More Boring BS about Jobs

This amazing pic, which has nothing to do with the post below except it's got an iPod in it, is by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson. It's the cockpit of a helicopter speeding up a valley in Hawaii. Spot the iPod. Jurvetson seems to have an enviably adventurous life.

Some thoughts about Jobs' thinking:

* Jobs' call to drop DRM has everything to do with the European governments' threats to legislate against iTunes if the system isn't opened up. But good old Jobso wants the consumer-friendly solution. Instead of licensing Apple's DRM to other companies, he wants to drop DRM altogether.

* Dropping DRM is probably a good way to expand the online music market -- to make it more frictionless, as economists say. Music piracy is already pretty frictionless. Bittorrent is unbelievably efficient for piracy. Instead of individual songs or albums, Bittorrent users are now trading entire discographies. Here's all the Black Eyed Peas albums, all The Decemberists albums, and here's all 5 DVDs of the Beatles Anthology.

* In the history of DRMs, Apple's is remarkably liberal, easy to use and rarely breaks down. Much to my surprise, there hasn't been a major backlash from consumers, or even that many complaints.

* This is certainly not the case with Microsoft's Plays For Sure system, which is so hard to administer, even Microsoft has abandoned it with the Zunes, opting for a much more iPod-like closed system.

* Jobs says Apple won't license Fairplay because it can't guarantee the safety of its cryptography (or "secrets," as he calls it), and may lose the labels' business. But there's got be a Plays for Sure element: it's too complex to deliver the seamless it-just-works Apple experience if dozens of other online music stores and hardware companies are involved. Co-ordinating software and firmware updates between several players just doesn't work, and is a proven marketplace failure.

* There is an element of lock-in with iTunes-purchased tunes, but the real iPod lock is the dock connector, and the hundreds of accessory companies that make gadgets for it.

* Randall Stross in the New York Times last month reports:

"... the major labels have watched their revenues decline about $10 billion since a 2001 peak; meanwhile, revenue earned by the independents has held steady. He said his service offers music from 9,800 labels, each of which has embraced downloads in MP3 format. Only four labels still cling to copy protection, even though piracy has not declined, and those are the four major labels."

Mr. McBride, of Nettwerk, predicted that in 2007 the major labels would finally move to drop copy protection in order to provide iPod owners the option of shopping at online music stores other than iTunes; by doing so, he added, they would “break the monopoly of Apple” that dictates terms and conditions for music industry suppliers and customers. Some encouraging signs have appeared recently. Dave Goldberg, the head of Yahoo Music, persuaded EMI to try some experiments last month with MP3 downloads — a Norah Jones single here, a Reliant K single there.

With sales of physical CDs falling faster than digital music sales are growing, he said, the major labels “have got to make it easier for people to do the right thing” — that is, to buy recorded music unencumbered with copy protection rather than to engage in illegal file-sharing."