If there is one thing that has annoyed the hell out of the music lovers in recent years, it is the use of DRM (digital rights management) in music tracks to prevent piracy. From the CDs that were impossible to play on Discmans (remember those?), to implementing nigh-impossible-to-remove malware on your computer, to crappy file formats that you couldn't play on your iPod, DRM has been the industry's version of the F-22: blunt, powerful, expensive, and largely useless. In recent years, however, a massive pushback against DRM from consumers, various lobbying groups, and even music stores such as Apple's iTunes have sent messages of the inevitable to the industry's leading anti-piracy mechanism behind lawsuits.
Now, DRM's death, at least in music, is all but a certainty. In an upcoming interview with SCMagazine, RIAA lead spokesman Jonathan Lamy was asked about the organization's view on DRM at this point in time. His response?
This marks the first on-record statement by the organization, which championed DRM as recently as last year, being so overt about its inevitable withdrawal of support. While other anti-piracy fronts such as the IFPI have also admitted that DRM-free music stores would sell a lot more music, the ever-vigilant and ever-litigious RIAA has been, up until now, constantly supportive of DRM, even in the aftermath of the Sony rootkit scandal. Its admission of DRM's death will likely accelerate the process of removing all DRM at major online stores.
Today is but a small victory for music lovers everywhere. Let's all go get cake and hope that the game industry, currently and desperately entrenched in DRM measures, will learn from this.
