defectivebydesign.com — One month ago, Steve Jobs pledged to ditch DRM on iTunes -- if only those mean major labels would untie his hands. Well, here are three things that you can ask Steve to do immediately to back his pledge. We'll send him your messages with a big thank you if he takes action -- or mark his April Fools joke by sending him a jesters hat if he doesn't.
Mar 7, 2007 View in Crawl 4
nx910aMar 7, 2007
Why would Apple want to ruin this brilliant PR opportunity?
steveatdownmixMar 7, 2007
Setting a deadline for someone you have no influence over. Brilliant!
realitymonsterMar 7, 2007
Part of the problem with this request is that it's pretty much out of Jobs' hands. I'm sure part of the contract that's signed with the big record labels isn't just that he'll provide THEIR music with DRM, but that ALL music on the store will be DRMed, specifically so there's no 'thin end of the wedge' to show people that there's a better way to get music. When in doubt, assume that the contract that RIAA imposed is the most draconian, hand-tying contract possible. Seriously.
sanityinanarchyMar 7, 2007
Signed and submitted to Slashdot.
sanityinanarchyMar 7, 2007
Signed also. Holy s**t, only had a little over 150 when I signed it -- 874 already!
spinningmindMar 9, 2007
His creation of a monopoly by being willing to adopt a technological/legal system that he admits is hurting users is something we should be ok with just because someday he may decide to stop?
spinningmindMar 9, 2007
> His pledge was to drop DRM if the big-four let him. His argument was that > record labels, Apple, and consumers would benefit from dropping it. Big-four > has not given him permission to drop it. Thus what action did you expect?As you can see by reading the letter what they ask is not that he alter the distribution of the "Big-four"'s products in any way. Rather they ask that independent artists and labels be able to distribute their music through iTunes without DRM when they wish to. At the moment the DRM which he says is hurting the industry and consumers is a mandatory part of iTMS even for those who do not want it. They are pointing out that this is hypocritical.
munchkinguyMar 10, 2007
The iTunes music store sells music from the Magnatune record label, which has *asked* Apple to sell the music without DRM, but they have declined. If Apple was committed to no DRM, they would start selling some songs without it.In related news... Puretracks.com has begun to sell DRM-free songs. Let's hope the trend catches on!
geminitojanusMar 11, 2007
"Seriously, that's not as hard as you are making it. They don't have to make two different system entirely."Yes, they would. The way iTunes is currently laid out, when you buy songs, you encrypt them client side. To change this you would need to be able to somehow tell the client not to encrypt certain songs, which opens the system up to abuse; simply find the command or commands that need be issued to not encrypt a song, and send it when you're about to purchase a song that should be DRMed. Poof, I just bought a song off iTunes that should have been DRMed without it. Significant security flaw. To get around this, you would need a system that always encrypts, and a system that would never encrypt, and the two would need to be incompatible, so that the command structure from one would not interfere with the other. This can be integrated into one system (like AOL Instant Messanger integrates services), but in reality it's two difference services behind one protocol (and in AOL's case, many different services behind one protocol). See how much more complex this is? It could easily take millions to add this to iTunes, which means cutting into the profits of the already barely-profitable iTunes store."They just have to incorporate their current system to allow for sending non-DRM'd mp3's, ogg, flac or something else."The system already does send non-DRMed files. It just sends them bits at a time and encrypts them on arrival. "And the security thing you just pulled out of your ass. Nobody is going to somehow spoof the server into turning a DRM'd file into a non-DRM'd file"People have engineered much simpler hacks to get around much more complex systems. See any MMO ever created.
jerkbotMar 15, 2007
"Don't kill the middle-man."Well the middle-man is making a lot of money off something he doesn't agree with.For some reason the term "selling out" comes to mind.
dannystapleMar 16, 2007
One point to make on the client encryption. Any sufficiently competent cracker would probably be able to create or find a tool to deal with removing the DRM themselves. There are tools around that will strip DRM from tracks bought at iTunes. So why would this be any different. The technical barrier to illegally gaining music content, unDRM'd and even unpaid for is very, very low indeed. The security problem mentioned is a non-issue.The only thing is about legal distribution of non-DRM'd content. In the day and age of the DMCA, then this ability to have two modes (or two stores, or whatever) to allow for more flexible and playable legal content would be great. I would certainly buy more tunes from there if such music was available.