Why Hasn’t Apple Gone Completely DRM Free?
A post on Hyepbot today reminds me of the letter Steve Jobs wrote last year about music and DRM.
In that letter, Jobs outlined why Apple still uses DRM. He wrot about why Apple won’t license their FairPlay DRM technology. Why it makes sense for DRM to just go away. What we as customers can do to convince the labels that DRM makes no sense.
All right. But why, more than 18 months later, is Apple still selling DRM music? The EMI catalog can be purchased as DRM-free tracks but the other majors are not part of iTunes Plus.
Hypebot outlines three possibilities. Check it out. They have a little poll going with the following questions:
- THEY CAN’T - Some labels hate Steve Jobs so much that they want to give competitors the DRM free edge.
- THEY DON’T HAVE TO - Sales at iTunes continue to grow. Why make the switch?
- THEY DO WANT TO - Jobs wants to control to keep the Apple iPod iPhone iTunes ecosystem as closed as possible as long as possible. After all, it helps sell stuff.
The DRM issue is a nagging one for Apple. This past week, the BBC criticized Apple for its reluctance to share its DRM so Mac users may download content from the BBC’s iPlayer. Mac users may stream from the BBC to their computers or their iPhone but they can’t download.
Apple’s reasons for not licensing its FairPlay DRM speaks to the core of the Apple culture. Secrecy comes first. Some have claimed this goes back to Apple’s beginnings and it claims that Microsoft copied its technology. The rest is history.
Jobs biggest concern is about leaks. FairPlay DRM has to be a secret. Otherwise, he claims, it will get leaked to the Internet and the protected music on iTunes will go away. A patch would have to be created. Millions of devices would have to get an upgrade. If it got really bad, the labels would have the right to pull their libraries.
This is speculative at best.
Further, Apple has no reason right now to share anything. On mobile devices, the lions share of music is played on the iPod and increasingly, the iPhone. If Apple licensed the DRM then it would open the competition to any number of devices that cost as little as $20. That could pose some serious business model issues for Apple.
There are also questions about the success of iTunes Plus. It’s unclear if the model works to sell higher quality music at a higher price. If that model is not working there may be less incentive to push for DRM free music from the labels.
In any case, it looks like it may be quite some time before Apple goes completely DRM free. We’ll see if Apple really wants such a future.
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