Steve Jobs Advocates Abolishing Digital Rights Management
Yesterday, Steve Jobs wrote on Apple's web site that he would support selling DRM-free music on the iTunes Music Store. The reason? It's not stopping piracy, iPod sales won't suffer, and it makes for a happier consumer. He's also attempting to redirect the heat from angry Europeans to where it belongs—the recording industry.
I'm all for it. DRM just makes consumers frustrated and spiteful, encouraging them to pirate more. Besides, users can already swap music ripped from their CDs. There's also a misconception that iPods only play music bought from Apple's online store. Jobs said that, on average, a meager 3% of a typical iPod user's music library is from the store, so the other 97% is already unprotected anyway.
In any case, we'll see how the recording industry reacts. I'm not getting my hopes up, though, since greed and paranoia have traditionally kept them from embracing a changing market and adapting to the demands of their consumers.
Read Jobs' Thoughts on Music.