Jobs and copyright

Originally posted 2007-02-07 18:55:44. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

You must have heard about this already?

Apple’s demand that record companies do away with copyright protection for songs they sell online has set up a bitter battle between the two camps as they prepare for broad-ranging contract negotiations.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, published an open letter on Tuesday arguing that selling music online without such protections – known as digital rights management – would make it easier for consumers to listen to music on different devices, boosting the overall market.

You can’t really rely on LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION for this sort of thing. It’s all over the Internet. But I did have to make sure you knew that. What Jobs has done is significant because despite being a quasi-counterculture icon, he’s now very much a resident in the corporate suite. I’m not aware of anyone else of his stature in the corporate world coming out this way on copyright. That’s the news part of it.