DRM in the Times!

January 15, 2007 in geekiness, links, music, rants, technology

I just came across an article in the Times about Apple’s DRM—Digital Rights Management—the lovely, wonderful technology that only allows you to play songs bought from iTunes on a limited number of computers and on only ONE line of mp3 players: the iPod clan. This is in stark contrast to what you can do (according to a bunch of legal precedent) with the bits on a CD that you buy at a record store. DRM is one of the biggest tech/culture/business collisions right now, the lovechild of the explosion of digital music, file-sharing, and the stubbornness of the music industry in holding on to outdated business models, and I’m really happy to see that it’s getting such unforgiving coverage at such a high profile.

STEVE JOBS, Apple’s showman nonpareil, provided the first public glimpse of the iPhone last week — gorgeous, feature-laden and pricey. While following the master magician’s gestures, it was easy to overlook a most disappointing aspect: like its slimmer iPod siblings, the iPhone’s music-playing function will be limited by factory-installed “crippleware.”

If “crippleware” seems an unduly harsh description, it balances the euphemistic names that the industry uses for copy protection. Apple officially calls its own standard “FairPlay,” but fair it is not.

[...]Here is how FairPlay works: When you buy songs at the iTunes Music Store, you can play them on one — and only one — line of portable player, the iPod. And when you buy an iPod, you can play copy-protected songs bought from one — and only one — online music store, the iTunes Music Store.

</rant> (image above shamelessly ripped from the Times’ site)

And of course, Boing Boing beat me to it.