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June 19, 2006

itms

The bits will fall as they may

Authored by Dan Moren at 9:06 AM
Category | Music » iTMS
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defectivebydesign.jpgAn editorial in this morning’s Boston Globe takes anti-DRM protesters to task for protesting the iTunes system. The piece tries to justify its criticisms by focusing on the very real allegations of sweatshop conditions in factories that assemble the music player.

But the iTunes-iPod system works superbly together, and the songs play exactly as Apple says they will. Its biggest defect, if the London Mail on Sunday is to be believed, is that iPod players are made under sweatshop conditions in China.
DRM is a very contentious issue, to be sure, but I think there are few who would disagree that the conditions of the workers making the product are far more important.

Still, the argument of DRM is one of those tricky matters of principle and it’s unlikely to go away. In fact, it’s only looking to get worse. While Apple’s system may be acceptable for ninety percent of the people using it today, it’s the precedent that’s important: the precedent of eroding consumers’ rights. And while most consumers might seem apathetic about it right now, all it’s going to take is the development of a killer app whose use is prevented by DRM. When consumers start to wonder why they can’t use their TotallyAwesomeNewMediaDevice™ with the songs they legally purchased from iTunes, well, we may have a different story on our hands. And to those who will insist that Apple allows this by burning the purchased music to CD and re-ripping it, I simply ask how much music you’ve bought from the iTunes store and how many CDs you plan on burning.

For now, iPod+iTunes is king, but if history is any indication, this will not always be the case. History has also shown that media industries are rarely content with the status quo; while they may appear to have given up on this round, I wouldn’t bet against them looking for new ways to control content, even at the expense of you and me.


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