I was befuddled when I saw this on TechCrunch:
Apple Opely Supports Death of DRM
Apple would have been the last company I'd have guessed to write an open letter to the music industry asking for DRM to go away...
Here's what I found most ironic. I started reading one of my research paper resources on DRM last night. The current book I'm looking at is Digital Rights Management: Protecting and Monetizing Content by Joan Van Tassel. Her approach is clearly one of support for DRM and its uses in digital content, however she does lay out all sides of the issue. Van Tassel calls Apple's business model "a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy landscape." I suppose the content industry might not agree with this assessment after Apple's current plea. We'll have to see how this one plays out though.
I suppose Apple had no choice with its DRM to gain the support of the music industry, but that still doesn't explain why their DRM also has to lock users out of other digital content services (see my post yesterday on downloadable audio books.) Of course Microsoft has its own issues too...Plays for Sure doesn't always and I really believe that the Zune is going in the wrong direction with its DRM.
I have to admit that this all plays really nicely into my research :) I love it!
