Steve Jobs now says he’s against DRM, and urges the record industry to drop it altogether. In other news, RIAA sues a guy because he downloaded and shared 5 songs, seeking damages of $750 per song. See a slight problem there?

Among other things, Steve Jobs says the following:

“The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers”

But I’m feeling generous today. I’m going to go a step further and offer a solution that will be a great alternative for consumers, and an even better alternative for the industry.

This is a good time for a short recap of my previous posts about DRM, piracy, copyright, and the music industry.

My first and foremost claim is that the music and movie industry - the RIAA in particular - is pushing the idea of copyright too far. They want us to think that copyright is the right to completely and fully control any use of the copyrighted information.

It is wrong. Copyright should cover an exact set of rights: for example, the rights to sell the information. However, information cannot and should not be fully controlled. We should be able to borrow and exchange music, books, and other forms of information, copyrighted or not.

An example: the RIAA would want you to think that if you buy a CD, and play it to a friend, you’re violating the law because this friend did not buy the rights to listen to this CD. This is a big generalization and it can be argued against, but it is in my opinion the core of the problem. Furthermore, they want you to think that this activity is OK, but only because they’re willing to turn a blind eye. However, you owe them one.

I’m of the opinion that when you buy the CD you can play it at home, at parties, rip it and play it in whatever music player you want, make a copy for your girlfriend. Furthermore, I want to emphasize that all of this is your natural right, and not some loophole in the law.

My second claim is that piracy is at this point not a completely negative phenomenon, and it’s entirely the industry’s fault. By stripping negative DRM from the content (I’ll get to the definition of negative DRM in a second), crackers and pirates are actually increasing the value of the content, while by putting negative DRM into content the industry is reducing its value. What would you rather have: a rootkit infested CD or a plain CD without protection?

My third claim is that DRM is not, by definition, negative, although the industry is making it so. DRM means Digital Rights Management. It does not imply that these rights must be enforced via various invasive methods of protecting content from unauthorized copying. It can also mean that the rights of the buyer can be increased; that content can be enriched. This is what I mean by negative and positive DRM. Negative DRM is reducing the value of content, while positive DRM is increasing the value of content. Negative DRM is copy protection; positive DRM is an extra video included on a DVD, or a code that gives you a discount for a band’s shirt or a concert.

The conclusion is that the industry is making a big mistake by reducing the value of its content with the usage of DRM. They should fight piracy by making their content more valuable than theirs, because - as it stands now - pirated content is in many cases better than DRM-ed content. I’m proposing that the RIAA and MPAA and other similar organizations should do exactly the opposite of what they’re doing now: they should try to be competitive instead of being restrictive. Then, and only then, DRM will stop being a problem.

For more on this subject, read these articles: Can DRM ever be good? and Why pirated software is better than bought software.