engadget.com — Steve Jobs' open letter about DRM and music yesterday definitely got a lot of tongues wagging, but there's one group that might want to re-read what he wrote. Our old friends at the RIAA issued a response today lauding Apple's offer to license FairPlay. The problem? Jobs didn't offer to license fairplay, in fact he said it would never happen.
Feb 7, 2007 View in Crawl 4
lowerdownFeb 7, 2007
lol
vholdFeb 8, 2007
Eh? The RIAA never lost control of anything. The media companies could revoke all those distribution rights next time the contracts come up for renegotiation, and they negotiated them in the first place.
bdbrFeb 8, 2007
You guys are so gullible. Jobs' letter was just pointing the finger at the labels so he could keep selling DRM that only works on his players. Not happy being Steve's whipping boys, the labels respond by pointing the finger at Apple.
catbellerFeb 8, 2007
Once again: you can export iTunes music from the iPod by burning them to a CD. Then you can do what you like with the exported tracks. You can also load the iPod with non-DRMed MP3's to your heart's content. There is no lock-in to the iTMS.
Closed AccountFeb 8, 2007
" I don't hate Apple but a contract is an agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified. So Apple "agreed""Yes apple agreed to let the RIAA setup shop via their iTunes music store while making an umpteenth of a fracton of profit from the sale of one of their 99cent songs while the iPod, the true money maker of Apple allows you to buy from eMusic, Download illegally from P2P and torrent sites, and rip your very own CD's. Now tell me again if Apple's agenda was to screw over the consumer like you so have boldly stated.
mikedFeb 8, 2007
Boy, are you guys missing the point. You don't get it!Have any of you taken the time to consider the implications of what is going on in Europe? Isn't it ironic that Jobs releases this statement shortly after Norway says Apple has until September to make iTunes interoperable with other devices or get out. Isn't it also ironic that both France and Germany are watching and considering the same if Norway's government wins against Apple?Germany and France constitute a HUGE part of iTunes & iPod sales outside of the US.If Apple does not comply with Norway's suit and they pull out of Norway, that will start the snowball rolling. Think about it. France and Germany come next. Then all of the EU right after that.Read some of the links on this Google search to see that the snowball in Europe is already starting to form because of Steve's statement:<a class="user" href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=norway+apple&btnG=Search+News">http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=norway+apple&btnG=Search+News</a>This snowball that Norway is making could be very devastating to Apple's bottom line.Steve Jobs knows this. He wrote this to try and make the case to Norway that it was the RIAA who is at fault for FairPlay/DRM and in turn the lack of interoperability, which was rejected by Norway who continues to blame Apple.Steve Jobs is trying to save Apple's and the iTunes/iPod's ass in Europe. If he can't, in time he will have to make FairPlay open and that will hurt the iPod phenomenon. It could cost, in the long run, Apple's huge lead in the industry they created exactly because iTunes is tied to the iPod. 90 Million iPods is where Apple makes money, not on the sale of music.Start reading the Apple Annual Report.As for who made whom use DRM?Apple's original business plan for the iTunes/iPod included FairPlay to convince the music industry to trust them. The music industry didn't tell Apple if they want to open a music store they had to use DRM. Apple developed the product with the DRM package and made a sales pitch to the music industry.Before you trash this, slow down and think about when this all happened. There were no legal on-line stores yet to speak of. The music industry had no outlet to make a profit and didn't know how to do this. Apple brought them a complete package.Because the whole package is included in the business plan, Apple was able to build a product and image on a proprietary product that keeps people buying more. From Apple. The plan even called for more Mac sales because of the iPod integration early on.So, the bottom line here is this, in the big business picture globally, it is in Apples best interest for it's share holders, to protect FairPlay around the world and convince Norway to either drop it's case or shift the blame elsewhere and make the RIAA remove DRM restrictions (which Jobs really doesn't want to happen).This is going to be a really nasty fight in the next 12 months. FairPlay must stay intact everywhere for Apple to win and keep making the sales and money it is making from iTunes/iPod currently.By the way, this smacks of the contracts Microsoft has with big system builders to put Windows on every machine. Tie the customer to a single product.
mikedFeb 8, 2007
Just one more thing.You should read this link. It makes my point above more clearly.<a class="user" href="http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37492">http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37492</a>
fluffyarmadaFeb 10, 2007
Nah, they did a good enough job without me. Besides, I finally figured out why my comment display was all messed up! Somehow my viewing option got changed to "most diggs" in stead of "above -4 by date".