News to Use: Steve Jobs, Apple speaks out against DRM

DRM. Digital Rights Management. That Pesky little thing that plagues the Digital Music Consumer world-wide. It is the thing that prevents a user from purchasing music from a store such as iTunes, and transferring it to another computer, or putting it on another music player such as the Zune. Heard of it?

In a bold statement yesterday, placed upon the main page of the Apple computer website, Steve Jobs, CEO spoke out against DRM as it pertained to the digital music store iTunes. "Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers." Steve said in his statement. He later quotes statistics that show the Big 4 record companies selling 10 times as much music DRM free through standard issue CD's than through digital outlets such as iTunes.

According to Steve, the record Companies should stop requiring the sale of DRM music at all. "Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy." he says.

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All quotes copyright Steve Jobs, Apple Computer. All rights reserved.