Another comment on the SLR lecture: Steve Jobs open letter on DRM

This was another point that Bryan Tan brought up which I think is worth mentioning and baring in mind when one thinks about (or encounters) issues relating to the IPR owners and technology companies such as YouTube, Google, Apple, etc.

Although this was said early on in his address, I think that it has some baring on a later question that was directed at him by an NUS student (in communication or something like that). The question related to Steve Job’s open letter on the DRM (Digital Rights Management) system.

For those who are unaware, DRM refers to any of the preventive schemes or technologies used by publishers or copyright owners to control access to and usage of digital data or hardware, and to restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work or device (I do not have time nor the expertise to go into too much detail here).

Getting back to Jobs, he appears to be sympathetic and supportive of the anti-DRM camp. He says that iPods and iTunes have always been to play music that is not DRM protected. But:

“The rub comes from the music Apple sells on its online iTunes Store. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.

Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods. Obtaining such rights from the music companies was unprecedented at the time, and even today is unmatched by most other digital music services. However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.”

This leads us to the current state of affairs as explain by Jobs:

“with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music. It is a very competitive market, with major global companies making large investments to develop new music players and online music stores. Apple, Microsoft and Sony all compete with proprietary systems. Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods.”

Finally, he suggests that the best solution to the problem 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! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.”

Now before you think that Steve Jobs and Apple really understand us and are all equally victims of these Big “Evil” 4, I want to go to what Bryan said at the lecture.

He said that the rapid advancements in digital and Internet technologies have brought about a number of consequences. One very notable one is that the interests of content and technology owners have diverged. Whereas, in the past, as in the days of the printing press, the publisher was likely to own the technology (ie he owned both the content and the printing press – the technology). In today’s digital climate, content owners and technology owners are seldom the same entity.

Correspondingly, they have different interests. Since humans are all social creatures, any connection would not be meaningful without some exchange of content. Hence, content is required to support the technology. As such, technology owners would willingly sacrifice content owner’s rights if it means that people will use their technology. This is likely the reason why Jobs doesn’t support DRM. Of course, appearing to understand user’s sentiments and aligning himself along with that would help.

Even if things don’t change, Jobs is likely to still be happy. As much as he claims that users are really not locked to iPod or iTunes, quoting many wonderful statistics to that effect, they kind of, sort of, are. Afterall, he did mention that songs purchased on iTunes are locked to iPod. Furthermore, Apple claims to have the best licence ie you are able to make more copies than any other music service providers (up to 5 computers).

One also needs to bare in mind that Apple is by no means a small pawn in this whole “game”. They, after all, own the biggest market share world-wide in relation to the MP3 market. I severely doubt that they are at the mercy of the Big 4 music companies.