Sonic Walker

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple has posted a long article titled “Thoughts On Music“, where he is reacting to recent criticism on the DRM of the iTunes Music Store. It is an interesting article worth reading.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right!

As DRM free netlabel I have one thing to say: “If you don’t like DRM, why doesn’t the iTunes Music Store offer DRM free music then?” (at least next to the DRM polluted files)
Nobody is forcing Apple to follow the dictate of a few major labels which unfortunately control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. Look at eMusic, Bleep, Beatport etc., there are enough labels (I guess the remaining 30%) who are willing to sell their music online in good quality and DRM free.