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Music companies look set to put pressure on iPod maker Apple to make its proprietary anti-piracy system compatible with other companies' players.
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has ruffled a few feathers after calling on the four major music companies to sell digital music without protective software known as DRM, or digital rights management.
Music sold through Apple's iTunes store is encrypted with a proprietary DRM software called FairPlay, which stops illegal copying of the music. Yet companies including Microsoft and Sony have manufactured rival digital music players with different proprietary systems that are not compatible with FairPlay. So people who buy DRM-encrypted music may need to buy the same song repeatedly to use different music players.
While Jobs has called on the music majors - Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music - to abandon DRM, the music companies have instead called on Apple to make FairPlay compatible with rival players. John Kennedy, head of the music industry body IFPI, said: "We are pleased that Steve Jobs now wants to address interoperability."
DRM interoperability is likely to be a key discussion topic when Apple meets major music labels next month.
Universal Music declined to comment. But the company recently said: "We continue to support and deploy DRM. Obviously, we remain flexible and open-minded regarding solutions to the interoperability dilemma, but this is something which requires commitment from technology companies as well as the content owners."
An EMI spokesman said: "The lack of operability between a proliferating range of digital platforms and devices is increasingly becoming an issue for music consumers. EMI has been engaging with our various partners to find a solution."
In an open letter published on Apple's website, Jobs said: "Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies."
Kennedy disagreed. "It should be neither impossible, nor unreasonably burdensome, to implement interoperability whilst maintaining the security of DRM," he said. Banks had interoperable cash machine systems and mobile phones used DRM for voice and billing services.
Ironically, Apple has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of DRM. It dominates the digital music player market, with a near 80 per cent market share and is consequently the largest online music retailer.
Yet websites that sell music without DRM have rapidly gained popularity over the past year, while Apple has started to feel the heat from European regulators concerned that it is using its DRM to thwart competition.
Mulligan said: "Jobs has positioned himself as champion of DRM-free and placed the blame fairly and squarely with the major record labels. Apple can see the tide is turning in Europe."
Analysts expect music companies to address growing opposition to DRM-encrypted music which Jobs argued accounted for only 10 per cent of the 20 billion songs that were downloaded last year.
- INDEPENDENT
