Why Does iTunes Need DRM?

In a comment on the Preoccupations blog, Lloyd Shepherd contends that DRM is a sine qua non of legal digital media downloads, using the example of iTunes. I see statements like this all the time, and they always leave me baffled. Why is DRM essential to iTunes? What would happen if there were no DRM? Is the fear that one person would download a song from iTunes and then share it on P2P networks with the rest of the world? If so, how does this differ from the status quo? I can get any song I want from a P2P network already. It strikes me that people buy songs from iTunes for the convenience and peace of mind, neither of which would change one whit if there weren’t any DRM.

The flip side is that I know many people who don’t buy songs from the iTunes store because of the DRM. There’s certainly a chance that Apple would sell less music without DRM, but this isn’t nearly as obvious to me as it appears to be to some others. Frankly I think they would sell more in this scenario.

Update: Lloyd points out that I should have linked to his original blog post.

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8 Comments »

1. To be fair, I didn’t say any such thing. I said Apple and Microsoft et al had implemented DRM, and that a great many people were using their services with little complaint, DRM complaint or no. I also implied that DRM as I’ve experienced it is a bad thing, and I was asking if anyone had come across DRM (or something like it) that actually did what it’s supposed to do: protect the rights of the creator while enabling flexible and mainstream distribution. A lot of people seem to have read the first line of what I wrote and assumed I’m some kind of DRM junkie. And my blog isn’t Preoccuptations, it’s Lloyd@Work. If I’m going to be misquoted, at least give me the traffic

   Comment by Lloyd — 1/11/2006 @ 12:08 pm

2. Well, I was really commenting on your comment on Preoccupations, which is why I linked there. You said:

   The thing we need to ask ourselves is: why have Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Intel, Microsoft and the whole damn shooting match embraced DRM? Because it is economically essential for them to do so - without it, you can’t have iTunes, which is working just fine for millions of people, thank you very much.

   I read “without it, you can’t have iTunes” to mean just that. I strenuously disagree, and I also feel strongly that the reason more people haven’t complained is that the grave drawbacks of the current generation of DRM (particularly the fact that music you buy from one vendor won’t play on many devices from other vendors) have yet to sink in.

   Comment by Matt — 1/11/2006 @ 1:01 pm

3. I entirely agree with this post and DRM is definitely the main reason why many people I know will never but a song online : if you pay good money for a product you should then be able to deal with it as you see fit : use another software, burn it to listen on a cd-player, copy it and delete ad nauseam on your digital walkman… and of course there is the price : if it is not cheaper than to buy the CD, why should we buy songs online then at all ?

   Comment by Valery — 1/11/2006 @ 2:31 pm

4. What DRM argument?

   I enjoy both of Lloyd Shepherd’s blogs. His work blog, given that he is Deputy Director of Digital Publishing at Guardian Unlimited, helps me see into the world of commercial publishing and follow the developments at his paper. His most

   Trackback by Preoccupations — 1/11/2006 @ 3:50 pm

5. I think the problem is that you need to convince the music studios. Essentially, Apple didn’t have a choice to not use DRM, in my opinion, because they needed the mainstream studios to license them music.

   Apple knows that DRM isn’t good for users. But without DRM they would have far less music and would probably be less successful overall…

   Comment by Julien Couvreur — 1/11/2006 @ 7:48 pm

6. Julien - okay, it’s possible that I misinterpreted what Lloyd was saying. If he meant that Apple wouldn’t have been able to obtain distribution rights from the record labels without putting in place some form of DRM, that’s doubtless the case. But the words “economically essential” lead me to believe that he was subscribing to the popular (but in my opinion erroneous) view that DRM is somehow necessary if money is to be made from digital media. Lloyd?

   Comment by Matt — 1/11/2006 @ 8:04 pm

7. Don’t you think that record companies wouldn’t allow their catalogues without DRM?

   DRM = Record co. cooperation

   Comment by Dan Russell — 1/13/2006 @ 6:46 pm

8. I believe that it is a requirement by the record companies to have DRM on the iTMS due to their unwaivering belief that if people don’t have a choice for DRM then they will have to buy DRM, which protects their assets. If iTMS didn’t have DRM, and didn’t constantly try to update it to prevent against cracking (jhymn), then the record companies would never agree to allowing apple to sell their music on iTMS.

   Comment by LavaHot — 1/18/2006 @ 4:47 am

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