DVD Jon, DoubleTwist crack Apple's FairPlay

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I've got to agree here; I've never heard of ANYBODY buying an iPod just to buy music from the iTunes store. Myself, I've got a mini and a 2nd-gen Nano, and neither of them have a single iTunes file on them. Of course, if anybody really cares, there's the old burn/re-import trick, and it's built right into the software. I'm fairly convinced at this point that Apple's DRM was put in there for no reason other than to get record labels to sell their music with Apple in the first place. The RIAA and associates have consistently shown that they are in favor of DRM, however salutory and ineffective it may be (as to why they should care to the extent they do, I'm not sure given DRM's miserable track record).

Bottom line: until people start buying iPods strictly as a means of accessing the iTunes store, the impact of FairPlay on the user will be negligible.

The real impact of FairPlay is felt at the other DRM stores online, where iTunes eats their lunch because their own DRM implementations don't tend to play nice with the uber-popular iPod. If any of these companies thought they would win market share by supporting a SanDisk or Creative player to the exclusion of the iPod, they've just been betting on the wrong horse and have no right to complain when they lose.

The real problem is that DRM is basically a requirement if you want to legitimately sell music online, because otherwise the record labels won't deal with you. I don't blame Apple for FairPlay any more than I blame Real or Napster for their DRM; the enemy is the ignorant music industry exec who somehow feels that unless music files are wrapped up in layer upon layer of DRM, then rampant piracy will ensue. The truth is that there will always be people who pirate media, but the vast majority of people are fairly law-abiding and, given a reasonable option (like the iTunes store or Real), will pay for their content as long as it does what they want.

Posted by: multanihl   Posted on: 10/25/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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