Wired News: Hilary Rosen: Singing a New Song?: “When I look at something like iTunes and the success of the iPod, I just think how much bigger the online music market could be if there were interoperability among the various services and the various devices.… You can eliminate the DRM and essentially have sort of unprotected content sold everywhere. I’m not a particular fan of MP3 — I don’t think it’s as good audio quality — but, let’s say you did AAC or something else.
Obviously, Apple has a business strategy that says ‘proprietary’ works for them. The record companies, I think, have tried to convince Apple to open up their system. I don’t think that’s been successful. The choice now is to either go unprotected so everybody has the same shot and the market expands, or to continue down what I think is an unfriendly path for consumers and the industry, because I don’t think it’s growing as fast as it can.”
Amazing. Hillary Rosen, yes the same former head of the RIAA Hilary Rosen is out with an interview in Wired talking about the need for music interoperabilty, the problems with DRM and gasp, “I think it’s a fair thing to question: Have the lawsuits outlived their usefulness?”
Good to see… I guess.
Certainly interoperabilty ought to be a goal for music. I’ve been a critic of Apple’s iTunes system for a while because I can’t imagine introducing DRM into my personal .mp3 collection.
It is possible to have both interoperability and DRM. The studios will never offer us totally unprotected content… so it’d be nice if Apple opened up their monopoly and shares/licenses FairPlay with the rest of the world.
Thomas, I feel the same way, in regards to DRM and my personal mp3 collection. Thanks for pointing me to the interview. I’ve written as well. It’s unfortunately shocking, to my knowledge, that there isn’t some sort of w3c/web standards equivalent for digital music.
France passed a law today requiring interoperability between all portable music devices and music stores. Its the itunes law but it effects anyone selling downloadable music to anyone in france. Basically, if you buy music from an e-tailer, it must play on all players.
Seems to be shaking up the industry in a positive manor for us.
France passed a law today requiring interoperability between all portable music devices and music stores. Its the itunes law but it effects anyone selling downloadable music to anyone in france. Basically, if you buy music from an e-tailer, it must play on all players.
Seems to be shaking up the industry in a positive manor for us.