Apple Thoughts: Apple Chastises Music Industry, Jumps in Bed With Hollywood

Image credit: HDTV Info Europe

One of the most popular and controversial things ever written by Steve Jobs was his "Thoughts on Music" letter shown to everyone and directed at the music industry. In it he laid out his vision for a DRM-free music marketplace and its implications for the industry and for consumers. Many took this as a signal that Jobs was about to move iTunes into a DRM free monster, but the record industry hasn't cooperated as planned, and despite the bravado of Jobs, he has continued to allow their music to stay in the store whether it's DRM free or and now we're finding out that Apple has gotten even further into bed with the entertainment industry, but instead of the music industry, it's Hollywood.

Recently many customers who happily purchased Apple's latest line of notebook computers are finding out that Apple is just as in bed with entertainment as they've ever been. Customers who purchased iTunes movies in High Def were treated to error messages when plugging their new shiny laptops into displays that didn't support DPCP (DisplayPort Copy Protection). The outrage over this has been going on for a few days. Earlier this week Apple issued a patch for QuickTime that would stop the grief for standard definition movies, but offered nothing in the way of relief for High Def purchases and rentals.

The obvious question is why?

I'm not asking that in a legal or philosophical way, but more a common sense way. Assuming I bought or rent a movie on my new MacBook Pro, what difference should it make if I watch the movies on the built-in screen or the externally attached one? Aside from the utter paranoia that someone will somehow start pilfering movies utilizing the analog hole, there's no logical reason for this except for the fact that Hollywood straddled Apple with this copy protection as a condition of having high def content on the iTunes Store. This is where Steve Jobs and Apple have utterly failed. Steve Jobs has consistently said (keyword = said) that he's against DRM on music but he's made no such demands of Hollywood, an industry he has a vested interest in as the largest shareholder in Disney. Instead of doing what's right for the customer, Apple has taken a stance that's arguably diamtercially opposed to the customer's best interests.

I'm willing to accept that DRM on movies is a necessary evil. Frankly, if it's not terribly restrictive, I can accept reasonable copy protection on digital downloads. Does it make me happy? Nope, but I'm willing to accept reasonable DRM as a cost of doing business (in a manner of speaking). When you take into account what is going on with Apple's notebook line, a line is crossed between being necessary and unintrusive and being punitive to those who purchase content.