...this idea is going to be embraced. Piracy will always exist, and DRM only impacts paying customers. I refuse to use the ITunes music store because of the DRM, but would happily blow my money there if non-DRMed tracks were available.

I do wonder though, with the recent Apple Corps settlement if the real meat of the essay is hiding behind the line "Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others". With the Apple Corp issues out of the way there is nothing to stop Apple from creating a music label and offering their own non-DRMed tracks, regardless of what the major labels decide to do. Jobs already has experience running a content company (PIXAR) and is already in bed with DIsney. I think I can see where this is going.

One of the big four, EMI, has DRM on all their CDs. So saying that none of the cds they sell have DRM is false.

If you can bypass the DRM by holding down the shift-key, does it really count as DRM?

I've heard about the shift-key thing but it doesn't work on my Windows XP.

The EMI drm seems to work pretty well, well enough that it's just easier to download the tracks from a P2P then try and work around the DRM.

So there's a reason to hold onto that old WindowsME running Gateway computer then?

That Steve Jobs line, "...tried to create the first legal place to download music...," is crap.

There have been plenty of Web sites around before the iTunes store where you could download a wide range of music FOR FREE.

Apple has said http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/15/why_apple_is_to_blam.html that even if the record companies didn't want DRM, they'd keep it because, via DMCA, the DRM effectively locks consumers into a platform (iTunes) and a device (the iPod). Apple's DRM protects Apple, not the labels, and it's the same with Microsoft's Zune.

Jobs is dissembling here in the best Bush/Cheney imitation I've ever seen.

If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music. -- Steve Jobs

I'd like to hear him say that every music player will be able to play iTunes files.

I'd like to hear him say that every music player will be able to play iTunes files.

there's no need for him to make such a statement. iTunes files are AAC/MP4. if your player can't deal with that you can convert it to MP3, or Ogg for the real 133t rebel fanboi. inventing a proprietary file format (Hi Sony!) to spite the non-iPod people would be irredeemingly foolish and that's not typically the way Apple operates (the I'm-still-trying-to-decide-why-anyone-would-want-one Apple TV tchotchke notwithstanding).

Jobs' essay admits that despite the success of both, the iTunes store isn't much of a driver of iPod sales. I doubt anyone buys an iPod on the basis of the iTunes store content, but it's a nice extra if you don't feel like buying physical media. so if you have a Zune (oh dear) or whatever other non-Apple player it sounds like Steve-o wants a piece of your business too. why not?

more obviously the essay is a nice way of saying "fuck you" to the big four and the irrelevant RIAA.

as has been noted elsewhere, this essay gives Jobs a way to take credit for a business-model shift we all know is coming anyway. DRM doesn't work and alienates customers. It will go the way of the ivory-billed woodpecker, and Jobs will claim to be the profit in the wilderness.

Steve Jobs is just blowing smoke up our collective asses. If he really wanted music to be free, he would start by licensing fairplay to other companies and then stop trying to defeat other online vendors attempts to get their content onto the iPod.

If the bank wants to take the risk, that's their business. It certainly isn't their responsibility to police immigrants--that's the government's role.