So Steve, you came right out and said it: DRM is a bad thing. Nicely done, blogosphere in a tizzy (I highly recommend reading commentary at IP Democracy, Thomas Hawk, and ReadWriteWeb), good on ya. I liked a lot of what you said resonates well
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.
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So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none.
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Not sure if you saw it, but Ryan Block at Engadget wrote:
But don’t just leave it to the consumer to pressure the record industry, you need to lead the way — that’s why we wrote Microsoft that open letter. You and Bill have more power over this ecosystem than any two people in the world, and the big four knows it. Perhaps The Mac and The PC need to rally the troops (i.e. us) and lead this charge together.
I have an idea for you to “step up” the battle a little further. You wrote “In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores” and we know that a really good chunk of those 2 billion songs were sold by your iTunes store. You want to lead the way for the world? Try this:
Stop selling DRM-protected music on iTunes, period.
Want to change things? I guarantee that causes a reaction.