Music Execs Say Apple's DRM Hurting Industry

EMB Numbers writes "C-Net says last year saw a 131 percent jump in digital sales, but overall the industry still saw about a 4 percent decline in revenue. Some executives at this week's Digital Music Forum East conference lashed out at Jobs, blaming Apple and its CEO for their troubles. The impression at the conference was that Jobs' call three weeks ago for DRM-free music was anything but sincere. As the article puts it, 'Apple has maintained a stranglehold on the digital music industry by locking up iTunes music with DRM ... and "it's causing everybody else who is participating in the marketplace — the other service providers, the labels, the users — a lot of pain. If they could simply open it up, everybody would love them.""

Re:Bullshit

[daveschroeder]

That must be why he allows indie artists and studios to sell their music on iTunes without DRM.

Oh wait, he doesn't.

Oh wait, it's not that simple, and I already answered those concerns in the very post to which you replied:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=222358&cid=180 14768 [slashdot.org]

Re:Bullshit

[grunherz]

Nope, at least not an .m4p you bought from the iTunes music store. Try it and you get a friendly message that basically says "nice try".

Re:Bullshit

[Yvan256]

You only have to watch the keynote where he introduces the iTunes Music Store. He says something along the lines of "and we've added DRM to keep the music labels happy".

It's not bullshit or a PR stunt. Besides, now that he posted his comments, he can't back down. How is that bullshit?

Re:Bullshit

[MustardMan]

Bullshit.

All desktop macs with mice now come with the mighty mouse. Out of the box it's configured for single-button operation with a scroll ball, but a set of options in the mouse software turns it into a two, three, or four-button mouse.

And all new apple laptops come with the option to enable "chorded" right clicking, which is a click on the mouse button while there are two fingers on the trackpad. I personally GREATLY prefer this over the traditional two-button setup on laptops - you've got one large button you can click no matter where your hand is on the trackpad, and you don't have to shift your hand position at all to do a right-click. It's a more elegant and useful solution.

This is the whole point of a mac, though - its not about being fanatical, it's about presenting the user with the simplest set of possibilities, then allowing the more advanced users to access more functionality with more depth on their own terms.

My impression...

[Darth Daver]

is that the music execs' comments are anything but sincere. So they are calling for the elimination of DRM? The RIAA and MPAA are the litigious SOBs who insisted upon it! They are okay with just opening it up without restriction and fundamentally giving the content away, huh? Riiiiiight.

Re:Bullshit

[BVis]

I can't understand why my room mate has to close everything out just to sync his ipod up and get music on it it is kinda a pain if you ask me.

Nor can I. My 3 year old machine (2GHz Athlon) runs iTunes fine.. I don't have to close anything to sync with my iPod. I might have a little more RAM than the average system (1.5GB) but there's really nothing special about it.

I'd have your roommate try a spyware scan and an AV scan. There's really no reason to have to run iTunes by itself.