Is this a sign that DRM is on its way out?

Apple announced today that all music purchased from iTunes will now be DRM-free (digital rights management free), meaning that a track purchased from iTunes can be played on any music device regardless of manufacturer or owner.  In the same announcement, Apple also indicated three tiers of pricing: $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29 USD per track, as opposed to a flat $0.99 per track previously.  Most albums will still cost $9.99 USD.

Apple’s move away from DRM really doesn’t seem to be so much about offering benefits to subscribers.  Customers happily bought from iTunes even without being able to purchase DRM-free tracks, and most people know that you could always burn your purchased albums to CD-ROM and then re-rip them (perhaps at a loss of audio fidelity) back into DRM-free MP3s, amongst many other methods of removing DRM from Apple’s iTunes music.  It would appear, however, that this move is more about getting away from DRM as a mechanism to protect content due to its unpopularity with consumers.

DRM as a technological concept has caused much heartache for consumers.  Much of the early complaints about Microsoft Windows Vista had to do with the excessively restrictive DRM requirements around high definition content, and the hardware connections required to view it – through video cards and monitors that supported HDCP.  Gamers have been miffed with unrealistic DRM requirements as well, with EA fighting a publicity backlash over their decision to only allow a limited number of installations of their much-anticipated game Spore, which ultimately led to them making a DRM-free version available as well.  Spore still sports a 1.5 star rating from Amazon.com, with most complaints being about the DRM restrictions.  And many sites that sold DRM-enabled content, such as Yahoo Music, have recently gone under, leaving many customers with unplayable music tracks.

DRM seems like a shortcut to solving the real problems around monetization of digital content – in whatever format it might be, including videos, music, and software content.  Publishers seem to think that the only way to keep people "honest" is to overload content with restrictions and limitations, even ones that clearly impinge on fair use.  But the market seems to have spoken loudly about DRM: it doesn’t work (in its current forms), and there must be a balance of fair use.  Hopefully the news from Apple today represents a signal to content publishers that DRM is broken, in more ways than one.

Filed under: Apple, Entertainment, Gaming