Andre Yoskowitz
26 Apr 2007 11:39
Earlier this week, Ty Roberts, the CTO of Gracenote, made the bold claim that the music industry was "about to cave in the next six months" on the issue of DRM in music downloads.
Although Mr Roberts believes, and rightfully so, that it requires less "friction" now to get illegal content than it is to acquire the legal versions he also feels that the complete loss of DRM may not be so good for the music industry in the long run.
Paul Jessop, CTO of the RIAA, agreed with Mr Robert's latter statement as he stated that most consumers would see an open format download as a free download. He did however say that the RIAA wants the hassles of DRM to be sorted soon. The interoperability issues of DRM have been harming everyone in the business and the industry is calling out for an open DRM format or even the abandonment of the technology as a whole.
Jessop also said he did not care what decisions the labels make in the future in relation to DRM but he does see DRM in single downloads ending soon. DRM however, will still be necessary in monthly subscription services like Napster, he noted.
So far, flexible or open DRMs have not yet been widely developed and so interoperability will continue to be a problem at least in the near future.
Source:
Arstechnica