Apple seeks online music shake-up

[pascal]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/13/yahoo-music-exec-agreeing-with-jobs-drm-free-sentiment/

Yahoo Music exec agreeing with Jobs' DRM-free sentiment?
Posted Feb 13th 2007 9:38PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Portable Audio

It's not everyday that you see two rivals agreeing on a subject where they become the vast minority in a horde of DRM-enforcing media protectors, but it seems like this parallel universe isn't so far out after all. According to an interview by SiliconValleyWatcher, the head of Yahoo Music (Dave Goldberg) seemed to agree with Steve Jobs that ridding music of DRM was best for sales. The exec even stated that he had "long advocated removing DRM on music," and noted that an internal research study found that sales of DRM-free tunes were greater than those laced in protection....

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&newsID=17184

The Yahoo chief's thoughts were echoed by SanDisk founder and CEO Eli Harari, who wrote: "Proprietary systems aren’t acceptable to consumers. In recent months, there has been a rising chorus of complaints in Europe about the anti-competitive nature of closed formats that tie music purchased from one company to that company’s devices, and tie that company’s devices to its music service."

 

[Sxotty]

Yahoo has been saying that for years b/c they want to sell tunes to iPod owners.

 

[pascal]

Well, competition is good for us

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6362069.stm

Almost two-thirds of music industry executives think removing digital locks from downloadable music would make more people buy the tracks, finds a survey.

 

[Sxotty]

I just read that as well, but they also say that they don't think it will happen

Among all those questioned, 70% believed that the future of downloadable music lay in making tracks play on as many different players as possible. But 40% believed it would take concerted government or consumer action to bring this about.

So I guess we can thank the Euros for bringing this to the fore.

 

[Zaphod]

Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Macrovision CEO Fred Amoroso’s Response to Steve Jobs’s ‘Thoughts on Music’.

http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/macrovision_translation :smile: