Digital Rights Management (DRM) has been a mainstay of music purchased online ever since legitimate music download stores first appeared on the web. DRM helps guard against piracy by "tying" a music file to a music player or computer and only allowing authorised systems to play the purchased file. This is done to minimise the sharing of music over peer-to-peer networks, as other computers would not be able to play the downloaded music.In an open letter posted on Apple's website, Steve Jobs addresses the issue of DRM and what he sees as the future of music. Each major player in the music download store market has its own version of DRM. iTunes, Napster, Microsoft's Zune Store and Sony all compete in the same market and, in the case of Apple, Microsoft and Sony, all their proprietary DRM systems tie downloaded music files to their portable music player products.
Apple's iTunes player has recently passed an important milestone, reaching the 2 billion download mark - so you might be forgiven for thinking that their position with regard to music downloads is comfortable to say the least. However, with 90 million iPods sold, this means only 22 songs per iPod are tied to DRM, clearly showing that users are not solely using download services to acquire their music.
In his open letter, Jobs also explores the possibility of licensing the FairPlay DRM technology that is used in iTunes and on iPods, but quickly dismisses this as being too risky, citing updates to the technology and leaks of DRM secrets as a major concern.
However, Jobs ultimately speaks of hope and optimism for the future in addressing DRM-free music. This would mean that any store could sell any song for download and any player could play any song that had been downloaded. Jobs states:
"This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat."
As Jobs spells out in his essay, the use of DRM severely hinders new start-ups in the music download market, and is disadvantageous to consumers because they cannot play music which they have legally downloaded on any player. Only time will tell if the 'big four' will come around to Steve Jobs' seemingly more liberal way of thinking.
