Death to DRM

The head of Apple has done a great thing. Called for the end of DRM. And this from the guy who gave us iTunes and the iPod. Yes!

Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, jolted the record industry on Tuesday by calling on its largest companies to allow online music sales unfettered by antipiracy software.

The move is a gamble for Apple. Its iPod players and iTunes Store have defined the online music market, and they have much at stake in the current copy-protection system.

Under terms reached with the major record labels, online music stores embed software code into the digital song files they sell to restrict the ability to copy them. Because Apple uses its own system, the songs it sells can be played only on the iPod. That limitation has drawn increasing scrutiny from European governments, pressure that Apple has recently begun to acknowledge.

Mr. Jobs’s appeal, posted on the company’s Web site Tuesday, came in the form of an essay titled “Thoughts on Music,” but in essence it was a letter to the “Big 4” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI.

DRM is a joke. The RIAA will never stop downloaders. More importantly, DRM stands in the way of music sales. Watch. Years from now, when DRM is forgotten, music will be doing gangbusters from downloads. 

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