Let's talk about DRM baby, let's talk about you and me....

As you've probably seen, Steve Jobs posted a manifesto on the iPod, iTunes, DRM, and the evil record companies.

My co-workers and I had a healthy discussion about the posting. I won't go into detail about what Jobs posted, but he played the victim of being bound to the big 4 record companies' demands (Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner) that all their songs that are for sale on the iTunes Store must have DRM, and that despite the European Union's whining about the iPod being tied to iTunes Store, it's not Apple's doing. If that's the case, why aren't they nagging Microsoft about their Zune device being tied to the Zune Marketplace?

Anyway, my co-workers and I were talking about Jobs insistence that the world would be a better place without DRM. If you, the consumer, had the choice between downloading music wrapped in DRM, or music that was DRM free, which would you choose? If you had to pay a premium for the DRM-free music, like say 20-25%, would you still buy it? What if you had to buy the album to get DRM-free music, whereas singles were wrapped in DRM?

What would it take to get the record companies to give up DRM, since, according to Jobs, DRM doesn't work? My co-workers and I bandied about suggestions that either the artists, the consumer, or the record companies are the impetus for change.

Let's discuss...

The consumer as the impetus for change? Doubtful since the record companies don't really care about the consumers since they have no qualms about suing them.
The record companies aren't going to change their tune unless they're given reason to, which is money. If they're given reason to believe that DRM-free music will produce more sales, then they'd go for it. But given that there's no evidence to support that hypothesis, that's probably not going to happen soon.

The artists as impetus for change? Possibly. The artists are the record company's golden goose. Without artists, the record company can only sell back catalog. If there were enough artists, and I mean major artists of the calibre of U2, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, artists with a large and lucrative back catalog, left their labels and went independent, and sold their music online DRM-free, do you think the labels would pay attention?

There are some artists who have gone independent and formed their own label, including one of my favorite bands, the Barenaked Ladies. In fact, you can download their performances of their current tour and previous tours from Nettwerk in DRM-free, MP3 format. If you want the iTS flavor, you can get the same performances from the iTunes Store but wrapped in DRM. If the price for each of the albums were the same, which would you choose?

What about giving away DRM-free singles to sell the albums? While iTunes has a free download every week, it's still wrapped in FairPlay DRM which means you can only share the music with 5 computers. The giveaway is to a.) discover new music; b.) get you to buy the album; and c.) get you to explore the iTunes Store. While the download is free, you're still bound by the iTS terms and conditions.

I think we're all in agreement as consumers, that the current landscape of music sucks, both in quality and legal bounds, so who's going to make the ground-breaking moves to make ripples of change in the music industry?