February 23, 2007
To DRM or not to DRM?
An FT.com poll asking whether music companies should drop digital rights management has received a lot of attention this week, and it would appear that the verdict is in. An overwhelming 98 per cent of more than 5,800 respondents said music companies should drop the software restrictions that prevent users from copying or sharing their digital files.
But is anyone listening? DRM is at the heart of two new online video services that have also been making news lately. Beta testers are already running Joost, the video service designed by the team that founded Skype. Meanwhile, BitTorrent, the company formed around the eponymous download protocol, is preparing to launch an online video store on Monday. For both companies, sophisticated copy-protection has been a selling point in their efforts to bring big studios on board.
The real question, it seems, is whether a general dislike of DRM will translate into action on the part of consumers. That does not seem to have been the case with Apple’s iTunes music store, which has seen more than 2bn DRM-laden songs downloaded since its launch in 2003, while sales of DRM-free CDs have plummeted.
