruber’s posted a typically incisive analysis too.

http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/reading_between_the_lines

If Apple were to allow the independent labels to start selling DRM-free music through iTunes, it would eliminate any doubt as to Apple’s sincerity.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 08:54:46 +0000

Industry analyst Mark Mulligan has an interesting take on this.

http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/mulligan/archives/2007/02/steve_jobs_hate.html

So Jobs et al have taken a strategic decision that now is the time that they can do better without DRM than with. I completely agree with Card that Apple’s priority is selling iPods and that they would happily drop DRM to help that strategy. But Apple have readily utilised DRM as a retention tool to date, it’s just that now events and market conditions have combined to make DRM less key.