I have a huge problem with digital rights management. What that is, basically, is when you take a file format, an MP3 file containing music for example, and add a wrapper around it to ensure that only certain people can listen to it, perhaps under a particular set of circumstances.
This is difficult to swallow, and it really brings out the dogmatic one in me. I’ve had an iPod or iPhone for many years, and I have a huge library of songs I keep in iTunes. But none of those songs have DRM on them. Under some circumstances, I will “subscribe” to a series of videos, which do have DRM, but those are for things I only plan to watch once, so it doesn’t matter to me as much. It’s still, however, a problem.
It’s a lot like filling your house with lovely art, but every X number of years you move, and each time you can only take half the art with you. Maybe there’s some really nice art in there, but you bought it with the condition that it can only be viewed in that house, so you’re out of luck. If there’s a MP3 file with DRM, I might not be able to play it in the future, because perhaps the company that supports it goes out of business, or I want to listen to it on a competing device. Tough luck.
But a year or two Apple changed all this. They stopped selling music with DRM protection in it, and I started buying albums. I’ve bought a number of them, and I’m glad because they’re great quality and I can play them on any modern musical device. Granted, they’re not MP3, but any device that’s built from now on will more and more likely support that format, because it’s not protected by Apple. I can buy a song in iTunes and play it on my Zune just fine.
But about the same time, Amazon strikes a deal with book publishers, and comes out with a wonderful device called the Kindle. Using it, you can buy from hundreds of thousands of books instantly, and read any of them at the press of a button. It sounds wonderful, and it is… but the books have DRM. So we’re back to square one. If I want to read Lord of the Rings a few years down the road, I just might have to buy it again. And my Nook, which I might get from Barnes and Noble because it’s cooler, will invite me to make the purchase one more time. This is unacceptable.
The thing is, Amazon has more of a “foot in the door” in negotiating than Apple did, in their respective industries. Apple had to start talking to content holders from scratch, whereas Amazon has been selling books for many years. So I would expect a little better negotiating from Amazon. Perhaps it takes an industry a while to acclimate to the idea. Perhaps Steve Jobs is a better negotiator than whomever does such things at Amazon.
But they need to get rid of the DRM, or I’ll stick to my paper copies.
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