A few people have linked to
this article called "Prepared to be screwed by digital rights management" written by Charlie Demerjian. Overall it is a great rant about how DRM hurts consumers and why that is bad. I take issue with only one point in the article. The author includes Apple in the list of *evil* capitalist companies because of their DRM Fairplay. During the article he is ranting against *evil* capitalist companies for building "walled gardens", he then moves on to rant about the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), saying quote:
They are composed of the biggest companies in the industry, everyone is there...
Everyone except Apple. Check the
DLNA's roster. No Apple. Mac Minute
confirms this, Apple is not in the gang. Of course, as Charlie pointed out to me in an email, Apple does have 80% of the market share for music DRM... so why would they want to change that?
Yes it is a shame that Apple had to use DRM in iTunes, but do you really think that the record industries would have signed on with iTunes Music store if Apple wasn't using a DRM scheme? No, I don't think so. ITunes Music Store may be the one example of where DRM does benefit the consumer. We wouldn't be able to buy music online today without it (okay this is an exaggeration, but iTMS rocks!). Now I personally feel that Apple implemented their DRM Fairplay under pressure from the Recording industry and not of their own volition, and the fact that they don't belong to the
big DRM club seems to back that up. In fact, Apple may be the only major computer company not listed on the roster for the Digital Living Network Alliance.
I get Steve Job's vision for the future, and I don't see an oppressive rights management scheme as a part of it - at least in my book. Perhaps I'm just a bit too naive.
