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Steve Jobs calls for the abolishment of DRM 4 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • is the failure of iTMS. By all accounts, iTMS accounts for only a tiny percentage of music on iPods.

    I remember when Microsoft was aggressively trying to grow their office software market in the '80s. One of the big advantages they had over many of the competitors is that none of their software had any DRM-like features. No license checks, never a dongle (remember those) needed. Quick and easy to (re)install and backup. Easy to try, easy to use. Sure, people pirated their stuff, but every pirated copy

    • The RIAA will fold eventually anyway. The labels are basically cartells, extorting both the consumers and the artists by controlling the distribution channel. No wonder they’re paranoid about their grip on it. But the internet has long made the whole charade obsolete; to quote Bram Cohen:

      The content people have no clue. I mean, no clue. The cost of bandwidth is going down to nothing. And the size of hard drives is getting so big, and they’re so cheap, that pretty soon you’ll have every song you own on one hard drive. The content distribution industry is going to evaporate.

      Artists will simply start making business with their audience directly, or at least with much fewer degrees of separation than what they get now. There will be new middlemen eventually, but their role and businessmodel will be very different from the labels. The RIAA is obsolete, it’s just that it’s taking people a while to notice.

      As for iTMS being a failure, I dispute that. It is a profitable business and it is by far the biggest online retailer of music. If you want to see what failure looks like, just look at the other online music shops. The only other venue that could be described as successful was AllOfMP3. Telling? Your call.

      • OK, calling iTMS a failure might be a little strong. However, I don't think it's getting the growth that they thought it would.

        But, that's not Apple's fault. I think they are charging too much for DRMd music. I wouldn't consider buying anything from iTMS myself. I have an iPod, I listen the heck out of it, I've got most of my CD collection and tons of good podcasts on it. I won't buy music that I might have to repurchase later, nope, wouldn't consider it even a second. If I like something, I'll get th

        • Oh, I agree completely. I might in fact buy stuff from the iTMS, even with FairPlay DRM, but it would have to be in a lossless format, because my first order of business would then be to burn it in order to get rid of the container, and then re-rip it for listening. And I won’t accept the degradation of re-ripping what was already in a lossy format (lossy formats are OK with me, but only as the terminal stop).

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