This day in Engadget: Steve Jobs calls for an end to DRM
By Laura June 
posted February 6th 2010 6:11PM
posted February 6th 2010 6:11PM
Welcome to 'This day in Engadget', where we crack open the archives and take a whimsical look back at the memories and moments of our storied past. Please join us on this trip down random access memory lane.
On February 6th, 2007 Apple CEO Steve Jobs published his "Thoughts on Music" letter. iTunes was by then the major player in online distribution, and the iPod had become the widely recognized face of portable music. DRM was controversial and pretty much universally disdained, and Jobs took the opportunity to write a letter pinpointing what he thought were the three options moving forward in the digital music distribution model. Essentially, he felt Apple (and the rest of the music loving world) had three choices: stay the course (DRM intact), move to the company's FairPlay licensing model, or envision a future which was DRM-free. Jobs made no bones about it: he and Apple hoped to "embrace" the end of DRM (under pressure from the EU, of course). Arguing that DRM hadn't stopped piracy, he conveniently called for the major labels to license their music to Apple DRM-free. On January 9th of 2009, Apple did announce that some of the music in its iTunes store would be purchasable DRM-free, though it still makes use of FairPlay for apps and video. Jobs will have to continue fighting the good fight, we suppose.
Also on this date:
February 6th, 2009: The Kindle 2 seemed like it might be leaking (it was), Roku moved into private beta with Amazon Video on Demand, and Microsoft denied it was making a phone.
February 6th, 2008: Ford announced it would offer its F-150 with an in-dash computer (amongst other things), a bunch of undersea cables were reportedly cut leaving much of the world with no internet and no Engadget, and the Xbox 360 HD DVD player hit an all-time low price of $130.
February 6th, 2007: Apple asked the FCC to keep its iPhone secrets confidential until the 15th of June, Hasbro recalled nearly a million Easy Bake Ovens to the dismay of little girls everywhere, and Sony Ericsson officially outed its W880 (Ai) Walkman musicphone.
February 6th, 2006: The PSP was officially rumored to be getting both email and GPS, LG outed its F3000 cellphone which went 'vroom vroom' whenever you got a text, and Mobile ESPN went live.
February 6th, 2005: The world was a flutter with the news of how to unlock a GSM Treo 650, while signing up for a year of Napster to Go brought with it a free iRiver H10.
February 6th, 2004: Hey, Engadget didn't exist yet!
Also on this date:
February 6th, 2009: The Kindle 2 seemed like it might be leaking (it was), Roku moved into private beta with Amazon Video on Demand, and Microsoft denied it was making a phone.
February 6th, 2008: Ford announced it would offer its F-150 with an in-dash computer (amongst other things), a bunch of undersea cables were reportedly cut leaving much of the world with no internet and no Engadget, and the Xbox 360 HD DVD player hit an all-time low price of $130.
February 6th, 2007: Apple asked the FCC to keep its iPhone secrets confidential until the 15th of June, Hasbro recalled nearly a million Easy Bake Ovens to the dismay of little girls everywhere, and Sony Ericsson officially outed its W880 (Ai) Walkman musicphone.
February 6th, 2006: The PSP was officially rumored to be getting both email and GPS, LG outed its F3000 cellphone which went 'vroom vroom' whenever you got a text, and Mobile ESPN went live.
February 6th, 2005: The world was a flutter with the news of how to unlock a GSM Treo 650, while signing up for a year of Napster to Go brought with it a free iRiver H10.
February 6th, 2004: Hey, Engadget didn't exist yet!
@hey buddy
Here is the story from Engadget. Keep in mind that not all labels required DRM at this time, in fact some never did. You can google for further reading.
"No telling how this will end up playing out, but we're sure Apple isn't going to give up its little cash-cow ecosystem without a fight."
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/24/france-and-germany-pile-on-the-eu-itunes-anti-drm-pressures
@Marbles Red herring. The EU was pressuring Apple to share their Fairplay technology, not drop DRM entirely. And, as I said in my previous reply "supporting" your position, Apple is under no obligation to share a technology they developed and continue to use for the other content available in the iTunes store.
"seemed like it might be leaking"
Star Trek for the win! :D
Wow, the Engadget design has certainly changed (for the better!) quite a bit since then. And thank god Microsoft has finally gotten IE to a usable place with 8.
Wow, if this is a new site feature, i'm hooked. It's fun to look back at the past and see how far we come.
Engadget please make this a daily feature on here.
Agree you should be allowed to do what ever you please with your purchase and not be restricted by money grabbing company's that only let you use it on their device
@Eternity If by hell you mean the East Coast
@Spiraling Shape
I mean this will happen when hell freezes over.
Way to go, Steve. Now all he needs to do is let people install what they want on their iphones and it'll actually be accurate.
@Nolano - You do realize this article is about PAST Engadget posts, right? Steve didn't just write the letter yesterday...
@MRCUR
You do realize he is just making fun of the way engadget presented the whole story, like pretending Jobs took this stance out of a strong personal belief that people should have control over what they buy.
He was, subtly, trying to underline the fact that this "choice" Jobs made to call for an end of the DRM is in total rupture with his general policy.
@Flix C
No it isn't. In what possible way could it be in Steve Jobs' best interest to support DRM? Her sells music, videos, TV shows etc. through iTunes. He doesn't OWN the content, he SELLS it. It makes absolutely no sense - ZERO - to assume Jobs actually wants DRM on the music and movies he sells. From Apple's perspective, all DRM does is makes things more difficult for the end user.
@Jack
Here's a scenario.
5 friends that all own iPods and want the same album. With DRM Steve sells 5 records, taking his cut for each sale. Without DRM, one friend buys it (or they split the cost) and then the other 4 simply copy the music into their collection.
Can you see why Steve might want DRM?
@bjsguess
No, and that's a fairly stupid example. People are either going to buy music or they're going to steal it, and it's been proven pretty conclusively that having DRM on music tends to make people want to steal it more than buy it.
It is not in any way in Apple's best interest to have DRM on their music. At all. And it never has been. You think you can prove that Apple's sales have gone DOWN since they removed the DRM? Go for it. Let me know how that works out for you.
The reason the iTunes store is popular is because it's convenient. Having DRM on the music makes it inconvenient, or at the very least less convenient. It's that simple.
> No it isn't. In what possible way could it be in Steve Jobs' best
> interest to support DRM? Her sells music, videos, TV shows etc.
> through iTunes. He doesn't OWN
It forces you to buy his hardware in order to play the content you bought from him. It's classic vendor-lock. You are trapped by your past buying decisions. Moving away to some other product becomes remarkably more difficult and expensive.
@jedi
And you think by making it LESS compatible that it will sell MORE? Even Jobs knew that the way to sell hardware was to let you use whatever music you want on it, from any source. And he was right.
Were you aware of Apple's "rip, mix, burn" campaign? Apple was specifically advocating for using iTunes to rip CDs to iTunes, make playlists and burn them to CDs. Does that sound like a company who wants to put DRM on everything? Really?
And finally, it was pretty common knowledge that you could buy songs from iTunes, burn them to CD and re-rip them with no DRM. Do you really think Apple would have let you do that if they believed in DRM as much as you think they did?
Again, Apple knew right from the start that the iPod would be more successful if you could put music on it from ANY SOURCE. The iTunes store was there to make it more attractive to buy music rather than steal it, but once again I will point out that Apple did not OWN the music. The LABELS did. It was NOT in Apple's best interest to put DRM on the music.
@Eternity
That's what Blizzard deserves for not releasing Starcraft 2 yet.
@Harrison
Bitches don't know 'bout your additional Pylons.
Jobs was/is such a hypocrite. On the one hand he publicly denounces DRM, then turns around and wants to "offer" me a chance to convert all of my previously purchased iTunes music to DRM-free versions for $150. WTF? From that day forward I have (and never will) purchase another title from iTunes.
apple is against DRM. This is why i love apple.
Now if only we could get rid of the DRM on the iPhone so I can install things from outside of the App Store or have more control over transferring my media without iTunes (or something that must reverse engineer it).
Am I the only one who wishes when he clicked on the "Old" news, it also brought back the OLD design?? Just for nostalgia...
It's funny how bad the site looked in 2007, yet I thought of it as being very fresh and new.
Forget it Steve Jobs. I'm sick and tired of converting my MP3's to be compatible with your iPods. That's why I'm never buying another iPod mp3 player ever again. That's why I have a ZUNE MP3 player. Any Mp3 player is better than the iPod due to their restricted files that's why you suck. Even though your protecting your hardware, but what bout the software?
@Inspector Gadget80
What? iPods with with MP3s just fine. Are you confused or something?
@Inspector Gadget80
LOL, have you ever actually used an iPod? Ya marnis!
@Inspector Gadget80 "I'm sick and tired of converting MP3's to be compatible with your iPods. That's why I'm never buying another iPod >>>mp3
@Inspector Gadget80
What??? My iPod plays any MP3 i throw at it just fine. I choose to rip in AAC since it is a more efficient compression algorithm.
And this story isn't excluded from exclude/apple ???
Here's how to get mp3's that aren't DRM:
Don't buy from Apple iTunes;)
@Wesley It should be!
that imagine of IE is disturbing
After sending the wolves after Psystar, repeat name copyright infringement, and locked down Apple ecosystem (can't even unlock your purchased phone), you have no leg to stand on now pretending to be the friend of the little man Steve. o-O
@Ducman69
And yet you can buy unlocked iPhones in other countries. So where do you think the problem is again? Stop making really bad arguments. Also, Psystar? Really? You did notice Apple kicked Psystar to the curb, right? There's a reason for that, let me know when you figure it out.
Jobs never wanted DRM on the iTunes store at all, but it was the only way the labels would let him sell their music. So whose fault is it again? Think about it.
Of all companies that would say content should be DRM free, right now you cant even use Virtual Box to boot OSX as a guest without modification because apple is so "DRM" about their OS. But glad to know they agree with other people that once you buy a song or video (you should be able to put it on the 42, or 24 devices you own) without having the DRM reaching from the legal desk controlling what you can do with the content you own.......!
@cosmicinglewood
You know what? You can't play PS3 games on Xboxes either. So let's crucify Sony and Microsoft for making their game consoles "so DRM", shall we? In fact if you really believe that a company shouldn't have control over how their own hardware and software works, maybe we should go after every company that makes anything that doesn't work with everything else.
Let's start with Microsoft, because you know DirectX only works in Windows. And same with ActiveX. That is SO DRM.
You kids and your false sense of entitlement.
The PS3 and the Xbox will have their time. All game consoles do. It's odd that you would be unaware of this sort of thing. It just makes little sense to do so just yet.
On the other hand, a Mac is little more than a dressed up Dell. It is a general purpose machine. That is why Hackintoshes already exist. Any constraints on MacOS are clearly artificial. The expectation that we would be able to use our own property as we see fit is not "entitlement".
The fact remains that Apple chooses to employ DRM when it clearly does not need to. Obviously, their actions contradict their PR. All the excuses really don't matter. It the DRM is there.
@jedi
I'm sorry, Apple is choosing to employ DRM? Care to give me an example of that? Oh right. you can't.
As far as the PS3 and Xbox, you obviously missed the point. Using your own example, if you buy a PS3 game you own it and you should be able to do anything you want with it, right? That should include playing it on an Xbox. Right? Because if you own something that means you should be able to do whatever you want with it, no matter how stupid it is?
That is what we like to call a false sense of entitlement. Your reasoning fails for the same reason Apple beat Psystar's ass back to the stone age in court. Maybe you should revisit that case and try to understand a little better why Apple won and Psystar lost.
Also, saying a Mac is a dressed up Dell is pretty ignorant. You don't actually believe that do you? Seriously? See this is why I can't take you trolls seriously.
Go ahead and let me know when you get those PS3 games running in your Xbox, seeing as how you believe that since it's your property you should be able to use it as you see fit. You kids and your false sense of entitlement.
This is a neat little feature! Hope to see more of these every now and then.
Damn...that screenie seems like it's from a lifetime ago...Engadget site sure has come a long way..
I remember Sony announcing anti-piracy software on their music CDs. It took hackers all of 24 hours to defeat it. They used a high tech device called a Magic Marker~
Of course Engadget chooses this day (when they emailed Steve Jobs) to start their new section/feature. Why not some other day? Engadget will always kiss Apple's butt.
@DarkMrVader
http://www.engadget.com/exclude/apple
Use it and stop crying, you baby.
Yet, Apple is on to the Book market to DRM the hell out of it as well.
Besides the fact they are a main formce behind H.264 with DRM for video that probably will kill HTML5.
They also didn't offer MP3 versions of music on iTunes until after most other online stores had already moved to MP3 as the standard format for 'purchased' songs.(Even AFTER Microsoft, sadly.)
(Monthly subscription music has been mostly DRM as your $15 a month that gets you access to several millions songs isn't you actually 'buying' them.)
PS Engadet, where was the anniversary of Gates calling for content providers to stop demanding DRM for distribution that pre-dates Jobs' announcement by a couple of months?
@TheNetAvenger
You sound confused. Maybe you can answer these questions:
1. What e-book seller DOESN'T use DRM? When you answer that, see if you can justify singling Apple out for this. Bonus points for telling us who is requesting the DRM. (hint: it isn't Apple)
2. What DRM for video are you talking about?
3. Why do you think DRM has anything to do with H.264?
4. Why would any of that kill HTML 5? Apple is one of HTML 5's biggest supporters, and all versions of Safari fully support it.
5. Are you complaining that Apple sells music in MP4 instead of MP3? You do understand that MP4 is actually better, right? And that it's no less of a standard than MP3? In fact that it's the successor to MP3?
Get back to me on those.
@Jack If it ain't FLAC I won't buy :P
I'm confused. If he's all about ending DRM then why does his company continue to make software that only (legally) runs on their hardware and not let other companies utilize FairPlay in their programs and devices? I find it hard to believe that smaller companies with players competing with the iPod and iPhone don't want to be able to sync up with iTunes and play DRM-"protected" content.
I mean, I could complain about the video content they sell not being DRM-free, but that's partially out of their hands--restricting their software and the content it distributes to Apple hardware only, however, is not.
Just wanted to say i LOVE this idea for a segment. Hopefully it can be a somewhat ongoing post. Looking back at the things we found 'amazing' years ago is very eye opening. Reflecting on the past is easily forgone in this fast-paced world!