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Apple's Digital Rights Management: Is it selling out to the music industry or is it the best thing that ever happened to the music world?
Copy Protection for the Rest of US
by Del Miller
July 17, 2003
The stated goal of Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a perfectly fine objective: To insure that artists, musicians and other copyright holders are paid for their creative endeavors. Hard to argue with that.
But DRM has been surrounded by nothing but argument since the Recording Industry of America Association (RIAA) began its long-running war against free downloading of music from the internet. The name calling only fanned the flames, as RIAA took to calling a remarkably broad swath of the population "pirates and thieves," while an even broader segment of the public referred to the RIAA as "scumsucking rapacious cretins." Or something like along those lines.
Now, much has been written about the perceived goodness and badness of digital copy protection, and it is a complicated matter - made even more complex by the vested interests of all concerned. But the principal reason why the RIAA has been so roundly damned by so many has mostly to do with why the RIAA wielded the DRM club and the manner in which they went about it.
The RIAA's purpose, frankly, is to completely control the music market by controlling the raw material (talent), the means of production (producing albums etc.) and the distribution channels. This is referred to by anti-trust lawyers as "Eating the Whole Pie." The industry spared no expense in securing this control, including the purchase of some mighty pricy government officials to ensure that the laws of the land are firmly on their side. This insures a full blown monopoly that would be unthinkably illegal in any less well-connected industry.
With the thoughtful assistance of various lawmakers (who by sheerest coincidence received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign financing from the entertainment industry) the RIAA, along with the motion picture industry, even attacked the technology. Legislation was proposed that would have required practically every electronic consumer product require the approval of the entertainment industry before it could be sold. This has, so far, been narrowly averted, but the mind-numbing audacity of the move did not win friends among the public.
The RIAA followed up with a series of well publicized lawsuits against everyone from internet based radio stations, nearly killing a promising new business model, to college students who's major crime was to advertise popular music better than the marketing departments of all the big labels combined. The RIAA's action was viewed by many people as plain old thuggery.
And this is why the RIAA (and by association digital rights management) has seen such a public backlash. The music industry has cast in place a system of market control based upon monopoly power and influence peddling, that transfers wealth up the industry ladder at the expense of fairplay, technological progress and what the lesser of us might call common decency. Laws like the DMCA were blatant gifts to the entertainment industry in that they offered little or no benefit to anyone else. Not to the artists and almost certainly not to the public.
Slicing Apples
So when Apple graduated from the DRM-free promise of Rip-Mix-Burn in its original iTunes, to a copy protected, RIAA approved successor for its online music store, there came the cries of "sellout!" But again, the how and the why are important.
The how of Apple's DRM, called FairPlay, is certainly a kinder, gentler instance of copy protection than the RIAA's. FairPlay allows limited copying in such a manner that the average customer can enjoy his music without the nastier restrictions that the music industry had previously required. It is, in fact, mostly transparent to the normal Joe who doesn't intend to actually distribute his music library over Kazaa.
But more important is the why - the Big Picture behind Apple's DRM strategy. Unlike the RIAA which sees copy protection as a means of restricting the music industry and controlling the source and distribution of nearly all popular music; and unlike outfits such as Microsoft who see their DRM product as a way to become yet another middleman clogging up the distribution channels; Apple is using FairPlay to actually make music more affordable and more widely available.
Now, the idea that the internet might have some, slight usefulness as a digital music distribution medium redefines the term "absurdly obvious," and Apple certainly didn't invent the concept. What Apple did, though, was to develop this elementary model into a seemless, efficient, saleable and profitable distribution system and extend it from the virtual store all the way to the earbuds - while preserving reasonable copyholder rights along the way. Apple's primary innovation was a unique approach that banged some level of reality into the hardened skulls of music industry executives. For this alone, Steve Jobs should get a medal.
The Big Picture
Now, take a gander at the following list of software offered by Apple and prepare for the pop quiz that follows:
- QuickTime Pro
- iPhoto
- iMovie
- iDVD
- Final Cut Pro
- Final Cut Express
- DVD Studio Pro
- Logic Platinum
- Shake
- .Mac Slides Publisher
- iPhoto
Quiz Question #1: What do all of these applications have in common?
If you answered, "Multimedia" then give yourself half a point. For full credit you might have said, "They are all intended for the creation of multimedia."
Quiz Question #2: How many mainstream computer or mainstream software companies offer anything close to this level of support for the creation of multimedia content?
If you answered, "Not a single one. Not even close," then step right up to the podium.
That's right folks, Apple Computer's philosophy regarding multimedia stands apart from the rest of the computer industry. No vendor that I know of has a broader line of integrated, creative music and video products, nor are there any that have made it easier for the great unwashed to leap into the director's chair. What's more, a goodly chunk of Apple's products are intended for simplified distribution of that creativity via disk or over the internet.
Apple is making quite a statement here. It isn't only interested in us as consumers of music or video: Apple wants us to create as well, and it is willing to invest millions of dollars in the framework to make that creation easy, affordable and open to all.
Jobs & Co. want you to be an artist, a musician, a sound engineer, a cameraman, a director, a producer, or a film editor. And they have bet the company on your success.
The Rise of the Nano-Label
If you took each of the music making products that Apple offers, including software and hardware, and piled them into an otherwise empty garage, you'd pretty much have a small music studio and minor production facility. In fact, you could almost be your own record label; a nanolabel, if you wish. You could, that is, if you only had a distribution channel - and as we all know, the distribution channels are fairly well tied up by the member companies of the RIAA.
But wait! Here's the iTunes Music Store. A low overhead, totally accessible, and wildly popular means for a nanolabel to distribute it's music. Assuming Apple continues to open up access to independents, which is likely, things suddenly start to look a lot different. Combined with the rest of Apple Computer's media creation tools, the company could offer just about any talented someone the opportunity to turn that internal music into a livelihood.
Of course selling your music over the internet will result in your nanolabel dying in nanoseconds if the product of your heart and soul is immediately posted on the internet and downloaded by millions who never pay you a cent. For that you need Digital Rights Management.
Now it all comes together. Apple helps you make the music, distribute the music and protects you from losing it all through illegal copying. This could be a whole new world for musicians who are trying to get a break, and it doesn't depend one bit on selling your soul to a major record label. It would be the greatest thing for music since cavemen learned to sing.
And Digital Rights Management plays an integral role.
The Brighter Side of Digital Rights Management
So just maybe we're allowing fear of the RIAA's might to blind us to the opportunity in our midst. The very technologies and laws which the Big Labels use to enforce the current monopoly could turn out to be just the tools needed to reshape the music industry. After all, our goal isn't to send the big players into bankruptcy, the aim is to make things fair for everyone.
What the independent musician has always needed is simply the same opportunities to create and distribute as the big companies. Now Apple Computer seems to be packaging just that toolset into a line of multimedia hardware, software and distribution services - complete with a reasonable copy protection scheme that ensures a reward for the artist. Who else could have done this except Apple?
Of course there are other issues with Digital Rights Management that are quite worrisome, and I don't profess to have the solution for all of them. The absurdity of the DMCA, the crippling of free expression by copyright cartels and the ongoing assault on fair use. But perhaps the democratization of the tools of information will allow us to level the playing field in these areas as Apple is allowing us to do in the music arena.
Copyright 2003, Del Miller. All rights reserved.
Thoughts on Apple and Digital Rights Management? Drop me a line here.
Del also writes the "Difference Engine" column at www.macopinion.com
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