Apple has
fiercely declined to license it's iTunes DRM to any other online store, thereby
locking out other online music stores from tapping into the vast market of iPod
toting people. Some have said this is a monopoly and this use of DRM is unfair!
In fact, Real Networks got a belly full after Apple refused to work with their
online model, so they purposed engineers for their company to create a
work around they dubbed Harmony. With this software, iPod folks could
now buy music from Real and transfer it to their Apple players. Apple
went into a tizzy, they likened this move by Real to hacking and quickly
"updated" the iTunes software to defeat Harmony. But Real shot back with a quick
fix and there has been harmony ever since.
Now, it looks like Cupertino-based Navio
Systems is going to jump on the bandwagon and they have just gone
public with a promise to crack the DRM as well, so that other online music
retailers will be able to sell downloads that are both DRM encoded and iPod
compatible by early 2006.
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This DRM madness will have to
be stopped someday. It's bad enough that customers are treated as criminals
and their purchases are hobbled with rights removing software, but in reality,
we have to ask if this is nothing more than a system of control for retailers.
After all, couldn't one DRM solution be applied for all of this lossy, 99
cent content? Why should we have to match our hardware purchases with a DRM?
Maybe I like one online retailer, but another's player! In the meantime, I
guess it's buyer beware.
Source: Playlistmag
