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Comment by _ph_ | Hacker News Reader

And it is worth noting that Apple was rather pushing the record industry to go off DRM and they finally succeeded in it.

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For those interested, Steve Jobs wrote the open letter titled Thoughts on Music

https://web.archive.org/web/20080517114107/http://www.apple....

Also people wouldn't buy their products if they forced DRM. Apple likes money.

Apple waged a war against DRM on MP3 files and won. They tried to do the same with movies and haven't prevailed yet, so we're stuck with DRM on those. It sucks.

Blame the MPAA here. Apple would rather have it DRM free. It's better for consumers, it's better for their sales.

Apples war on DRM was when Steve Jobs was alive, now he isn't who knows if the policy will remain.

How did they succeed?

Rumour is, Amazon threatened to stop selling CDs for record companies who wouldn't let them sell DRM-free MP3 files. Certainly they used their massive sales presence to negotiate a deal with the record companies.

I think that was the major tipping point for DRM on music. Apple followed after that.

That's not what happened. Around 2006 all of digital music services were failing because thier DRM was incompatible with the iPod. Once Jobs refused to license FairPlay and gave the record industry the alternative of licensing music DRM free they had no choice but to either allow DRM music or let Apple keep a stranglehold on the market.

I wish Amazon would take the same stand for ebooks.

My understanding, talking from a few folks who worked on that sort of thing, is that they tried. Of course this is all rumours and chit-chat, so I have no idea how true it is.

But the book publishers would apparently be happy for ebooks to go away, Amazon to stop selling books, and their higher margin deals with Borders to come back. So they called Amazon's bluff.

No shit!

The only DRM that should be on ebooks is there should only be one version of it at a time. Just like a printed book.

Jobs' open letter on DRM came out seven months before Amazon even started selling MP3 files.

Negotiations for this stuff happen long before features launch.

I don't know much about Apple & Amazon's timelines, as such things would be secrets.

By demonstrating they could make money without it. When nobody else could.

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