Mr eel
Apple Hobbling the Music Industry?
Well, that’s apparently true according to this article on Business Week. The core argument is that it’s difficult for other music stores like Napster to compete with the iTunes store because of the popularity of the iPod and the lock-in that results — music purchased from the iTunes store can only be played in iTunes or on an iPod.
Well, it’s certainly true that iTunes/iPod audio files (DRMed ACC) aren’t open and inter-operable, they aren’t stopping competitors from selling music that can be played on the iPod. They will quite happily play MP3 and AAC files from any company, but here is the crucial point, as long as they aren’t DRMed.
So now we get right to the core of it. The only thing that is actually making life difficult for these stores, is the major record labels obsession with copyright protection schemes. DRM is not about protecting rights, it’s simply about limiting what music fans can do with purchased music. It’s also a perfect vehicle for creating a lock-in, which is what Apple has done — some people guess it’s so they can sell more iPods.
So, it’s the labels fault. Not Apple. They wanted the DRM schemes, they got ‘em. Now if it starts fucking things up, the labels are the ones we should be looking at.
Stupid greedy bastards don’t know it, but they’re making trouble for themselves.
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