desh | (no subject)

Dear Apple,

I have no problem paying for music. I really don't. Never have. I just hate DRM. Refuse to play any locked music, ever. It's not that I want to share music (though I sometimes do); I just like to be able to play things wherever I want. Plus, it's the principle of the thing. So back when JHymn worked on iTunes-purchased songs, I happily bought from you. When you blocked out JHymn, you stopped getting my money.

I still held out hope that I'd come back to you. You're the market leader, after all. For a year or more I've really had no good alternative. I may have downloaded some music through some less-than-industry-supported means, shall we say. And I never did stop buying and ripping CDs on occasion. But for the most part I just got less music. A shame, really.

But now I hear that Amazon has a new digital music store. MP3-based. No DRM (which might not even be possible to put on MP3s anyway). And it's even cheaper than you. I've tried it already, and it's quite nice.

Sorry, Apple. It's over. For good. You're off my speed dial.

Love,
Desh

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And thus you miss the point of the article entirely. The point is not their refusal to license FairPlay DRM... the point is Apple HAS market dominance, in both software and hardware terms. For Amazon to compete with Apple, they have to make music available that plays on iPods - and since FairPlay isn't licenced, it HAS to be DRM-free (and, since Amazon is starting at a disadvantage, it has to be cheaper than iTunes). The music industry would prefer to keep DRM, but Apple has forced it into a corner.

Also, Jobs is no fan of DRM, either. Of course, he's not going to sacrifice Apple Computers to make his point, because he's also not stupid. So instead, he's bullying the music industry around so that it either HAS to adopt a uniform music platform - with DRM - and a uniform pricing scheme (i.e. the iPod, FairPlay, and iTunes) or it has to go DRM-free to acheive variable pricing and more content control (i.e. Amazon's new store). So, quit yer whinin', take the Amazon's $0.89, DRM-free music while you can get it (i.e. until they either renege on their pricing and/or DRM-free-ness or until their music store goes out of business), and shut the hell up. Goddamn hippie.

--Jeff

Your mom.