Now this is interestink.

[kickaha]

Steve Jobs posts an open letter to, well, everyone, on music and DRM. http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

And the general reaction on slashdot is... positive? What crazy bizarro world is this?!?

I love it.

Comments

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Naw, I'm surprised by the fact that (most of them) are taking this as genuine, and not simply as a finger-pointing PR stunt.

As for needing to stick with a player, it depends on the DRM. If you don't mind a transcode, FairPlay lets you burn the bugger to CD... which is then rippable back to MP3 or AAC, without any DRM. Kinda like copying a tape back in the day, with the copy being not quite as clear. :D

I think I was most surprised, as were you, by the fact that it wasn't a 'license FairPlay!' pitch. Given the reasons in the piece though, it makes sense why they've been holding off on that. If the labels really have the right to yank their entire catalog within a specified time period every time FairPlay gets hacked, then hells yes they're going to want to limit who has a copy of the keys. It actually explains nicely why they haven't yet, when everyone has been expecting them to.

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, burning and re-ripping is possible but the kind of folks that will be hunting for rare music on itunes etc are not going to be willing to reduce the quality of the music once they've found it. Which means they either have to stay with one player or re-buy it (which arguably some of them will be willing to do).

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

Jobs has always been leery (at best) of licensing his tech. He seems to have a pathological fear of giving up control of anything. It's why the PC won out over the Apple architecture--anybody could always build to the PC platform, but for, well, ever, nobody but Apple could build an Apple. Competition and copious supply made the PC a no-brainer for the accountants.

(It's also a big reason why the PC platform has historically been buggier than the Apple platform--and why the Apple platform is going to get buggier in the future--but that's another rant.)

So it doesn't surprise me that it wasn't a pitch to license FairPlay.

It also doesn't surprise me that slashdot is knee-jerking. Why does it surprise you? :)