Applaud Apple’s Steve Jobs for Moving the Discussion in the Right Direction

Authored by Scott Goldberg on February 7, 2007 - 5:54am.

A popular theme over the past two years at CES and conferences around the world has been the bashing of Steve Jobs. The Bashers and the discussion are always the same: Apple’s competitors say the current environment, where Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Apple’s FairPlay exist unchecked, is bad for competition, bad for the economy, and, most importantly, bad for the consumer.

Jobs’ surprising essay about his willingness to “embrace” the end of DRM, that grand inhibitor of consumer freedom, has been thoroughly poked and dissected in the last 24 hours alone. Some believe it is disingenuous – yet another canny marketing ploy to avoid playing the part of the Bad Guy. After all, his essay declines the idea of licensing FairPlay to others, and fails to take the step of outlining a strategy to force the labels to eliminate DRM. The latter, people believe, is within his control, given Apple’s power in the space. Let’s not debate the validity of that opinion for now.

Instead, let’s sit back and evaluate the relevance of the situation. A day has arrived many believed never would: Steve Jobs said he is willing to face the marketplace sans DRM. That’s a hefty statement, and certainly represents more than a PR strategy. After all, there are many well-heeled players in the digital music space that will be more than happy to discuss the matter with Steve at the earliest time and place of his choosing. This, in other words, is unlikely to be a storm that blows over unnoticed.

We shouldn’t, therefore, criticize Steve’s essay so quickly. Let’s give the man some praise instead. He defied a lot of expectations yesterday, and his mere willingness to enter the conversation with a different view ought to be applauded.

Now for the next step: making it happen. I’d like to see it for one reason alone, and it’s a thoroughly selfish one: I want to see what the game looks like, as any fan of good sport does, on a level field. It’s like the Super Bowl for people without a favorite team: You’re really only rooting for a good game. No one wants to see unfair advantages for either side. A roster with 52 players on steroids against a squad armed only with coffee as their energy suppliant is no fun for anyone. I want to see a digital music field rich with ideas and products created on equal footing. And the reason is simple: whoever wins will have created something phenomenal. They’ll have to. With so many choices, and the difficulty in switching among them eliminated, competitors will have to produce, and they’ll have to do so at the highest level. We may even come to find out that Apple was right all along: People are simply in love with the iPod, and that’s all there is too it.

Steve Jobs did a good thing today. He invited competition into a game he’s dominated the way Lance Armstrong did the Tour de France, and is willing to fight the battle under the same rules as everyone else. You have to admire it. With all excuses off the table, what will Apple’s competitors say to their investors when they continue to falter? Or, maybe the Bashers will be proven correct. Maybe Apple leans on FairPlay and DRM more than Jobs would like to admit. And maybe we’ll be referring to our music players as something other than an iPod, and our online music stores as something other than iTunes.

The market, as the cliché goes, will decide the winner.

Scott Goldberg

Poll

Will 2007 be the Last Year that DRM is used for Selling Digital Music?