So, everyone and their brother’s mother’s cousin’s twice-removed Uncle’s step-children are linking to (and commenting on) Steve Job’s Thoughts on MusicDRM in audio files.
I’ve read about 3 or 4 commentaries. I thought that Ars Technica’s was interesting, and read some other one that said that DRM has made Apple rich (followed by another one arguing that the ITMS is actually a loss leader). (yes, I know, I need sources, but this isn’t quite the point of this).
I usually avoid commenting on what everyone else is commenting on. But I had to add a voice, to a point that I haven’t seen yet, but I’m sure that dozens of others are making:
The labels, their public idiocy in statements aside, absolutely know that DRM isn’t preventing piracy. While they keep pointing that out and sounding completely stupid in their statements about it, the major labels aren’t run by stupid people. They are run by people hell bent at all costs to foolishly control everything they possibly can.
They don’t want DRM to prevent piracy. They want DRM because at their core — if they could make the honest consumers pay some kind of payment each and every time you play a music track “owned” by a major label they would. They want royalties on your own listening to their managed product. They already do everything they can to control production, packaging, distribution, and broadcast — and if they could control listening, they would just be ecstatic.
This unsubstantiated, but correct, opinion has been sponsored by the Eagles’ songs Hotel California and The Last Resort
Shortly after Jobs’ statement was posted, Apple was sued by Apple Corps for the unlicensed use of the word “Imagine”.