I get the feeling that DRM is at the moment closest to death, but it will not die. Yes, Apple is making folks wish they had never invented DRM, but removing it is not an option publishers are willing to consider. They likely rather do something that requires more effort than remove DRM to make it easier.
Nonetheless, both comments make you think about what the DRM story will be by the end of this year.
Link [external]: this is sippey.typepad.com: they call it garbage collection
I keep reading about how DRM will eventually go away, that it’s days are numbered. The strategic rationale for this is that Apple’s dominance of the digital music market will force the labels into action that attempts to leverage distribution of other players (Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, Real, etc.) to break the iTMS stranglehold. (E.g., sell it in non-DRM’d MP3 format so that people can buy it wherever they want and still play it where they want. Like on their iPod.) This very well may happen, but it might not have that much of an impact on Apple’s position in the market, since there would be nothing to prevent them from offering those songs in a non-DRM’d format as well, and they’d still be able to leverage the iTunes hardware-software connection.
And a response from David Jacobs to this:
I am also totally unconvinced on this point. If you look at the trend of music production, from 8-track, vinyl, audio tape, cd, dvd, mp3, they trend both towards “cheaper/easier to manufacture” and also “easier to encrypt/compress content.” There’s no force I can imagine that would roll back 30 years of that momentum.
BTW, we in the mobile world have always dealt with proprietary stuff, content locks, network locks, and all other form of lock-downs. The fate of DRM in music is huge, but stands as a bellwether for other types of locks.
