Nicholas Carr: Curtains for Music DRM?

Very smart piece from Nicholas Carr regarding EMI’s decision to sell Norah Jones’s latest single as a non-DRM MP3 on Yahoo Music. As I wrote back in June, interoperability and DRM are mutually exclusive. What the music industry wants isn’t technically possible — they want a DRM system that prevents people from sharing or copying music, but which isn’t in the control of a single company like Apple or Microsoft. Distributing music in a fan-friendly non-DRM format is the way to go.

As for Apple, if this develops into a trend, it might not be good for Apple, but it shouldn’t be bad for them, either. The iTunes Store does give Apple a lock-in advantage, but the iPod competes very well on its own.

★ Thursday, 7 December 2006