More companies speak up against DRM restrictions

Feb 14, 2007 11:15 GMT  ·  By

Executives from the two companies announced they fully support the abolition of digital rights management that was suggested at the beginning of this month by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in the open letter called "Thoughts on music". In this letter, Jobs clearly stated they will not open up FairPlay and that the way to go is DRM-less. He said Apple will happily lose DRM restriction for music on iTunes Store the minute the music companies stop requiring the protection.

Dave Goldberg said to Silicon Valley Watcher: "I've long advocated removing DRM on music because there is already a lot of music available without DRM, and it just makes things complicated for the user", making clear the position of Yahoo Music on this matter. He also said Yahoo Music has experimented DRM-free sales and the outcome was a boost in sales.

Noel Lee said on behalf of Monster Cable they too support Jobs in the DRM issue: "Monster Cable shares Mr. Jobs' vision of breaking constraints for legal music downloads". Monster Music has managed to negotiate DRM-less files with industry giant Universal.

Related to this matter, Jobs was urged by Electronic Frontier Foundation to stand up to his words, act accordingly and remove all DRM restrictions from independent music on iTunes Store, since protection for them is not mandatory.

Now that more and more industry figures speak up about removing DRM protection from online music stores, we'll see how much longer music giants will keep their requirements. News last week said EMI was taking steps towards losing the DRM for its products and has already talked to resellers. We'll soon probably see the other companies heading in the same direction, and guess who will take credit at the end.