Comments on: No Fooling: EMI to Offer DRM-Free Music http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2007/04/02/no_fooling_emi_to_offer_drm_free_music.html Musings of a techie lawyer Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:25:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7-bleeding By: Oren Levine http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2007/04/02/no_fooling_emi_to_offer_drm_free_music.html#comment-702 Oren Levine Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:54:09 +0000 http://wendy.seltzer.org/wordpress/?p=399#comment-702 This is absolutely a welcome move, but of course not exactly selfless on Apple's part. As Bill Rosenblatt from DRM Watch notes in his excellent analysis of the deal (<a href="http://www.drmwatch.com/ocr/article.php/3669946)," rel="nofollow">http://www.drmwatch.com/ocr/article.php/3669946),</a> this reinforces Apple's dominance in the digital music space, and also gives Mr. Jobs a superb response to the pressure his company is under from several European consumer advocacy groups. This move also makes it more clear that DRM is not now or has ever been about "anti-piracy"; it's just another way to influence pricing, positioning, and customer lock-in. This is absolutely a welcome move, but of course not exactly selfless on Apple’s part. As Bill Rosenblatt from DRM Watch notes in his excellent analysis of the deal (http://www.drmwatch.com/ocr/article.php/3669946), this reinforces Apple’s dominance in the digital music space, and also gives Mr. Jobs a superb response to the pressure his company is under from several European consumer advocacy groups.

This move also makes it more clear that DRM is not now or has ever been about “anti-piracy”; it’s just another way to influence pricing, positioning, and customer lock-in.

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