Abolish DRM, Set My iPod Free!

Music lovers, iPod groupies and general technophiles have a lot to thank Steve Jobs for. He is responsible to for a dramatic paradigm shift in the music industry, and I’m not talking about getting music companies to license their music to Apple. The shift I’m referring to hasn’t happened, yet. Picture Jobs standing over a pot of water on top of a stove. Into the water, he places a frog and turns on the flame. We’ll get back to this in a moment.

I was listening to NPR either this morning, or yesterday morning which is when I first heard of Apple’s latest move in the music industry. Apparently, Jobs is calling for music companies to abolish their digital rights management (DRM) choke hold, and his reasons are pretty compelling:

  1. DRM Doesn’t Work: Consider the scenario that Jobs lays out in his article: “Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. It’s hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.”
  2. 90% Unprotected: CDs are DRM-free because they have to be able to be played in all types of CD players. Music companies sell way more songs through CD (Jobs says 20 billion songs by CD to 2 billion songs online) than they do online, so why are they making such a big deal about such a small portion of their revenues? I think it’s a control issue. Record labels are notorious for screwing artists out of cash. More than that, an artist is someone you can fire/drop, a CD is something you can hold and distribute. The online world is vapor, and lifting DRM seems like a staggering proposition – it may even seem like suicide.

I love the confidence and Maverick style that’s coming through from Apple here. Lifting the DRM means that iPod users would no longer be bound to the iTunes music store, but I don’t think that bothers Apple that much. First, I’m sure most of the $0.99 goes to the music company. Second, I’m sure it’s incredibly expensive to maintain a water-tight DRM (In fact, they have to or the music companies can pull their entire catalogs if a breach persists for too long). Lastly, I think Apple is very confident in their position because of their iPods and because of me.

Back to boiling the frog

The frog is the music company, and the water is world of digital downloads. The flame is the demand and popularity of digital music, and it’s Mr. Jobs that’s controlling the flame. He made us want music online, and for the sake of beating this metaphor into the ground, he made music online hot. In the end, it will be Apple who is responsible for cooking the frog, and serving us all some delicious frog soup.

This is what I want (besides a heaping bowl of gooey frog)

I have 4 iTunes libraries on 4 separate computers. I want to take my iPod from computer to computer and add each library to my pod. I’m the type of music consumer that doesn’t mind paying for music. I don’t know if it’s the Napster law suit scare from my college days, or because I feel like I’m supporting struggling artists, but paying for music is something I’ve always felt good about. And I will even make Apple a promise. If they open everything, and abolish DRM, I will buy a new iPod. After all, that’s what all this is about, right?

The 4th Screen (Apple’s iPhone, for example)

Media isn’t something we merely watch or interact with for fun. Media is something we consume. Our eyes eat it up, and our brains digest it. Throughout history, media has almost always been fed to the ravenous masses through screens. Movie screens, television screens, computer screens, and now, cell phone screens.

I’ve heard rumors online about an Apple iPhone (cell phone + iPod) for months now, but the New York Times mentioned it in an article today. I think we’re not surprised and are all expecting our desktop/laptop computers to continue shrinking until they are able to fit in our pockets, but proof of this impending phenomenon is evident in the growth of wireless information being delivered by wireless providers.

Cellular carriers reported $1 billion+ for each quarter of 2006 in revenues for wireless information transfer services. To put this in perspective, that puts the US about even with Europe, and about a year behind users in Asia where about 50% are connected to 3-G networks, next generation wireless networks. This trend can also be seen in initiatives by companies like Earthlink who are racing to be the first to create wireless halos around major metropolitan areas (including New Orleans).

More about the 4th screen

Think of Steve Jobs as a drug dealer…(that’s a little strong)…as a Lay’s potato chip dealer. He offers you one. You like it. It’s crisp and clean high technology, but palatable due to its ease of use. He’s got you hooked on his chip and now you’re ready for his next offering. It just so happens that this new taste is similar to the first one, but he attaches much more meaning to this one.

An iPhone is going to do a lot, and I don’t mean as a geeky gadget. It’s going to mean more to you because you’ll be able to control your life, work and play, everything, from a device that fits easily into the palm of your hand. The 4th screen is going to set off an arms race among established behemoths like Nokia and Motorolla, not to mention wake the sleeping mother of all behemoths, Google. But as huge as this stuff is, and as amazing as it’s going to be, I think we (consumers) are going to have more power and control than we ever had before.

It’s as if Jobs taught us how to open a door, and then let us open a door. Now he says open this door. You’ll open it the same way, and it looks the same all glossy and white, but this time instead of a door, it’s a floodgate. Prepare for the deluge, change is a’comin.