Anil Gangolli

Taking the high (profit) road

It is not often that taking the high road and taking the high profit road coincide, but Steve Jobs has found one of them in his recent letter (Thoughts on Music, February 6, 2007 ) in which he advocates for DRM-free content.

This is a win-win all around.

It’s pretty clear why it is in the consumer’s interest, well, at least to the savvy consumers anyway.

The Jobs letter makes no attempt to hide why such a position is in Apple’s interest, and how maintaining the FairPlay DRM system they have now is so onerous and not readily opened up for wider use (if any other digital download-based retailers would actually want to adopt it anyway). Not evident from the letter is Apple’s motivation from the rise of competing DRM-free distribution services like eMusic, but that’s ok, because these competitors would also benefit from greater selection in a DRM-free environment.

So now it is just a (simple) matter of convincing the music companies.
What’s in it for them?

* Lowering distribution costs and allowing more uniform distribution mechanisms without individual unit license management.
* Not alienating the large honest part of the population that’s going to buy (not steal) their music in the first place
* Huge potential volume growth (at the aforementioned fraction of their current distribution costs).

Will they get it? Probably not. Not until consumers like us and digital distribution channels like Apple and eMusic unify to pound it into their heads. Apple’s position statement is a step in the right direction.

Posted at 11:45AM Feb 11, 2007 in dogma  |  Permalink  |  Comments[1]