While Microsoft offers even more DRM - now for mobiles! - the now full-time blog-supported John Gruber, over at Daring Fireball, who mostly observes the Apple ecosystem, has an interesting post called Command, Option, Control in which he makes a couple of interesting points.
Noting that
there have long been outspoken critics of DRM. Yes, there have long been some publishers and music stores selling unencumbered DRM-free downloadable audio files... But, clearly, what Jobs was writing about wasn't just music downloads in general, but, rather, music downloads from artists belonging to the four major music companies. ... It's one thing when a peace activist calls for an end to nuclear weapon testing; it's something else when the leader of a country that has nuclear weapons does so.
What's interesting, he points out, is that - so unusually in any modern debate involving PCs - Microsoft doesn't matter in the music DRM debate:
Microsoft is a paper tiger in this realm. Their music DRM is only relevant to anyone who has bought one of their music players — which is to say a decided minority of the market. Their Windows monopoly has not allowed them to establish a de facto industry standard here, like it has so many times in the past. The most popular DRM-encoded music format for Windows users is FairPlay; the most popular music player for Windows users is the iPod.
Gruber argues that
Too much Microsoft on the brain can lead you to view Apple — or any other company — through Redmond-tinted glasses. Microsoft's history is rife with instances of lock-in as an important technical goal and core business strategy, often to their legal detriment. Or in Microsoft's own parlance: embrace, extend, extinguish.
That's never been Apple's strategy. Apple's defining corporate desires are maximizing their control while minimizing their dependencies. If the tables were turned and Microsoft's and Apple's positions were reversed regarding music DRM market share, we certainly wouldn't have seen a 'We'd be better off if we just got rid of music DRM' open letter from Steve Ballmer.
Which, one must agree, is a killer point. No matter what Steve Jobs's ream aim was on this (and Jack will have something to say in this Thursday's technology supplement), Apple has surely started something which, I suspect, can only end up with more - irresistible? -pressure on it to sell non-copy-protected, non-rights-managed music through the iTunes Store.
Gruber's piece is a lot longer, and takes in a little light slapping for Paul Thurrott (who deserves it) and Paul Kedrosky, who wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (which personally I often find is a good indicator to being wrong..). Have a read.
