Would Apple Mix DRM And Non-DRM Music At The iTunes Store?
Peter N. Lewis, in a weblog post titled “Why Apple Cannot Allow DRM-free Indie Music”: Steve Jobs’s recent “Thoughts on Music” posting in favour of DRM-free music from the Big Four raises the question (at least among some observers) of why then cannot Indie music currently be DRM-free? Why is it all or nothing? The answer is pure Apple through and through. The tyranny of choice. Think about the consequence of iTunes Music Store offering some music in FairPlay, some in unprotected MP3 format. Now every song needs to be clearly marked as which format it will be purchased in! No longer can I just click the Buy button and know what I am getting. I’ve seen others arguing along similar lines, that Apple would need all of the major record labels to agree to abandon DRM before Apple would sell non-DRM music at the iTunes Store, to keep the experience consistent. It’s true that one of the best things about iTunes compared to other download stores is that all of the music — every song from every