Dave Horvath
9 Oct 2007 12:52
General Manager and Vice President of Yahoo! Music, Ian Rodgers has stated in an open forum that he believes the RIAA and other governing bodies who enforce DRM protection schemes on digital media are inhibiting his consumers from the freedom they deserve. In a presentation that he delivered, he stated that he believed DRM to be dead.
Rodgers has been at the forefront of the music industry back in the days when Napster was king, he was the person in charge of Winamp. He's been with the digital music age longer than most and has seen what kind of an abomination it has become with protection standards hindering consumers from enjoying their rightfully purchased products.
In his presentation, Rodgers states "I'm here to tell you today that I for one am no longer going to fall into this trap. If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I'm not interested. Do what you feel you need to do for your business, I'll be polite, say thank you, and decline to sign. I won't let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don't have any more time to give and can't bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value. Life's too short. I want to delight consumers, not bum them out."
Rodgers stated that if the RIAA and others don't stop their current practices of DRM encoding, he can assure them that Yahoo! Music will not partner with the record labels in delivering their wares. This could in turn have significant impact on the recording industry if one of the largest providers of legal music downloads on the web backs out of offering their tracks.
Source:
Gizmodo