The Buzz on the Beats

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Last week, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs called for an end to anti-piracy software on digital music as a way to let customers listen to their downloads on any device. The record labels responded with a mixture of scorn and indifference to the idea, which would disrupt their security measures.

The debate resonated throughout the blogosphere. Readers weighed in on two washingtonpost.com blogs -- Faster Forward, tech columnist Rob Pegoraro's blog ( http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward), and Post I.T., The Post tech team's blog ( http://blog.washingtonpost.com/posttech). Reader feedback was all over the map.

On Post I.T., tech reporter Mike Musgrove summarized the Jobs manifesto, which touched on the ineffectiveness of Digital Rights Management, or DRM, software:

[I]n his letter, Jobs says the company sells the music with DRM attached because music companies insisted on it -- even though "DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy."

Immediately, readers started chiming in. First on the board was "Bernard Meisler," who agreed with Jobs:

DRM does nothing to limit piracy. It's simply a ploy by media companies to sell the same content to consumers over and over.

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Pegoraro, in a posting titled "Steve Jobs to Record Labels: Tear Down This Wall!," noted that Walt Disney Co., where Jobs is on the board of directors, is fond of DRM.

Jobs just rolled a hand grenade down that boardroom table, Pegoraro wrote.

To that, a reader named "Jim" chimed in to challenge Jobs to address DRM throughout the entire iTunes Music Store, notably the movie offerings.

Let's see Steve put his money where his mouth is and release his Disney/Pixar movies without any DRM protection.

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Sam Diaz, assistant technology editor, commented on Post I.T. that the Recording Industry Association of America's response -- "Apple's offer to license FairPlay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough" -- conveniently ignored Jobs's basic point:

Hey, what about Jobs' idea to eliminate DRM software? The RIAA didn't address that suggestion, which was really the headline of Jobs' essay.

But who expected the RIAA to embrace Jobs's proposal? A reader named "Domini" didn't:

DRM keeps people from buying music, and contributes to the financial bleeding of the industry. The RIAA has forgotten that Fair Use is legal. It's getting harder to defend DRM. No one believes the RIAA anymore.

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But bashing the RIAA didn't necessarily mean that readers thought Apple wasn't serving its own interests, as well. "Raul" hypothesized that the Jobs manifesto was all part of a master plan:

1st support DRM to convince the labels to license their music to apple and then once you own 70% of the market (monopoly) and have enough leverage, tell them that DRM was a bad idea so that you can capture the remaining 30%.

Others, such as a reader named "mp," noted that the debate was meaningless:

Give me the details of any song on Itunes and . . . i can have the song in high quality mp3 on my computer, free of charge in a matter of minutes. I fail to see how abolishing DRM is going to inflame this situation one iota.