[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

There was a link to an article there, but by the comment I'll assume you didn't read it. The big recording companies won't let him sell their music without DRM. If the companies took that demand off the table, he'd certainly sell more music since he'd be able to sell to more than just iPod users.

From here: http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/NewsBru...a/2006/06/15/1

There's a lot of blame to go around, but an Apple lawyer said publicly that Apple would not abandon FairPlay restrictions if the record labels gave it permission to do so.

Of course Apple wants to keep DRM on the iTunes Music Store. If they sold their songs in a non-protected format such as MP3 that could be played on any portable device, they'd sell fewer iPods (full disclaimer: I have an iPod and love it).

More from that link:

On a panel a few weeks ago, I asked the head lawyer for Apple's iTunes Music Store whether Apple would, if it could, drop the FairPlay DRM from tracks purchased at the Music Store. He said "no." I was puzzled, because I assumed that the DRM obligation was imposed by the major labels on a grudging Apple.


Thanks to the recent Berkman Center report on the iTunes Music Store, I think I understand.


So you're Apple, and you make all your money selling iPods. You invest in the Music Store to make the iPod even more attractive, never intending to make much margin on the 99 cent downloads. But here's the problem -- you really don't want every other maker of portable digital music players to free-ride on your Music Store investment. After all, the Music Store is supposed to make the iPod more attractive than the competition.


Here's where FairPlay comes in. It's a great barrier to entry that keeps the iPod as the exclusive device for the Music Store. Competitors who dare to reverse engineer the protocols or otherwise support interoperability find themselves staring down the barrel of the DMCA.