Steve Jobs gets it

Over at BoingBoing.net, Cory cites Steve Jobs, who has a key OpenBusiness inside. He points out why Digital Rights (or Restriction) Management devices will never work. The logic is sipmple: you pick one copy and then its open via the Internet for anyone to use. Let’s think about it like this: if I made one copy of a CD and gave it to a friend who cared? But if I make copy of a DRM protected work now and put it online the whole world can use it. In that sense it turns lock picking into a n act with global ramifcations. And, well, if that is a fact you need to face it. So he says: “None of this technology that you’re talking about’s gonna work. We have Ph.D.’s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don’t believe it’s possible to protect digital content. . . . . [There is] this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet — and no one’s gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock — open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it — puts it on the Internet. You’ll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.”
And that is the key: if publishers, the music industry, the whole media industry want to survive they need to compete. And the only way to compete smartly is to adopt new business strategies. Open up your content and then figure out how to make money with ancillary services….