This month, Apple's iTunes made the final transition to ridding itself of DRM (digital rights management) restrictions on the music files it sells. That means that the iTunes software and associated encryption algorithms are no longer trying to prevent you from taking newly purchased iTunes music to an unauthorized computer.
This is a great thing for iTunes consumers, because it means they no longer need to worry about the red tape of trying to authorize and de-authorize different computers and players just to hear the music that's already been paid for. It also means iTunes consumers are no longer tied down to iPods and iTunes software to play their music.
But there is a significance to this that goes far beyond its impact on consumers or Apple. I would call this is a red-letter day in the history of intellectual property. Ten years ago, when Napster and illegal downloading were scarring the pants off the record business and much of the rest of the entertainment industry, it looked like to me and to many people like we were headed into an era of trusted systems – where proprietary formats and cooperating hardware would hold a Big-Brother-like grip over audiences – deciding what people could and could not do with reproductions of copyrighted works. It was in that environment that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed, which made it a criminal offense to defeat DRM systems through hacking or reverse engineering.
Apple's successful push to make iTunes music DRM-free indicates that the survival of the entertainment industry, in fact, did not hinge on DRM technology and the passage of the DMCA as Big Hollywood would have had everyone believe. It turns out, if you charge reasonable prices, people are generally willing to pay rather than go out of their way to get copies unlawfully.
A big downside of DRM for society is that it creates a technological barrier to exercising fair-use rights. So this development with iTunes is a very happy one. By shedding DRM in this instance, the free market actually provided people with a freedom that Congress was all too willing to bargain away.
