[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

How is it that Apple gets the credit for non-DRM'd music? They weren't the first to do it, and in terms of locking in consumers, you can't even access their stores from outside of their software, and their music files aren't even MP3s.

Mostly because Apple pushed for non-DRM'd music for years before they were allowed to actually offer it...and once they were allowed to offer it, it pretty much killed DRM'd music.

And it's a mistake to conflate the "walled garden" approach Apple take to Apps with their very open approach to music. iPods (and now iPhones etc.) can play mp3s or .aac files, and you can put on any music file on your device, whether bought from iTunes, ripped from a CD, or bought from some other service. (.aac, the format Apple uses for iTunes, is an open standard designed as a successor to mp3s; it's used by several other companies and can be used by anyone).

I would bet my entire life savings that Apple won't be out of the gate anytime soon with DRM-free e-books. Apple makes money on hardware. If I can put e-books I get from them on any device, they lose out on iPad Mini sales, at least.

I'm not very convinced by this, as I don't really think that iBook lock in is much of a sales driver for iPad minis; while the ability to put any books from anywhere might drive hardware sales, as it makes the hardware more useful.

Amazon makes money on e-books. The more devices those e-books are compatible with, the better it is for them. The challenge will be getting publishers to go along.

Yes, but they also have a significant Kindle lock-in; if all books can be read on any device, people might be more likely to not buy from Amazon as much. It's speculative either way.

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I tend to agree that the credit is not deserved, but Apple is the media darling and they had (or at least seemed to have) the dominant market position at the time. I suspect that their decision was as much to avoid losing part of their market to non-DRMed music providers and streaming services than anything else.

Apple had 80% of the mp3 player market and had been wanting to sell DRM-free music almost from the beginning - while DRM'd music made the iTunes store possible, it also significantly hampered its growth, as most people tended to rip CDs and put those on their iPods because they were DRM free (plus you had an instant backup).

But in general I think the article is wrong. Apple was by far the most dominant presence in the mp3 world, having 80% of the market. But in the e-book world, they are a dwarf; even people who read on iPads have tended to use the Kindle app and buy from Amazon. So it's not clear that having DRM free iBooks would do anything to the market as a whole.

But of course I don't believe that the booksellers or device makers *want* DRM. Amazon has *zero* problem selling DRM free books, whether self-pubbed, public domain, or from a publisher that has gone DRM free. There's no evidence that they resisted this *at all*. And I doubt that Apple would, either. But the DRM ball is in the publisher's court.