On April 1, Steve Jobs will either receive a big thank you or a jester’s hat for him to show off to his friends: that’s what the folks at Defective by Design will send him depending on whether he takes one the actions outlined in their open letter. They’re asking Apple’s CEO to prove his love for DRM-free media by doing at least one of the following:
1) Dropping DRM on iTunes for independent artists
2) Dropping DRM on iTunes for Disney movies and video
3) Taking a public stand against DRM and legislation mandating DRM by funding a campaign to repeal the Digital Millenium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) prohibitions.
While these are mildly interesting ideas, you can bet Steve would rather receive a jester’s hat than comply with Defective by Design’s demands, as he’s not known for having his decisions influenced by the outer world. Plus, the disadvantages of having a mix of protected and unprotected music in the iTunes Store have been outlined before, and with Jobs’ one dollar salary, I’m afraid feeding his family will take priority over funding anti-DMCA campaigns (I kid, I kid). Nevertheless, it would be a nice surprise to see anti-DRM action taken by Apple in the coming months. Or at least see Steve wearing a jester’s hat at his next keynote appearance — we’ve seen far worse.
[via digg]
I really wish people would drop the Disney bit. Steve is the largest individual shareholder, he does not--by far--control the company.
Largest shareholder != majority.
And why on earth would he fight against DMCA? Where's the benefit to Apple?
That leaves only one option. I agree with the consistent experience argument, but there has to be a starting point, right? You won't get everyone to go along until you can prove that they won't lose their shirts. Personally, I wish Steve offered an advance or guarantee to EMI to sell its catalog without DRM. That would have shut these people up.
The fact that Jobs is the largest stockholder and that Disney was the first to jump on selling movies through iTunes and one of the first with TV shows is probably NOT a coincidence. It seems clear he has a lot of sway at Disney so convincing them to offer their movies and TV shows DRM free doesn't seem outside his abilties.
As for what non-DRM music gets Apple, possibly a larger customer base because of the added value that non-DRM material gives customers.
The consistent experience is a weak argument at best for why Apple couldn't offer DRM-free music. As the linked article stated, why not just a simple "No DRM" marker consistent with the "Explicit" and "Clean" markers? I don't think it would be necessary to mark DRM'ed tracks as that would be the presumed default. Also, iTunes could perform a check when burning a data CD and state that there is a mix of DRM and non-DRM tracks like it warns about putting audio and video in the same playlist (it would be nice if it did that now anyways).
I think it would be great if Apple offered DRM-free tracks from those artists that don't insist on DRM. As the previous post (and the Daring Fireball article it is referring to) has already pointed out, the consistent user experience argument is pretty weak.
Right now, I'm dumping $30-40/month on emusic. As soon as Apple started selling tracks without DRM, that money would go straight to the iTMS.