Robert Cresanti, U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology, spoke in a television interview today and commented on the European Commission’s call for Apple Inc. to allow music downloaded from iTunes to be played on any MP3 player, Francine Lacqua and Anna Rascouet report for Bloomberg.
Cresanti’s comments included:
I have some strong concerns about the tack that’s been taken with a number of companies including Apple on the issue of their products, the way they market their products.
Nobody knows the value of intellectual property, be it copyright or patents, better than Apple does.
I’m a little confused about some of the rhetoric that’s been coming out. You have every opportunity with Apple, as most 12-year-old school children will tell you, to burn a CD from an iTunes song and to take that music and move it to another platform if you need to.
I’m somewhat at a loss to explain the level of emphasis that’s been placed on this particular topic.
Exactly.
MacDailyNews Note: Robert C. Cresanti was sworn in as Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology on March 20, 2006 in a private ceremony. President Bush nominated him on November 10, 2005; the United States Senate confirmed him on March 16, 2006. More info here.
Related articles:
EU Commish backs off on Apple’s iTunes: No problem with FairPlay DRM – March 13, 2007
EU Commish on Apple’s iTunes + FairPlay DRM: ‘Something has to change’ – March 12, 2007
Anti-DRM activists rap Steve Jobs; Group petitions Apple CEO to remove FairPlay DRM software – March 10, 2007
Is DRM doomed? – March 09, 2007
How Apple’s FairPlay DRM works – February 26, 2007
Windows Vista’s DRM is bad news – February 14, 2007
Monster Cable announces full support of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ call for DRM-free music – February 13, 2007
Recording Industry Association of America wants their DRM, calls for Apple to license FairPlay – February 08, 2007
Warner’s Middlebronfman: Jobs’ DRM-free music call ‘without logic and merit, we’ll not abandon DRM’ – February 08, 2007
Dvorak: Apple CEO Steve Jobs is dead right about DRM – February 07, 2007
Apple’s Jobs jolts music industry; Zune exec calls Jobs’ call for DRM-free music ‘irresponsible’ – February 07, 2007
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ posts rare open letter: ‘Thoughts on Music’ – calls for DRM-free music – February 06, 2007
Norwegian Ombudsman: Apple’s FairPlay DRM is illegal in Norway – January 24, 2007
Major music labels ponder DRM-free future – January 23, 2007
whoopee!
Oh, snap!
Uh oh, this could get ugly.
The superiorly of American logical thought prevails!
WOW experience found!
A good guy in government!
Looks like Bush has made at least one reasonable nomination during his tenure.
But Europe prevails. Even though they are wrong with iPod+iTS.
Digg it here:
http://digg.com/apple/Finally_some_logic_about_the_iPod_from_our_gov_t_no_less
Get a clue EU.
Plus, doesn’t the Music Industry get some money from every blank CD sold?
Bush finally appears to have made an intelligent appointment…
Reuters reporting that the EU consumer czar has confused herself! She’s trying to backtrack ‘cos she only wanted to start a ‘discussion’…
http://www.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUSL139204020070313?pageNumber=1
The method of transfer described is lossy, which might be OK if the itms gave consumers lossless music in the first place, but not with 128kbs aac. Yes, i know. I just don’t buy music from the itms. But teh prices get rather tempting now that I live in expensiveland. Anyhow, I am certainly not for forcing Apple to change their strategy. That’s not cool. But I am not buying the burn-a-cd-re-encode-move-to-another-platform hooey as any check-mate.
Bush did one thing right? Was he drunk? <ducks>
Are Undersecretaries under-handed?
now why can’t I buy a song on Real or Napster and transport it TO my iPod the same way? Fair is fair.
Even if the DRM was removed, this step (burning to a CD) would be identical!
Despite this, Apple should allow songs from Independent labels who don’t request DRM to be purchased DRM-free, thus showing the EU that the problem is with the content providers, not the shop-front.
Presumably that’s the same superiority of logical thought that let Microsoft off the hook.
Or maybe it’s the superiority that said “We don’t know what Iraq is doing, therefore they must be doing something, we don’t know that they weren’t involved in 9/11 so they must have been involved. Oh, to Hell with it, let’s invade and worry about the implications after the event”.
Maybe it’s the same logic that alleges that the US Government is now secretly funding groups linked to Al Quaeda in order to prevent a Shi’ite axis of dominance stretching from Masshad to Beyrut.
Or is it the same superiority that allows people with divided loyalties (both to the USA and Israel) to define American foreign policy in the Middle East. Or Christian Evangelicals to influence the way science is taught in state schools.
People here have got to work out what they believe in: the EU is practically saying the same thing that Steve Jobs says in his open letter – restrictive heterogeneous DRM works counter to the interests of consumers and rights holders by preventing free market economics from operating to establish the real value of a given product.
Surely, in this respect, the EU’s position is actually more progressive than the position of the entertainment industry or the US Federal Government who – through the DMCA and other initiatives – maximise the commercial exploitation of the consumer market. The entertainment industry doesn’t want an “open” approach to DRM or a DRM-free world as either would effectively remove their ability to act as de facto “gatekeeper” to the digital world.
BTW, sorry – I meant “homogeneous”
The thing people are missing is that the Europeans wouldn’t be doing to Microsoft and/or Apple if they were European companies based in Europe. It’s all about politics, not technology.
My strong suspicion is it’s all about anti-American behaviour on the part of biased bureaucrats.
Consumer Protection is just another oxymoron, like inconvenient truth, which actually means convenient untruth. In the case of the bureaucrats, it’s all about justifying their existence by goring their opponents with convenient untruths.
@ The Barista
Wow, that was quite a screed against all things you hate about America considering the topic is DRM and Apple in Europe.
To the topic: It is refreshing to see a government official that knows the subject well enough to provide devastatingly succinct rebuttle to an oppossing official that obviously doesn’t even know which end of an iPod you stick the headphones into.
iTunes music is playable anywhere. It is the easiest DRM to crack. Download, burn to CD roughly every 18-20 tracks (that’s all a CD will hold) re import to iTunes. The mp3s are then playable anywhere. Am I the only one who’s worked this out. Could somebody alert the president for me.
TMF=NSFY
Busted!
@Tim
” Could somebody alert the president for me.”
It’s not the President that needs alerting. It’s that sour faced EU commissioner. She is dismally uninformed.
Barista
Please allow us the honor of knowing the country of your origin.
And is Barista short fot Bar I Stay?
>The superiorly of American logical thought prevails!
…and the superiority of broken English too?
It’s not just politics but there is no doubt that politics, economics and technology intersect. One could suggest that the EU in dealing with Microsoft is in the position of ‘once bitten, twice shy’ and Apple is therefore the recipient of discrimination. It is agreed that this time they are barking up the wrong tree and that European based music companies EMI and Vivendi are more of the problem than Apple. Apple is just the front, the recognizable face of the problem, that’s who people have complained about because of their prominence. Of course when it becomes clear that it is not Apple who are responsible for DRM I would expect the EU to change tack.
In any case some do say anti-american feeling in economic matters is quite justified, even Texan Republican congressmen.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul303.html