Thoughts on Music by Steve Jobs
With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and
iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the
digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its
music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played
on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music
purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods. Let’s
examine the current situation and how we got here, then look at three
possible alternatives for the future.
To begin, it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is
free of any DRM and encoded in “open” licensable formats such as MP3
and AAC. iPod users can and do acquire their music from many sources,
including CDs they own. Music on CDs can be easily imported into the
freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and
Windows PCs, and is automatically encoded into the open AAC or MP3
formats without any DRM. This music can be played on iPods or any other
music players that play these open formats.
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