What a bunch of dinosaurs!

I buy a *lot* of music, but this makes me want to boycott the record companies, just to knock some sense into them.

Jobs is right -- DRM has failed miserably.

What's "completely without logic and merit" is Warner's Board of Directors keeping Bronfman as CEO, while he runs the music label into the ground.

Since the settlement with the Beatles, Apple is now free to produce music - maybe it will eventually sign its own artists.

I would like to see Apple take the DRM off the music from the independent labels - I don't see any reason to keep it on.

He is not just an idiot, he is a real idiot.

First of all Jobs wasn't talking about DVDs or software, he was talking about music only that is sold already on billion CDs with NO PROTECTION at all.

Second, that is why, thanks to the greedy and stubborn labels, the very well know Russian website ALLOFMP3.COM is making huge profits by selling American and European music without any DRM protection whatsoever and much cheaper then even Apple's 99 cents per song.

How about forcing the music labels to allow the downloading of music from alternative sites for free if the music was already paid for at say the iTunes store. If the whole point of the argument is "I can't play my iTunes songs on my Creative player" , shouldn't the music be available in the alternative form since the record company has already profited from my purchase. If the record company's argument for DRM is fear of pirating, then they should allow the other services to provide the same song at no charge. End of problem. I'd love to hear their rebuttal.

profits fell 74%. revenues were down 13% which was only slightly worse than the industry as a whole.

The truth, though, is that you're not technically buying the song. You're paying for an AAC compressed Fairplay-limited file. The 99 cents you pay entitles you explicitly to the use of that file as defined by your contract with Apple/iTunes Music Store. Also, your purchase through iTunes should not entitle you to the same song through other stores/services. Even Apple is up front about the fact that prior purchase of a song or movie doesn't entitle you to another download if your version is misplaced or damaged. Back up your music or you'll be sorry. :-)

Even if Apple were to license Fairplay, that doesn't mean that it would increase music sales. Consumers aren't buying music because they don't like DRM. That they are limited to iPods to play iTunes music is a much smaller issue.

I see this as the "what goes around, comes around" situation.

For years, we had to buy full albums full of crappy music to get the few songs we liked. The record companies made the big bucks on ripping us off. Now we get to buy the music we want and their profits are what they really should have been all along.

Suck it!