Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Steve Jobs and Apple telling half-truths about DRM

  This has already been covered ad nasuem , but I thought I should mention Apple's denouncement of DRM last week. Steve Jobs summarily dismissed Apple's DRM as a result of demands from the record labels. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices. I have no doubt that the record labels are concerned with putting unprotected music out there, but Apple is also in no rush to do away with DRM... Posted Feb 13 2007, 04:20 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Intellectual Property, Rants, Music, Copyright, Business, Apple, Law

• Apple to launch new content distribution system

  The Digitial Music weblog passes along this tidbit from ThinkSecret . Apparently, in addition to offering feature length content and expanded TV offerings, Apple will be announcing a new content delivery system in January at the annual MacWorld conference. In an effort to appease media companies wary of the security of digital rights management technology, Apple's new technology will deliver content such that it never actually resides on the user's hard drive. Content purchased will be automatically made available on a user's iDisk, which Front Row 2.0 will tap into. When the user wishes to play the content, robust caching technology -- for which Apple previously received a patent -- will serve it to the user's computer as fast as their Internet connection can handle. The system will also likely support downloading the video content to supported iPods but at no time will it ever actually be stored on a computer's hard drive. I'm not sure why this should appease the media companies. Unless... Posted Dec 05 2005, 07:48 AM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Music, Copyright, Apple

• Stealing Music?

  Just thought I'd chime in on the music thread going on. Yes, downloading MP3 files is wrong, because you're consuming copyrighted material without properly compensating the owner of the copyright. We use our understanding of real property to help understand property rights and ownership of (digital) information, but in my opinion it's a weak analogy. The primary difference is that multiple parties can technically possess (and use) information without infringing on the value to or rights of others to consume the same information. Let's consider the case of George Hotelling , who bought a song on Apple's ITunes and then proceeded to resell it on EBay . No one would argue that this is fair use if he were selling a CD he bought somewhere. The bundle of rights you get by purchasing a CD includes the right to sell or gift the CD.. But, as discussed in an excerpt from the article: Under the "first sale" doctrine, the owner of a lawful copy of a work is allowed to sell it without the permission... Posted Sep 18 2003, 08:00 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Intellectual Property, Music, Copyright, Apple