Steve Jobs vs MR

So I just read Steve Jobs’ open letter on DRM and the iTunes store and I was just beginning to craft a response to post here. Then I got my Michael’s Minute email and found that MR had beat me to most of the points I was going to make. Of course, when reading these posts one has to remember that Steve is trying to push Apple, iTunes, and the iPod, while MR is trying to push open standards - which is covered by his MP3Tunes.com offering. To his credit, Steve has done an amazing job opening up digital music to the masses. To HIS credit, MR had the epiphany the industry is heading towards in 2000.

Both of these guys are talking about opening up DRM and really getting to the heart of what consumers want. They are both technologists and it shows, the difference being MR jumped first with ideas that were WAY ahead of their time. Jobs played it a little safer (although in all fairness he was sitting on billions in the bank and a company with a solid revenue stream while Michael had investors money and wall street to answer to) by waiting for the dust to settle a little bit after Napster and then walking in to the record labels like some kind of savior. Clearly Jobs emerged the winner from that scenario, after a 400% increase in his stock price while MP3.com was sold for cents on the dollar to Vivendi then CNET. He may be smiling now, but Michael must get some small satisfaction from knowing the industry would love to have his my.mp3.com now instead of suing it into oblivion.

My favorite point to make in discussions with “industry people” is that although they make a big fuss about releasing digital music without a DRM system, they do it millions of times EVERY DAY. Nearly every CD you have ever bought is digital music with no DRM, and I am glad both of these guys make that point, although now I will have to come up with a new favorite point. Here is my favorite exceprt from Jobs’ rant:

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

At any rate, I am sitting in a hotel in hollywood and really shouldnt be on my laptop, just had to comment on these industry heavyweights helping shed some light on a seemingly simple problem. Happy weekending!!

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