[Fmpro] Steve Jobs on DRM

[Jim Chase]

Claude,
Thanks for the link!
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/


Yeah, Claude, I also viddied Jobs' article in the Seattle PI.
I immediately gave the Mac in my office a swift kick right in its smiley
face, in effigy.

Jobs gave 3 alternative "futures" for digital rights management. Two of
the options suck for him; he would have to give away proprietary secrets,
some of which have been tucked up his butt for a quarter century.  Those two
options were considerate of the music creators, who passively presume
that any of the collected royalties or mechanicals for downloads will
ever trickle down to themselves.

The third alternative for the future -- negate DRM to enable cross platform 
music sharing -- was extremely lucrative for Steve Jobs and Apple Computer's 
iPod, but totally unfair to musicians and composers who create and sell music 
for a living.

Jobs' most blatant marketing figures error: "Today’s most popular iPod
holds 1000 songs."

Correction: "...HAS THE CAPABILITY to hold 1000 songs."  Rarely does a 
buyer/user fill the iPod with more than a few hundred tunes, on average. This 
would increase Jobs' convincing "3% of downloaded tunes" being protected by 
Apple's FairPlay, or any DRM, by a significant factor.  Steve Jobs also 
dismisses the fact that a mere 3% of 2 billion iPod downloads is still a 
shitload of music that can and will be completely ignored by the PROs if DRM is 
negated.

Steve Jobs wants to retain his proprietary license while giving away the right 
of ownership to 60,000,000 music downloads, and pocketing a hefty sum for 
himself...  I used to think the guy was pretty cool.

As eloquent and logical as is Steve Jobs, I don't buy his argument.  I may be 
one of the "3%" who retains full control of my creative property.

The Seattle PI article was titled: "Jobs Too Big For Breeches" earlier
this month (February 2007).

rjchase