Steve Jobs Calls for End of DRM

史蒂夫賈伯斯跟比爾蓋茲真是一對互相競爭的好朋友（這是我第一次用正式全名稱呼夾不死先生？），在 Bill 說 別買 DRM 音樂、買 CD 再自己轉 Mp3 之後， Jobs 也說出了對於 DRM 的看法：

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

Via Beta News [ Apple's Steve Jobs Calls for End of DRM ]
Via BoingBoing [ Steve Jobs blogs about DRM ]
Via Gizmodo [ Steve Jobs on DRM: It Must Die! ]
各篇文章之中又以 Gizmodo 的標題與圖片最好笑，這應該就是黑暗原力的復甦吧？ Apple 家電公司加油吧！