Is DRM on its last throes at last?

A lively set of CES panelists tore into the current state of digital-rights management for movies, music and other content. Apple fans probably felt their ears burning for much of it.

You might expect that the announcement this week that Apple's dumping most DRM for iTunes-purchased tracks would have been the focus of much of "How Can Digital Rights Management Make Sense?" Not really. Ted Cohen, managing partner of TAG Strategies and a longtime music-industry figure, said, "Apple says jump and the labels say how high; they have been pretty monolithic in their approach to digital music. The quid-pro-quo was digital pricing; that 99-cents-one-size-fits-all doesn't work as well as you'd think." The labels have new artists that could benefit from lower per-track pricing; Apple's been catching real flak from users tired of DRM; this was, said Cohen, "a moment when both sides of the table had something to give."

And give us a break while we're at it on the myth that DRM is meant to combat piracy. According to Fred Von Lohmann, there are two interesting things about Apple's change of heart: "First, this underscores the fact that DRM is not about [preventing] piracy." Noting that the labels have worked with Amazon and other sites for over a year to deliver DRM-free tracks while Apple continued to offer relatively few DRM-free tracks, he says the company's adherence to DRM "had nothing to do with infringement."

"Second," he continued, "let's not miss the big picture. Look at the way Apple has deployed DRM -- not for piracy reasons but for pure anti-competition reasons." He cited code in new Apple gadgetry that locks your new iPod to the iTunes file manager, and mentioned the company's push for third-party accessories manufacturers to incorporate licensed authentication chips in their wares. "This is a company that really loves DRM an awful lot, mainly to encourage lock-in and discourage competition."

And the beating went on. Cohen notes that it was Apple that walked away from conversations several years ago that would have made the FairPlay standard interoperable; panel moderator Paul Sweeting, of ContentAgenda, remarked that the timing of Apple's decision was aw-w-wfully interesting considering its proximity to Norway's demands that Apple file documents justifying their continued use of walled-garden DRM schemes.

"Who liked DRM on Apple more," asked Von Lohmann semi-rhetorically, "the labels or Apple? Maybe the labels in 2003, maybe Apple in 2006 -- there's a mix in there. It probably shifted over time, but I think now it's clear that DRM is fundamentally used to discourage competition. DRM is over for music."

It was a beautiful moment of accord, and as one might expect it passed quickly. The panel turned its attention to DRM in other contexts, and differences among the group, at which point things got testy. Regular observers of the digital-content scene would correctly guess that if music wasn't the forum of contention, movies were.

The panel, which also included Mitch Singer (CTO of Sony Pictures Entertainment) and David Ulmer (senior director of entertainment and multimedia products and service for Motorola), took on very nearly the same piracy-vs.-competition issue they'd just settled for music, arguing over whether DRM schemes were a genuine barrier to would-be pirates or simply a way established companies hamstrung consumer choice and fought off fresh competitors.

At one point, more or less the entire panel pounced Von Lohmann, who appeared to have talked himself into a contradiction by saying that DVD-ripping wares are easily available, easy to use, and gaining popularity despite multiple DRM initiatives, and a few minutes later saying that people wouldn't necessarily take the trouble to rip DVDs willy-nilly if ripping wares were legal.

"If circumvention software were more widely available," asserted Singer, "more people would use it," countering Von Lohmann's argument that DRM, with the force of the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules at its back, works mainly "to make it very difficult for disruptive technologies to come to market."

The word "disruptive" proved itself somewhat disruptive, and the panel segment of the hour ended with Singer commenting with some heat that Von Lohmann's interpretation of "the rules" would wreak havoc on the established companies simply for the sake of new 'disruptive' ideas.