By now, the news about Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Music” have made its way down the Mac Mountain to the unwashed masses.
For thoughts on whether DRM protection should be eliminated (a.k.a. you could whatever the f@#k you want with your music) or whether they should intact, you can go here but what I find particularly impressive and astounding is the enthusiastic reaction to Jobs’ opus. In little time after his Deep Thoughts were unveiled, there were dozens of blog posts. Today, Techmeme is awash with posts (there must be at least 150 posts…and counting). It really talks to the marketing power/aura that Jobs and/or Apple possess these days.
Sure, Jobs’ view on DRM is newsworthy but everyone seemed so keen and willing to immediately jump on the bandwagon as soon as possible. As an active blogger who likes being part of the “conversation”, I questioned whether adding my two cents was really worth it. What could I add to the conversation that hadn’t already been said by someone else? Would my views be valuable or just made the echo chamber that much louder?
In any event, Jobs got the reaction he wanted yesterday, which is not at all surprising given he’s such a master marketer/manipulator. He had a message to deliver (kill DRM but Apple really doesn’t want to lead the charge), and he got an awful lot of help yesterday.
Update: Norway has responded to Jobs’ Thoughts by essentially telling Apple to solve its own DRM problems.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Steve Jobs
2 Comments
Hi:
My take on this is that, in the face of increasing pressure on Apple from European countries about their DRM, Steve Jobs is clarifying the reasons why DRM is there in the first place-namely pressure from the music companies-and also, to the benefit of consumers, clarifying that Apple would go along with DRM-free music if the music companies agreed to do it. They are the ones who wanted DRM, not Apple. For Steve Jobs to clarify this makes absolute sense to me particularly in light of the current pressure on Apple from the countries in question. If that isn’t ‘leading the charge’ I don’t know what is. Apple’s innovation with the iTunes Music Store & iPod ecosystem came at price-DRM. Hopefully now we can move on-and what’s he’s suggesting may help get us there. This to me isnt’ shirking Apple’s responsibility-it is clearly explaining why the situation is what is and what needs to be done to change it.
It is clear that 90% of music sales, CD’s, are DRM free and 10% of music sales, online, have DRM.
It’s obvious that if most music can be ripped DRM free and posted on P2P sites then the other 10% does not need DRM to prevent the very same thing from happening.
It’s also obvious that DRM is not Apple’s idea, it is a requirement of the copyright holders. They want Apple’s product DRM’d but they do not DRM their own product. Talk about unfair retail practices.
The Labels do not have a leg to stand on. They must forget about online DRM. Consumers rights groups the world over demand interoperability. Only The Labels can give that.