My slight disagreement with MR’s response
Michael Robertson, the founder of Linspire and MP3.com, has made some interesting points in his post refuting Steve Jobs’s official Apple stance on the issue of DRM on iTunes. He has some good points, but I don’t entirely agree on them all. To run down the list…
Point 1 - Start selling some content in MP3 format in the iTunes store.
I agree 100% here. I completely agree that in order for Steve Jobs to back pack up his statement that he is more than open to remove the DRM format to assist in portability, he should sell MP3 formats on iTunes.
Point 2 - Publish the database format for iPods so other music software can be used.
This I disagree with this. Other software can already connect to the iPod, although unofficially. There is nothing stopping them now and I see absolutely no reason to make Apple open up their format specs. As long as Apple doesn’t make attempts to shut down these other applications, I say leave it the way it is now. It is Apple’s right to lock in their iPod to the iTunes application if they choose to. I will also point out he is mistaking on one point: “The only software that can reliably move files to/from the iPod is iTunes” — iTunes cannot, nor am I certain will it ever be able to, pull tunes from the iPod. iTunes is a one way sync. Perfectly fine by me. I think the market can be a perfect driving force if there so happens to be a large enough demand to require pulling from the iPod.
Point 3 - Open the doors for iTunes software to work seamlessly with other stores.
Again, this is Apple’s own choice. I absolutely no problems with Apple maintaining full control over iTunes and its application. It is like trying to make AllTunes or eMusi.com require their software to work across sites. This is competition. Nothing wrong with that in my book. What would be even nicer, however, if these sites were able to create software that downloaded to the iPod — if they don’t have it already (I admit, I failed in this research).
Point 4 - Make iTunes software for Linux.
Okay, I cannot deny this, I agree with it. It is already MacOSX compliant, so the base code is already there. It shouldn’t take anything more than an API/GUI change to make it work for Linux distributions. I’m all for a Linux version. Hell, I’d welcome it with open arms!
Over all, I think his head in the right place, but I feel his thought process for some of these “requirements” are slightly biased by his current business selling MP3.com. He sees iTunes as a direct competitor, which is exactly right, but doesn’t want to innovate himself to get users (like eMusic or AllTunes as done). Indeed, he seeks to challenge Apple to open themselves up to make it easier for the competition.
Delusioned » Article » DRM Created a lot of controversy.:
[...] proposal. Now the flaming as started. We have the discussion from Michael Robertson, which I responded to pretty much disagreeing with most of what he said. Now we have another mud slinger, Warner Music [...]
Posted on February 12th, 2007 at 10:51 am