hmmm... you reference an article in the Financial Times, then link to the New york tiimes. That's odd.

The Financial times article is available here:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b194883e-36b2-11db-89d6-0000779e2340.html

My comment would be this: Don't you think the competition from the illegal file sharing networks is driving this?

From the Financial Times article:
"The move reflects music companies’ willingness to experiment as they try to capture some profit from the boom in digital distribution still dominated by illegal file-sharing networks."

There is still the issue of interoperability between DRM systems. Since we seem to have liked lock comparisons here in the past, here's one for you. Imagine a CD that you couldn't legally use outside of your living room and you had to lock up after playing in your living room stereo system. That is non-interoperable DRM for you.

The future is competition through balkanization, not compatibility if things keep up.

I find these outlaw P2Ps kind of funny. So you argue, Engima, that they drove the studios in Hollywood to adopt various business models.

Thats amusing. Its like inventing the ping pong ball, the ping pong table and paddles, only to have someone come along and invent the game of ping pong.

Illegal P2P networks demonstrated potential use of the Internet and decentralized file storage. Why didn't these P2Ps adopt legitimate business models then? My guess, is that they didn't know how to.

That's probably half of it. The record labels didn't really get serious about coming to the table until P2P became a threat and Steve Jobs offered something similar to P2P that worked for everyone.

The only thing that is holding these companies back is that they don't seem to be comfortable with the idea of movies being burned to DVD from iTMS downloads. My PCs have more than enough resources to do that. It'd take a few hours to do that, but it could be done as a background process. Every baby step instead of a bold step forward like that, helps the pirates.

MikeT, on DRM, we focus on policy here at IPcentral, and I don't support policy that forces companies to adhere to any technological standard, including no standard. I too favor interoperability, but I agree with Napster's CEO and our former president Ray Gifford who testified before Congress on this subject, namely we need to let the market decide on interoperability and we'll trend that way because consumers will demand it. (FYI, Consumer Federation of America's Mark Cooper, a DRM and corporate hater, gave the same testimony.)

enigma, I linked to an FT story that the NYT was hosting on its site; as a former reporter, I believe credit should always go to the author, so regardless of who is "hosting" a story, I always cite the original publisher.

As for your question, let me rephrase it slightly, because as a free-market advocate I view the word "competition" in the strict sense of legal market players striving for advantage. "Don't you think the allure of free music on illegal sites is driving this?"

Absolutely. It's no secret that technology got ahead of business models in digital media; my favorite medium, books, is still doing okay because consumers prefer printed works to books on a computer monitor or Treo (I've read a few of the latter, it's not as pleasurable but it helps pass the time while waiting for a train). But I'm hardly the first to note that just because individuals chose to download music without the authorization of the artist and that prompted the content industry to try to meet demand with new business models -- including free, as Anne Sweeney and Sumner Redstone discussed at our Aspen Summit, feel free to view the webcasts on the PFF site (www.pff.org) -- that does not justify the behavior of those involved in the file sharing itself.

If you've read any of my papers (also found on PFF's site) or my entries on this blog closely, you'll know I focus on the rights of artists; I'm speaking on that subject to musicians next month in Las Vegas. Regardless of what you may think of record labels and their relative speed at adopting new business models, there is no justification for denying artists the right to exercise control over the use of their creations under the law.

I'm a little confused by your point there. I am not advocating forcing anything, but I don't see a good future for DRM without standardization.

How do you ensure that standardization? Howard Berman of the House Judiciary IP Subcommittee floated the idea of govt. mandates in this area; the French attempted something along those lines recently. My argument is that if the market wants standardization, it will move that direction on its own.

If it's just a few techies who love to tinker that want standardization but most consumers are fine with multiple standards and a lack of complete interoperability, then the market will speak and we won't have complete standardization and that is fine. I think markets tend toward standardization, but competition is welcome in all levels of the market, including standards. In fact, competition can spur improvements; when was the last time the TCP/IP protocol was improved?

If someone else wants to stand alone they can choose to do so, and perhaps they'll even find enough market share to stay profitable (we have more than one standard for personal computers/operating systems and Apple seems to have done okay with limited market share and a proprietary model).

Bottom line: I don't see any justification in govt. mandates interfering with a market; if people are upset they should take it to the industries and not the government.

Good, I don't see any justification in government mandates either. I'm glad we can agree on that because I was never calling for one which is why I am puzzled by your bringing it up again.

The absence of law preventing standardization and interoperability is all that we need. That is all that has been asked for.

And 2 more things

1) The people most interested in interoperability will be the minority players in the market as that will be the only way for them to get in the market at this rate.

2) IP was improved a while ago, it's just that few organizations have adopted it. Only now, many years later are they finally getting ready to switch to IPv6.

Besides, why are you so quick to assume that things much change? Some of the best designed products are old ones still in use. Unix would not be popular in big companies and agencies today if it were old and useless instead of mature and powerful. Only now is WindowsNT starting to get to the point that it can reach the same level of maturity, which is good for everyone now.

Your TCP/IP example does illustrate a point I have tried to explain here before. When people standardize on IT parts and protocols, they tend to go toward a monopoly at a break-neck speed them become entrenched for the long haul. The only way to get competition is to make it very hard to maintain that monopoly.