Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, just posted what he called "
Thoughts On Music" yesterday. In a nutshell, he discusses "digital rights management" (DRM), or the code applied to digital music files to prevent users from copying them and distributing them over the internet.
The background: in the late 1990s, a music-sharing program called Napster became available on the internet. This program allowed people to take songs stored on their computer and make them available for others to download. Ostensibly, the idea was that people would be able to put their own music out there for others to listen to, thus creating an audience that would not ordinarily be available to people without the resources of a music label. In reality, people "ripped," or took songs off their CDs and put them on their computer, their music collections and made them available for the entire world to download.
Napster started off small, but mostly by word of mouth it grew until millions of people were using it. Millions of songs, from Mozart to Metallica, were available for free. It was big enough that organizations with economic interests in all of these copyright violations got concerned -- the Recording Industry Association of America, representing major record labels, in particular. After months of threats and lawsuits, eventually Napster was shut down. (It later re-emerged in a different form. More to come on that later.)
Napster's argument was that they simply provided software, not copyrighted material, and that they couldn't control how it was used, nor be held responsible if people didn't use the software as Napster "intended." (It's hard to say exactly how Napster truly intended the software to be used, but certainly it had
some legitimate uses.) The RIAA et al's argument was that while Napster did not provide the copyrighted material, the primary function of Napster's software was to enable users to violate copyright law. (One of the factors in the RIAA's decision to go after Napster rather than the individual users who were unarguably violating the law was simply that Napster, as a single entity, was an easier target than the millions of Napster users, plus it was not felt to be a good business strategy to arrest or sue all of one's customers.)
By the time Napster shut down, several other file-sharing programs doing the same thing had sprung up, such as Kazaa and Gnutella. All of these programs were free to download and depended primarily on advertising for revenue. (Users were often forced to install adware and spyware along with the file-sharing program, which created a whole different set of problems.)
It was recognized that people loved the convenience of downloading music. First, one could get music quickly and without leaving the comfort of home. Second, one could pick and choose only the songs they wanted, rather than having to buy an entire album when only one or two songs were wanted. Third, the selection of music available was essentially unlimited -- if it had been recorded on CD, somebody somewhere probably had made it available.
There were two schools of thought within the recording industry. Many felt that nothing good could come from making music available over the internet in any form because it could not be controlled, that the music industry would collapse as people continued to download music without paying for it. Some, though, felt that the future of music was online, because people were not going to give up the convenience of downloading music, and because it would be an exercise in futility to try and stop it. Some even saw an opportunity, a new method of distribution that was far more efficient than shipping CDs around the world, and felt that people would still be willing to pay for music if there was a way to do it easily and for a fair price.
Apple's
iTunes Store was the first big online music store. Their model was to charge 99 cents for any song in their catalogue, or $9.99 for a complete album, regardless of who the artist was or which label produced the music. The major record labels balked at this (and they continue to complain about it), but in the end they allowed Apple to give it a try, but only if Apple protected the music to prevent it from being shared all over the internet without the labels getting their cut.
So Apple created a certain type of file format called AAC for files downloaded from the iTunes Store. (Previously, most music was in a format called MP3; the difference between AAC and MP3 is sort of like the difference between VHS and Betamax -- both formats do basically the same thing, but aren't interchangeable.) AAC files play on any Windows or Mac computer but only using Apple's software, and only on iPod-brand portable music players, because Apple owns this format (sort of like Sony owned the old Betamax format) and for various reasons has not allowed anyone else to make software or music players that will play AACs (unlike Sony, who allowed many VCR manufacturers to make machines that would play Betamax tapes).
AACs (the digital music files) contain code that puts certain restrictions on how people who own the file can use it. For instance, they can only play it on a certain number of computers at the same time, and they can only burn it to CD a certain number of times. These restrictions were agreed on by both Apple and the record labels before a single song was sold on the iTunes Store.
This code that AACs use to restrict usage is a type of digital rights management, or DRM. Other distributors of online music use other types of DRM, but they are all designed to reduce the possibility of copyright violations.
Whatever the form, DRM has a couple of big problems, though: it doesn't work very well, and it inconveniences the user.
One doesn't need to know any more than how to burn a CD and then re-rip it to get around Apple's DRM, and this is a completely legitimate thing to do -- and it fact, it
should be done. Computers crash all the time, sometimes deleting or ruining files, and everyone has had the experience of losing some sort of file at one time or another. Imagine spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on music and then
losing it all to a computer crash. Good thing you backed it all up on CD so you can put it back on your computer, eh? As an aside, you could now use that CD to put all that music onto someone else's computer too, or email it to them, or post it on the internet for anyone to download, because in the process of burning the file the DRM is removed.
So if someone is motivated to get rid of the DRM on a file they purchased (say, to make it freely available online, thus violating its copyright), it's very simple, though not a quick process. It takes a fair amount of time to burn files to CD, and that gets to be a real pain when one has thousands of songs. Most other DRM systems are similarly simple (and tedious) to remove; Apple's DRM isn't unique.
The second problem with DRM is the inconvenience to the user. With a CD, one can play the music on the computer, in the car, on the stereo in the living room, in a portable CD player at the gym, wherever. One can lend it to a friend and they can play it on a CD player made by a totally different manufacturer. One can copy it to a tape and play it on a tape deck instead. These are all perfectly acceptable uses.
With DRM, the user can only play it on a certain number of computers. You can only use it on players manufactured by the music store's parent company. You certainly can't lend it to a friend. These restrictions are significant. What if one has an iPod, doesn't like it, and wants to get a different type of music player? With DRM, either one has to burn and re-rip their entire music collection as described above (which isn't kosher according to most online music stores), or else pay to re-download their collection. That's either a lot of time or a lot of money.
So in summary, in order to protect their copyrights, music stores attach DRM to songs, which is very effective in annoying users but not very effective in preventing copyright violations. This is why DRM is sometimes referred to as
digital rights minimization rather than management.
In fact, some types of DRM have been disastrous. In 2005, for example, Sony started including DRM software on some of its CDs so that when people played the CD on their computers (which is completely legitimate), a type of software called a "rootkit" was installed, which wreaked havoc with Windows computers. It opened up huge vulnerabilities in Windows and allowed viruses to infect these computers. It was an enormous scandal because Sony essentially sneaked this rootkit on to people's computers without telling them, and then it caused huge problems for thousands of people.
Since 2003, the iTunes Store has become a huge success. They have recently sold their two billionth download, and have expanded into audiobooks, movies, television shows and iPod games. Other online music stores have also had varying degrees of success using a several different models -- Microsoft's
ZuneCity is much like iTunes (though it's brand new), for example, while
eMusic allows songs to be downloaded without any type of DRM (because of this, the four major labels will not allow eMusic to carry their songs, so their selection is limited to independent artists and labels).
Napster allows songs to be purchased, or you can subscribe for $9.95 per month and listen to any song in their collection as much as you want (but if you stop paying for the subscription, you can't listen to the music anymore).
Rhapsody is another subscription service. None of these, though, are anywhere near as popular as iTunes, and you can only use certain types of music players with each store. So someone with an iPod can really only use the iTunes Store, someone with a Zune can only use ZuneCity, and so on. (Music from eMusic will work on any player because it has no DRM, and if one is willing to spend the time removing the DRM from other music, then it will also work on any player. But as discussed, that's very inconvenient.)
So this is the background to Steve Jobs' comments.
Basically, Jobs is responding to calls from critics for Apple to allow other brands of music players to play music purchased from the iTunes Store. In his article, he spends some time discussing why Apple has refused to do this, which is interesting enough. But the real meat of the article comes later, when Jobs essentially calls for music labels to give up on the concept of DRM altogether.
That's pretty revolutionary. Jobs has shown a willingness to take on the labels in the past (such as when he refused their demand to allow higher prices for certain songs and albums) but this is really asking them to radically change their thinking. Ultimately, I think that the record companies have no choice. DRM is a lot like airport security -- it's inconvenient and not very effective. However, the labels have always resisted -- hard -- being brought into the internet age, and they seem to be convinced that they can still dictate the rules to people.
It's just not the way it works anymore. Information -- and that's really what digital music files are -- flows way too fast on the internet to be controlled. That's what makes the internet a unique medium in history. And it's not a bad thing that will destroy the music industry. It's a good thing. It's easier for people to try out music that they've never heard before, and people have shown that they're still willing to pay for music if it's readily available. So you have a bigger audience that's exposed to more music that's easier to buy?
If I'm looking to grow a market, what more can I ask for?
So here we are in London, England. We got here Tuesday morning, promptly went to the nearest pub and had fish & chips and a beer (hey, it was like 3 am Winnipeg time, which is the time my brain was still on) and crashed for a five hour nap. But then we were raring to go! We headed to the West End for dinner and to see The Phantom of the Opera. I saw this when it was in Winnipeg (I was about twelve) but it was great to see it again. The sets are incredible, the music is powerful and the story is engrossing. Doesn't really get any better than that.
[Added months later; apologies for the delay.]
