That's One Hell Of A Meme

And I had to cut it off at the bottom because my screen isn't big enough to capture all the chatter. It's pretty clear the tech blog community is anti DRM and Steve Jobs is our hero today.

Comments

[Erik Schwartz]

Call me cynical, but I see a number of things coming together to make this happen.

1) From a bottom line to Apple standpoint ITMS is not significant (very low margins)

2) iPod won. MSFT took their shot with Zune and it bombed. There is not a real competitive player on the horizon so the defensive positioning provided by DRM vis a vis the player market is no longer necessary.

3) Everyone hates DRM, so calling for its demise when it is no longer necessary to you is kind of a false nobility.

4) (speculation) There's some kind of impending announcement forthcoming about AAPL options and Steve is trying to get out in front of the news cycle.

The thing I think we're really seeing here is the business of selling recorded music is a really bad business. Any number of companies whose biz plans include getting a slice of the margins on music (the 1000 music recommendations services (last.fm, pandora et al)) are chasing air. They might have interesting products but if they're planning to monetize by "helping sell more music" they're in trouble.

[Hank Williams]

Does all this anti DRM stuff mean that they should shut down rhapsody napster et. al, since those businesses are not possible without DRM? Since Jobs doesn't believe in subscriptions I guess that would be fine with him.

[Mark Evans]

I always find it an interesting dilemma about what to do when you come across a blog-able topic, only to discover dozens and dozens of people have already weighed in. The question is: do you just on the bandwagon or decide to sit it out. Does the blogosphere really need yet another person's take on Steve Jobs' DRM dreams?

[Greg Clayman]

Nice use of "blog community" instead of "blogosphere". I think I'm going to start using that as well. Hate the word "blogosphere"...

Re: Hank's comment on Napster/Rhapsody - I think even fervent anti-DRM people understand the need for DRM in subscription services. It's DRM in the the DTO business that is what's under fire here.

[Phil]

"you blocks you stones you worse than senseless things"

jobs plays the fickle plebians like a lyre... so classic...

[steve]

i admit it -- i hate DRM as much as anybody

but i also have to admit -- i love property rights protection (intellectual property, real property, digital property, whatever) as I see such as one of the founding sustaining principles of modern liberal capitalist democracy (previously, the aristocracy could pretty much take whatever property they liked, so long as they didn't interfere with other noble-born folks property.)

and if we erode or eliminate protection of music artists/creators/publishers rights today, who/what comes next? all artists? how about software? patents? etc. and in a world like that, big business wins -- it has the resources -- not the little guy

finally, no matter how much I admire and envy the guy, having Steve Jobs be the voice for the anti-DRM movement is a horrible joke -- sort of like watching the Gates family self-righteously lead the fight against abolishing the estate tax when they have spent countless millions creating elaborate estate plans specifically to avoid paying that exact estate tax (see, they oppose abolishing the estate tax because that would inevtiably also mean abolishing the "step-up in basis" on assets transfered at death, which would cost them many billions more than eiliminating the estate tax would save.) no person more than Jobs, no company more than AAPL, has led the fight against open systems, standards, and platforms.

[jackson]

Steve isn't the enemy, nor is DRM, or even Sony - we are the problem, we've put convenience before content, quantity before quality, and technology before creativity.....your all fools, the mob rules.....

[Michael Chui]

Use SnagIt, Fred: it does scrolling screen captures. Or, more clearly: you can capture all that stuff you couldn't. =P

[RBA]

Well, I have two words for our "hero":

Disney & Pixar

[Hockeydino]

I'm not ant-DRM. I don't understand how anyone expects the artists to get paid or have their rights protected.

Is it strictly going to be on the beloved advertising phantom dollars. Where advertisers will pay bands based on the amount of downloads or hits to their sites? Hmmm...sounds contrived.

Of course if I was a band now, I'd do anything to get on OPRAH or avcblog.com to get all the hype.

curious