Music, Seth Godin & Steve Jobs

EMI announced yesterday that it will start to sell DRM free music online. Seth completely rejects the idea that it is possible to lock up ideas because they are connected to physical objects. WOW! You can read Seth's thoughts on it here. Steve Jobs established precisely that in his beautifully written 'Thoughts on Music'. Steve says that there is no theory of protecting content other than to keep secrets. Steve describes it as a process of locking and hiding the key on the user's machine. He argues (correctly) that there are many smart people who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get the content (music) for free. Music companies further sell 90% of the of their music DRM-free anyway through CDs. As per the data available with Apple, 97% of the music being played of iPods is unprotected and can be played on any player capable of playing open formats. Therefore, DRM is redundant for music companies as well as Apple and other player manufacturers.

This changes the way people think about the future of distribution of licensed content online. Does it also change the way people think about the creation of content? I don't think so.

Does this also contain lessons for the firms fighting DVD wars right now? A good reason for fighting the wars in the first place was the different views regarding the appropriate protection level built in the standards. I would suggest that they listen to Seth.