There are three types of pirates:

Type 1: Individuals and institutions who create illegal duplicates for financial gain
Type 2: Irresponsible and ignorant music fans who "spread" the music by freely exchanging them, putting them on P2P networks
Type 3: Consumers who don't believe in paying for music and want to get it free from Type 1 & Type 2 pirates above!

Let's look at the evolution of music technology:

1. Prior to LPs –> no recordings, only live music, no chance for piracy!
2. LPs –> recording was done in factories, not available to consumers, so very less or no piracy
3. Audio Cassettes –> more music could be stored per unit (compared to LP), more portable, recording equipment accessible to consumers –> Increased Type 1 piracy and some Type 2 piracy
4. CDs –> Easy to store and transport, extremely easy to copy, selected tracks can be copied since random access is possible, very easy to mass-copy with compression technologies like MP3 freely available, very easy to share with a large number of users using internet –> dramatic increase in both Type 1 [some people put free/illegal content on their sites to attract traffic and earn ad revenue) and Type 2 (ignorant music fans who think they are doing a "service" to the society by "sharing") piracy; Type 3 community grows without bounds and "free download" tends to become the de-facto option for acquiring music

Who says DRM isn't necessary? How do you protect your music if you were someone who has INVESTED his/her money on making music?

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I have been buying music from both iTunes AND eMusic and I find absolutely no problem with iTunes DRM or no advantages of DRM-less eMusic downloads. What I really care for is:

- Ease of finding the right music
- Ease of accessing content metadata (like reviews, user playlists, artist bio, recommendations etc)
- Ease of downloading and managing the downloaded tracks

Though eMusic doesn't have DRM, and it is a lot cheaper to buy from there, I still consider iTunes as far superior because it is a "one stop shop" for all music and it is so easy to find what you want... eMusic is designed to let users download AS LESS AS POSSIBLE [obviously, they want your unused subscription money] whereas iTunes is quite the opposite. It is far easier to sample the music on iTunes.

What Steve Jobs has proven is that more people may like to get the music from "good" places if it is easier and cleaner that way…

I conclude that there should be some kind of DRM, even if it is not as restrictive as the current technologies, music companies should have a way of identifying Type 1 and Type 2 pirates, who are the souce of all piracy.

As Dave implies above, this is a cynical PR ploy (that appears to have succeeded judging by some of the comments above) to blame the record companies for requiring Apple's DRM scheme, which is currently the subject of antitrust suits in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and several other countries.

A. The only way they could sell music directly to consumers was to either sell unencrypted MP3's ala the Norah Jones project which was a complete disaster or sell content using WMRM which does not interop with iPods.

B. Apple has all of their customers names, email addresses, credit card numbers, CV2 codes, Zipcodes, phone numbers etc and for all the great success iTunes has been for the Music industry at large, they are still back to ground zero in terms of building their businesses online.

There are two simple outcomes that resolve these impasses.

1. Apple needs to openly license FairPlay as Microsoft licenses WMRM and port it to their devices like Samsung, Toshiba, LG, AudioVox etc.

2. The Music industry should not wait for #1 above and take their future into their own hands, license WMRM and move forward. The distribution channel and device market and audience is there and one need look no further than AmericanIdol.com who sold 250,000+ encrypted WMA tracks in one week.

Steve Jobs is a markeeter at heart and it's clear his recent letter is entertaining to say the least. :)

Regards,

Christopher
2.

The record labels have no idea how to market their product on the internet. And eventually they will pay the price in market share.