Almost no one remembers Sony`s rootkit defeat today, like huge avalanche of critics on Microsoft´s account regarding discarding their own DRM (Digital Rights Management) initiative, PlaysForSure, wherefore limiting to topics from Zune Marketplace service for Zune player, although until that moment Microsoft`s vendors thrown the ball to the Apple`s ground by criticizing closeness of Apple FairPlay DRM system. After presenting Zune in North America, Microsoft has no more comments on that topic, but it will be very interesting to see how EU institutions will react about all, having in mind their "mood" considering giant from Redmond.
At the beginning of February, Steve Jobs once again shook electronic and musical industry by an open letter in which he required abatement of protection on music distributed over the Internet, and as main perpetrators for existence of various DRM protections indicated some of the biggest music distributors: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. In his letter, Jobs explained that more than 90% of total distributed music is actually not protected by any protection thus only small amount of purchasers who decided to buy it online, pull their sleeves, given that, in general, DRM-protected music you can listen only on player made by the same manufacturer offering that music online. Theoretically, by purchasing significant amount of protected music, you would be forced to stay in their camp even in the future, given that each new device outside of that camp simply would not support listening of your legally purchased music. Jobs denies that argument by the fact that research have shown how average iPod has only 3% of DRM-protected music, which is very questionable information if you consider that iTunes is available in small number of countries and that not all iPod`s are in function. But, we are sure that Jobs does not have anything against even small percent of music which would eventually make you to stick to Apple`s products. We justify that matter with holly "Jobsology", which conveys that there is nothing wrong to look like BMW due to small market share, so analogically, we can say that your favorite songs are allocated in those tiny 3% provided by iTunes, and wrapped into FairPlay. Suddenly, these songs are becoming rather important when deciding about your new digital player, aren’t they?
As expected, Jobs, mentions even Apple`s FairPlay protection, which is proclaimed as sole liberal protection among all of them on the market. We do not have an intention to start polemics about how house detention could be liberal, but we will be fair and remind you that FairPlay offers unlimited transfer of protected songs to iPod players, option to play particular song from five computers, with unlimited copying to audio CD`s and with option of copying particular playlist from FairPlay-protected songs to CD up to seven times. For a longer period of time, numerous MP3 player manufacturers and music distributors require from Apple to open FairPlay system and license it to other interested parties, which Apple permanently denies, justifying its decision with solely safety reasons. Seemingly fair, but if you consider Microsoft`s Windows Media DRM 10 (PlaysForSure) which is used by dozens of companies, it did not have more safety omission comparing to Apple FairPlay, therefore making entire story slowly loses its sense. Furthermore, Jobs in his essay forgets to mention initiatives like the one from Coral Consortium which advocates for creating of inter-compatibility among various DRM algorithms, without interfering with safety system.
If Jobs did not ˝convert˝ you in the first half of the letter, then his initiative to completely discard DRM and to offer online buyers with unprotected music, like one available on CD`s thus representing 90% of entire world market, actually should do, if it only was honest. Namely, services like eMusic offered unprotected music to all distributors who did not require DRM, while Apple wrapped same music in FairPlay. Maybe before writing this letter, Jobs should demonstrate ˝tough players˝ how this looks like in practice, but with his last paragraph indicating that "2.5 of 4 distributors" are under control by European companies, Jobs showed his true intentions. Norwegians gave deadline to Apple until October 1st this year to open access to iTunes service which will otherwise be forbidden, and similar was announced by other European countries. Faced with those facts and with persistency of "preserving" FairPlay system, Jobs abraded on music distributors and sent them public groan to abate DRM, given there are no indications for opening of FairPlay.
As a man whose company has at least 70% online music market, Jobs was certainly invited to talk about that topic, but it cannot be forgotten that he simultaneously represents the company and its products always ˝closed˝ like a can of sardines, and one of the attributes describing Apple is definitely not cooperation with the others. In situation when huge amount of music is sold unprotected, it’s not fair to put it into the music distributed online, being that buyers should have equal rights disregarding the form of purchasing, and at the same time, it`s flagrant to allude liberation of distribution thereat hiding real reasons. Sometimes, one should look at the mirror and initiate changes with yourself.
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