Apple's CEO Steve Jobs supports DRM-free Music Downloads

In a think piece entitled Thoughts on Music, Steve Jobs explains why Apple uses digital rights management (DRM) software named FairPlay and makes it so that only iPods can download and play music from the iTunes Store. Basically, the four major recording companies controlling over 70 percent of the world's music make Apple do it with iTunes--and Microsoft/Zune and Sony/Connect, etc.

Jobs points out that only 3 per cent of the music on any iPod is DRM protected. The other 97 percent was obtained unprotected. The iTunes store has distributed 2 billion DRM-protected songs but the recording companies themselves distribute over 20 billion songs unprotected on CDs and that is where the rest of the songs on an iPod come from, legally (ripped from a CD one owns) and illegally.

If the recording companies allowed the iTunes Store and other legal digital download services to drop DRM, they could reduce prices and sell a lot more songs plus there would be total interoperability among players and music services. Jobs states that "This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat." More...[Bill Fox]